Cage Furniture: Chameleons need a lot of foliage to feel secure.  Remember that these reptiles come from the jungles and heavily wooded areas with large amounts of coverage.  Your goal as a keeper is to provide an enclosure that is as close to their environment in the wild.  I prefer to use live plants for my chameleons.  Fake plants although they keep forever just don’t look as nice as the live ones.  Live plants are natural and more appealing to the chameleon.  Live plants help maintain the humidity levels as well, something that is very difficult to do with the fake plants.  Chameleons also enjoy jungle vines, sticks and branches.  If you use jungle vines be sure to buy two different sizes, a chameleon grasping a vine with the same thickness over a long period of time can cause problems with their feet.  Avoid this problem by offering different sized limbs and vines. 

It is very important that you choose plants that are non-toxic to your chameleon.  I prefer to use umbrella plants, pothos and ficus plants.  If you use sticks or branches that you find outside, make sure you treat them first!  If they are smaller you can put them in the oven on 350 degrees for about a half hour.  If they are larger then you could fill a trash bucket up with water and add some bleach.  Let the sticks sit over night in the bleach water, and then rinse them off with a hose.  Allow them to dry completely before putting them in your chameleon’s cage.  When arranging your cage furniture be sure to provide a basking spot for your chameleon.  A basking spot is a spot directly beneath the light but no closer then 12 inches from it, too close will burn your chameleon.  So measure just to be safe.

Lighting: I feel you have 2 options with lighting.  I’m a big fan or Zoo-Med products; I’ve trusted them for all my reptile needs.  The first option is a Repti-Sun 5.0 or 10.0 and a basking bulb.  The Repti-Sun provides the UVA and UVB rays that a chameleon needs.  It does not give off heat, which is why you need a basking bulb with it.  It’s also a cheaper set up for a new chameleon keeper.  Although the Repti-Sun does need to be replaced every six months, because it will no longer produce the proper amount of ultra violet rays anymore.  Now the second option is the one I prefer, the Zoo-Med PowerSun.  I use the PowerSun for all of my adult chameleons.  The PowerSun is a mercury vapor lamp, which emits UVA, UVB and heat all in one lamp.  The PowerSun is available in 100 watts and 160 watts.  I suggest that you only use a 100-watt PowerSun on a cage no smaller then 36 inches high, and a 160-watt PowerSun on a cage no smaller then 6 feet high.  Too much heat at a close range can seriously burn your chameleon, and even cause its death.  Another good thing about the PowerSun is the average life of a bulb is 10,000 hours!  So if you kept the light on for 12 hours a day, it would last you over 2 years. 

Set your light up on top of the cage in one of the corners, so if it is too hot in the basking spot your chameleon can move to the other side of the cage to cool itself down.  Your cage temperatures should range from around 90 to 95 degrees in the basking spot to low to mid 70’s at the opposite size of the cage. 

Cleanliness: I feel that most keepers don’t discuss this aspect of keeping a chameleon enough so I wrote this section of offer my advice to a new keeper.  I don’t feel you can keep a chameleon’s cage clean enough!  I hear a lot of keepers saying clean the cage once or twice a week.  I don’t believe that at all, I think you should do it as soon as you notice your chameleon fecal matter in the cage.  I feed my chameleons first thing in the morning and they usually go right before I feed them.  I always wipe down their cage after the morning misting.  The problem with leaving their feces in there for more then a day is that your feeders will eat the chameleon’s droppings or there own and once they do that the chameleon ingests the feeder it has basically eaten its own feces.  This can cause for serious health problems and even death to your chameleon.  Please remove chameleon and all cage furniture once a week and disinfect the surfaces outside, then wipe clean with harm water.  With high humidity areas such as your chameleon’s cage, it’s like a breeding ground for bacteria so clean your cage as often as possible.

Crickets are pretty much a main staple when it comes to feeding your chameleon.  They are very cheap compared to some of the other feeders.  I’ve used crickets as a main staple for some time but I now use Madagascar hissing cockroaches as a main staple.  They are very nutritious and they are easier for me to breed and take care of then crickets.  Unless you wanted to start your own colony of roaches I suggest using crickets.  Other food such as silkworms and wax worms can be offered as treats.  Although silkworms are great for your chameleon they are very expensive and only eat mulberry leaves.  I feel they require too much work to maintain to feed your chameleon so I only offer them as treats.  Use wax worms sparingly too many can cause your chameleon to become over weight, and an over weight chameleon is just as unhealthy as an under weight chameleon.  As for he rest of the feeders feel free to try them and see how your chameleon likes them, but use them as treats because they can be very expensive. 

Like I said before I feed my panthers first thing in the morning, this ensures me that they’ve had plenty of time to eat and the heat and activity though out the day helps with the digestion of their food.  The size of the insects you use depends on the size of your chameleon.  Newborn babies typically eat flightless fruit flies, and pin head crickets.  Once your chameleon begins to grow, the size of their food and the amount they will eat changes.  If your juvenile chameleon eats 10 half inch crickets feed him 10, if he eats 15 give him 15.  Your chameleon is growing it needs all the nutrition it can get.  After a year and a half of age your chameleon won’t get much bigger, so you don’t want to feed it too much or there’s a good chance he or she will become fat and lazy.  Offer your adult panther 5-8 crickets per day.  Monitor your chameleon closely if it begins to gain/lose weight adjust its amount of food accordingly. 

You can feed your chameleon two ways, there’s free roam feeding and cup feeding.  Free roam feeding is when you drop in your feeders and they go were they please and your panther must hunt for its food.  I like this method because it forces your chameleon to search for its food, its less likely and your chameleon will become fat and lazy.  But if there is too much foliage the feeders can hide and you don’t know if your chameleon has eaten them or not.  Free roam feeding is better when the cage is more open and for larger chameleons. 

Cup feeding is just that; stick a cup with the feeders somewhere easily accessible to the chameleon.  Your chameleon will never have a hard time finding food, because it knows where it will be everyday.  It also makes it easier on you to monitor its food intake everyday.  The only draw back is that you chameleon doesn’t get enough exercise and may become over weight.  Try each method and see what works well for you. 

 BRAD HREHA