The Veiled Chameleon: Introduction and Guide to This Site

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Use the TABLE OF CONTENTS to the right to view specific articles, you can also
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Feel free to e-mail me with suggestions or comments about this site.
bradramsey1@comcast.net
I hope you enjoy reading through the articles I have written and that they are of some benefit.
The topics that currently say "information coming soon" are articles that are being written by other keepers who I consider to be experts on those specific subjects. I hope to have them all collected soon.

Please notice Michael Monge's article on breeding.

Chris Anderson has kindly given me permission to link to the Chameleons Online E-zine. This has warranted a special links bar for individual articles and an inclusion in the main links bar to the e-zine home page. Check it out!

Please take time to read Lynda Horgan's very informative article on keeping female veileds. Her methods are setting the standard for how we are proceeding with females here.

Keep checking back!

-Brad

Enclosures/ Habitat

Veiled chameleons are arboreal creatures and require housing that is quite different from what one classically considers acceptable reptilian quarters. These animals spend their lives in the trees and should, therefore, be provided with a habitat that would be more suited to a parrot than a salamander.
Fresh, well circulated air, clean water that simulates rain or morning dew, dense vegetation, open above canopy basking areas and lots of vines and branches are basic building blocks in the creation of this captive environment.
Height is of greater importance than width or depth of the enclosure. They feel most secure when positioned as high as possible.
Lighting, temperatures, plants and water are all covered in separate entries on this site. In this entry I will deal exclusively with the actual structure that will house your veiled chameleon and all of his or her necessary trappings.
SIZE OF THE ENCLOSURE
Bigger is always better, but in an effort to be realistic minimum dimensions have been established in the hobby which have proven quite sufficient in offering these animals the space they need. Consider these measurements as a guide...an inch or two here or there is not going to make much of a difference, but, you should try and remain as close as possible to the recommended size. For an adult female veiled chameleon the enclosure should be a minimum height of about 30 inches with width and depth coming in at close to 18 inches each. For an adult male the height needs to be closer to 4 feet with 2 feet width and depth.
Young veileds will benefit from a smaller enclosure. They will get lost in an adult sized one, and it may be difficult for them to locate their food. A smaller enclosure will also allow you to more closely moniter the eating, drinking and other daily activities of your young chameleon. I have had good luck using an enclosure 18 inches high with a width of 20 and a depth of 12 inches. This small enclosure will be sufficient until the animal reaches 4 or 5 months in age.
CONSTRUCTION
I have had great success using commercially available enclosures that are made entirely of aluminum window screen with a PVC floor. This enclosure allows for the proper ventilation, temperature gradient and evaporation of moisture required.
Humidity and temperatures stay in very acceptable ranges with dense planting and a good basking lamp.
There are very successful keepers who utilize glass enclosures. This requires very specific attention be paid to ventilation and build-up of moisture. Glass enclosures also hold in heat, so extra attention must be paid to how the basking area is executed and also to maintaining a gradient in temperatures to allow for thermoregulation.
Very young chameleons can be (and often are) kept in a glass enclosure with a screen top. In this situation the misting is light and the temps are lower.
PLACEMENT
The veiled chameleon habitat should be located as high as possible in your home. The cage should not be placed directly on the floor, but rather on a table, counter or some type of stand. Remember, these animals feel safest when high in the trees. You, your family, and your other pets may be regarded as predators by your chameleon. Giving your chameleon the opportunity to climb as high as possible in the habitat (preferably above your eye level) will go a long way in making him or her feel comfortable.

Breeding

Breeding Veiled Chameleons
by Michael Monge
Fl Chams, Inc.

The Veiled Chameleon, Chamaeleo calyptratus, represents a relatively simple species to propagate in captivity. They tend to breed readily and have large clutch sizes with eggs which are typically not problematic to incubate.
Combine this with the fast growth rate of the neonates and you have a recipe that has resulted in the successful establishment of this chameleon species in captivity with, by far, the majority of specimens being from captive bred origins.

Veiled chameleons can reach sexual maturity at a fairly young age with reports of some individuals becoming reproductive in as little as four months. That said, it is better to allow your animal more time before breeding is encouraged. If fed a proper diet with solid overall husbandry, a veiled chameleon should become sexually mature in 9-12 months, and should be of breedable size at the later end of that span. In particular, one should try to make sure that their female is of appropriate size before subjecting her to breeding stresses and while she should be well fed and of good body weight, obese animals shouldn't be bred as complications can arise as a result.

When a female veiled is receptive to breeding she will often adorn robin-egg blue spots on her body, indicating her willingness to mate. When presented with a male for breeding, she will not color up into gravid coloration, act aggressively toward the male or run from him. Rather, she will remain the same color and move around slowly and peacefully, allowing the male to court, advance and commence in copulation. If the female colors up or becomes aggressive, she is not ready to mate and the pair should be separated to avoid injury to either animal. If the female continues to show receptive behavior, the pair should be allowed to breed.

