# Lizards > Chameleons >  New

## EXOBanette

Hi there I'm new to the forum im so excited to get my chameleon.it going to be awesome anyway I need a bit of help you see im getting one for Christmas and I want to know what they need I already have the cage all I need is food lighting temp behaviors ect.

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## emilys_exotics

Hello! I have a veiled chameleon. Chameleons are very cool animals, but i will admit, they are a lot of work.
You can handle them, but not often. My cham does not enjoy being handled. I recommend only a few minutes every few days. Handling stresses them out. They're more of a look at animal, not a handling type. 
For feeding. I feed about 8-10 crickets every day to every other day, depending on the appitite. You can also feed super worms, horn worms, fruit flies, and silk worms for treats :Smile:  Also, make sure you dust their food. I dust crickets with calcium d3 one day, a multi vitamin the next, and calcium without d3. I just alternate between those products.
For the temp- between 72 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. A single heat lamp should do the job. As for uvb, a 5.0 light
Humidity is quite hard to control in an all screen cage. I recommend misting the cage few times daily.
For caging- they need an all mesh cage. Glass cages block air flow which is bad for their lungs. When it comes to caging, there are two options. There's a cage, which you would need at least a 2 ft long by 2 ft wide by 4 ft tall. Or, you can free range. I keep my chameleon free ranged. I have a live hibiscus tree in my living room that she stays in. I then have a wooden pole next to it which has her lights hanging from it. Just be aware, they may get out of their tree to explore sometimes. This could be bad if you have dogs or cats. But, they seem to find their way back without a problem. and some are too scared to come down, anyway.
For bedding, they don't really need it because they stay up high all the time. So make sure you have lots of branches :Smile:  However, female veiled chams sometimes lay infertile eggs (mine hasn't), but for them, when they turn a year old, they might lay. So, you would just have play sand in their cage so they can lay in it. 
Veiled chameleons are the best beginner. But be aware, even veileds are a lot of work :Smile: 
Hope i helped and best of
luck to you and your cham! :Smile:

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## Polyangler

+1 on being lots of work. As Emily stated, the husbandry required is more complex than most species. Veiled are pretty hardy as far as chameleon go, but all are delicate. My veild was mean as hell too! It was a good sized male. I had a nose be panther for several years as well, and he was WAY cooler/more docile. I also tried both free range and cages. My panther was safer in a cage because he was big and curious. I would find him on the floor pretty regularly, so he was then caged. My veild did just fine in a potted plant. Can't remember the type I used for them, but it was one recommend in a chameleon husbadry book I read. Good luck! Chameleon are super cool critters!!

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

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## bks2100

I have no experiece with veiled chameleons first hand, but I have heard from everyone that they're more high strung.  Not like they're really agressive, but they just don't care to be anywhere around people.  My gf has two panthers though and they are both super sweet.  About half the time I open their cages they'll slowly walk out, and once they're out they'll easily climb on your hand and just hang out with you.  They never gape or hiss at us (unless we're trying to pull them out or our hand is deep in the cage), but they're super paranoid about our dogs.  We have the reptibreeze cages since free ranging with dogs isn't too good of an idea (at least with our dogs).  From how they behave I think it'd be hard to free range them anyway, they'd constantly climb down and wander off.

I used to think they were a pain in the ass to take care of, but once we got a mist system they're super simple.  So now every week I top off the bucket for the mist system, my gf cleans the bottom of their cage about every week, we feed them once a day in the morning, and that's really it.  We do live in Florida though so it's easy to keep humidity up when it's like 40% in the house all year.  I don't know if veileds are different for dusting, but we only dust with multi vitamins and calicium WITH d3 once or twice a month (gf manages that, but it's certainly not a 3 day cycle with us).  The biggest pain with chameleons is buying the mist system and maintaining feeders.  Crickets are just so nasty to me, the poop and the smell is just terrible.  Plus I try to micromanage everything too much sometimes so I'm worried about gutloading the crickets as well as possible and rotating veggies.

I'd reccommend going for a male though, I think in all chameleon types they live longer than females and plenty of species need an egg laying tub for the girls.  Ours layed her first clutch right about a year old so now that egg laying tub is a permanent fixture in her cage.  We could tell she had eggs but it still wasn't painfully obvious since it wasn't a HUGE clutch.  Plus the females in a lot of species don't really look special.  In panther chameleons all females are like a pink color, the boys are all different.  Nosy be/faly are usually blue, ambanja are blue/green, abilobe has a lot of red and sometimes yellow, etc.

I love my snakes but I can't deny that there's something really cool about chameleons though.  I guess because ours are so personable on top of the fact that chameleons are just amazing to watch eat.

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