When introduced to a female, a male veiled chameleon will color up into an impressive display and advance toward her while bobbing his head in display. As this courtship display occurs, the female should allow the male to come up behind her and eventually beside her on the branch. At this point copulation occurs and can last as long as half an hour. In some cases repeated mating can occur over the next several days but care should be taken to closely observe the pair on further introductions for additional mating events as once the female becomes unreceptive, injury can occur if the animals are not separated immediately.

Once gravid the female will reject the males advances by gaping, hissing and showing a dark coloration with orange, blue and black patterning. At this point she should be separated from the male and allowed to form her clutch in peace. Laying typically occurs approximately 20 to 30 days after breeding and during this gestation, the female's diet should be supplemented with calcium dusting to ensure proper formation and calcification of the eggs. It is important during gestation to provide your female with well gut loaded food items, but not to provide so much food that she becomes obese and produces an abnormally large clutch, as this can cause complications with laying. Females will show an increased appetite during gestation and should (carefully) be fed accordingly.

When the female is getting ready to lay she will often go off food and will become restless, spending more time near the bottom of her enclosure and frequently pacing it's edges. At this point the female should be placed in a laying bin, in a private area with minimal disturbances. A five gallon bucket filled 1/3 of the way with a 50/50 mix of sand and peat moss for gardening works well as a laying site. This mixture should be mixed with water and compacted so that it is moist enough to hold the formation of a tunnel but not wet. When placed in the container a female, that is ready to lay and finds the laying mixture of adequate moisture, should soon start to dig a hole to lay her eggs.

A female can take quite a while to lay her eggs, and will occasionally dig test holes before settling on a hole in which to lay her clutch. Once the female has laid her clutch, she should be removed from the laying container and gently palpated to make sure the entire clutch has been deposited. Extra care should then be taken with the female to ensure she is able to re-hydrate, and that she has access to nutritious food so that she can regain her strength.

The eggs should be carefully removed from the laying container and placed into an incubation medium for incubation. It should be noted that females are able to store sperm and additional fertile clutches can occur without additional mating. Once allowed to recover, however, if you wish to get additional fertile clutches, it is best to re-breed your female as the offspring of retained sperm clutches tend to be less strong then offspring from a new breeding.


Michael Monge is the owner of Fl Chams and can be contacted via the Fl Chams website listed here under links.
You can see chameleons and enclosures currently available from Mike there as well.

Feeders

In their natural environment veiled chameleons have access to a great variety of insects, more than is practical or even possible to offer in captivity. It is also known that vertebrates such as small lizards and fledgling birds are consumed when the opportunity occurs. What remains a bit of a mystery is exactly what nutritional benefit each type of prey afford and what are the best to offer in a captive environment.
The best thing one can do is offer the largest selection of prey possible and strive to make the prey as nutritious as possible.
Gut Loading is the term used when referring to the practice of feeding the insects a varied diet in an attempt to make them a nutrient rich meal. Ideally the bug becomes a vessel, carrying in it's gut the food that we want to end up in the chameleon.
A good gut load would include ingredients that are not necessarily beneficial to the insect itself, such as calcium carbonate, dried egg yolk, baby cereal etc. and fresh ingredients like collard greens, sweet potato, squash, apple and carrot. It can be difficult to maintain colonies of feeder insects on a gut load diet and so a maintenance diet is generally preferred with gut load being provided 12 to 24 hours before feeding off.
Crickets, cockroaches, zoophoba worms and the like, can be kept in large numbers in bins or tubs with a commercial dry "cricket food" and water gel or crystals (carrot pieces also work well to provide moisture, but need to be replaced fairly often). The night before feeding, a selection of insects are pulled from their bins and housed in a small tub, where they are offered a more nutrient rich "gut load" diet. They will spend the night gorging themselves on this new food and will be ready to be fed off in the morning.
By practicing this method we strive to enhance the nutritional quality of the insects and offset the disadvantage of limited variety.
Maintenance diet and gut load formulas can be purchased commercially or made at home. The reader will benefit from doing some research here.
There are excellent feeders that need specific diets as well, namely waxworms and silkworms. Waxworms live in honeycombs and do well on a diet of breakfast cereal with a bit of raw honey mixed in. Silkworms require mulberry leaves or a commercially prepared "chow" made from mulberry leaves. This diet is available from the silkworm breeder.
STAPLE FEEDERS

Crickets
Cockroaches
praying mantis (sub adult)
Zoophoba worms
Silkworms


This is a good list of staple feeders, or feeders that make up the bulk of the chameleons diet. All or any combination of the above can be offered at each feeding and, with the exception of silkworms, all are easy to gut load. Additionally, these feeders are available at all stages of growth offering a good selection in size.

ENRICHMENT FEEDERS

Waxworms
Moths
Stick insects
Praying mantis (sub-adult)
House flies

There are certainly other insects that could be added to this list, but this is a decent representation of insects that can be offered to enrich your veiled chameleon's experience. Some of them are a bit more difficult to keep, but allow the keeper the opportunity to occasionally give the chameleon something new. This can be more important than might be realized. Veiled chameleons are notorious for becoming "bored" with their food and new prey will often trigger their interest and appetite.

SIZE OF PREY

The general rule is that the prey should be no larger than the space between the chameleons eyes.
This is particularly important with young chameleons, but a good idea for all stages of life.
One exception would be silkworms or waxworms which are quite soft bodied and can be much larger without presenting too much of a challenge to the chameleon.
One will find that a fully developed adult veiled can handle a large cockroach, but smaller prey should make up the bulk of what is offered.

HOW MUCH TO OFFER

During the first six months of a veiled chameleon's life, it has an amazing appetite. Reptiles are extremely good at converting food into body mass, and grow at an amazing rate during this time. However, at this stage of life they should not have access to as much as they can eat (please see specific care for females) which could be up to 25 or 30 small crickets a day! Rather they should be grown at a slower pace and offered 5 to 8 feeders per day. Growing them too fast could lead to problems with MBD as well as other developmental issues.
This should taper at about six months old and by one year of age the chameleon will most likely do quite well on three to five insects once every other day or so.
Vitamin and mineral supplementation should continue throughout the animals life (see supplements page).

Water

Arguably the most important element (save oxygen) in the life and well being of all living animals. It cannot be stressed strongly enough that extremely clean water be provided in a proper amount and manner to your veiled chameleon.
These animals drink a lot of water, and they won't do it out of a dish or bowl. Water must be provided via a misting system or drip system...preferrably both.
Being arboreal animals, old world chameleons drink the water that comes to them in the trees. It is assumed that rain and morning dew are the main sources. Veiled chameleons also eat plant matter, which provides some moisture as well.
All of these sources are extremely clean with no fecal matter or decaying plant matter like you might find in a pond or stream.
Therefore, we must guess that they need to be provided with exceptionally clean water. It is for this reason that waterfalls, fountains and water bowls are unacceptable in a chameleon enclosure. Only fresh, clean water from a drip system, or misted onto the leaves of the plants in the enclosure will suffice.
I personally use a dripper and hand pump mister. The dripper sits on top of the enclosure with the small hose coming down onto a vine in one corner of the habitat. This "drinking station" never changes location and the chameleon knows where to go for water (usually first thing in the morning after his initial misting).
The mister I use is one that you find at places like Home Depot. These are often used for pesticides. You pump air pressure into it by hand and it releases a fine mist when the trigger on the "gun" part of the hose is squeezed.
Misting should be done for 30 seconds to a couple of minutes two or three times a day. It is important during these sessions to get the plants and branches quite wet, I can also get the cham pretty wet. Be careful to not soak babies as their tiny nostrils can get clogged and they can aspirate. The water should be at least room temperature....I find I get a much better reaction if the water in the mister is hot (it will cool a bit as it sprays out). It is also important to let the entire enclosure dry out between mistings. You do not want an environment that is constantly wet. Again, we are trying to simulate an arboreal habitat where there is constant circulation of air, and rain and dew evaporate quickly.
The dripper drips at a rate of about one drop per second and lasts most of the day. I have a Rubbermaid collection container in the bottom of the enclosure to catch the water. It is a good idea to rubberband some netting over the top of this container to avoid drowned feeders and keep your cham safe. It is also a good idea to clean this container, the mister and the dripper fairly often with a 10% bleach /water solution and rinse very well.
Drainage systems have been devised by many keepers and are a good idea...particularly if you decide to employ an automated misting system.

The "Hibernation" Experiment

This winter we will be conducting an experiment in husbandry with the veiled chameleons.
In short it will involve shortening daylight hours to match those outside and reducing temps to create "winter".
It has been observed here in past winters that the animals slow down considerably and experience a period of "soft brumation" for 3 or 4 months, regardless of the temperature or lighting schedule.
We have no knowledge of any documented benefits of providing this seasonal change, but feel it's worth experimenting with.
This page will be updated regularly with any notable developments and the schedule of light and temperature changes.
Also feeding, watering and fecal/urate elimination will be documented.

As of this posting (October 24 2008) night occurs in the chameleon room at 6:00 p.m. Lights turn on at 7:00 a.m.
This will change gradually to lights on at 8:00 a.m. and off at 4:00 p.m.
The time that the lights are on will slowly increase again after the first of the year.

Daytime ambient temperature in the room is currently 65.7 degrees f. During the day the chameleons are provided with basking lights to warm up. The basking temperatures are 80 to 85 degrees f.
The temperature in the room currently drops to 60 degrees f. at night.