Drinking Water

[ilovesnakes]

Hey guys I have a female Veiled Chameleon who is about 2 years old (I raised her since she was a hatchling) she is doing great and several months ago laid her eggs (None were fertile) and she is doing perfect and has never had any health problems. I was just asking if anyone could suggest a good method of giving water I usually just spray her terrarium down to give her the proper balance of humidity and to give her some water. She drinks several drops and seems to stop. Is this okay is she just done drinking? Or could there be a problem? Just please respond with your two cents. Thanks!

 

[Karen Hulvey]

If you've raised her from a hatchling and she is now 2 y/o, I'd say you must be doing something right. I would continue w/the care you are giving her presently.

There are drip watering systems you can buy and then you wouldn't have to mist her. But, as I said above, I'd just continue what you're doing right now. It sounds as if it's working well for you.

 

[Borewyrm]

LOL I am not a cat person, grew up around them and have reasons for not really being fond of them.... But I cant help grin at your avatar

 

[Dave W.]

Howdy,

Because hydration is such an important chameleon husbandry tissue, many keepers will either use an automated misting system and/or weekly showers. You can search back postings about those issues and see which systems have been recommended in the past. If you don't want to go down that road then I'd suggest the showers. Your cham may not like a luke warm shower right away but after weekly (or more) sessions of direct (but not a hard spray) or bounced/indirect showering while hanging in a real or fake plant, he will likely begin to enjoy them. Other than that, you could also use a handheld pump-up mister full of warm water (20-40oz)and go at it for 10-20 minutes instead. The warm water can make all the difference in his response to being misted. There's an old(?) saying that you haven't proven your keeping ability until you've kept a chameleon past 2 years. That's because it takes that long to slowly kill one from partial dehydration...

My misting system pumps pre-heated water to the mist nozzles for 20 minutes twice a day.

 

[Sammy Bava]

Hey Dave,

Could you tell me a bit more about your misting system? It sounds like it's doing exactly what I want mine to do. Is it fully automated (hooked up to a hot water heater?) or to you have to add the preheated water to a reservoir?

Thanks,
Suzanne

 

[Dave W.]

Howdy,

Sorry for the delay! Basically, mine is a (http://www.pro-products.com/) Pro-Products mist pump. I use a 300W Hydor in-line heater with it. The heater is on a separate timer that starts the heating process 1 minute before the pump starts pulling water though it. The heater is able to keep up with multiple mist nozzles spread across 3 enclosures. So, cold water is store in a sanitized , closed water bucket. that water is pumped out and through the heater. The pump's output is run through a pressure regulator set to 20psi because I like the flow to be limited to 1 quart per cage per 20 minute misting. There are other ways to deal with the standing water in the hoses, but I went ahead and implemented a bypass system that automatically flushes the cold hose water out before misting begins.

At one time I had heated the water in the holding bucket but I decided that warm water was taking too much of a chance for breeding bacteria etc. I have seen people connect into hot water heaters with success.

I also no longer use a multibucket system to filter the water before it is stored.

 

[nuttzo420]

wow dave! now thats a coll setup. you really know your stuff. did you build it by someone elses plans of create the system yourself? nice man.

 

[Dave W.]

...did you build it by someone elses plans of create the system yourself?...

Howdy,
The setup that I came up with was from lots of inputs from lots of people posting in several forums. I added a few twists of my own to top it off. I guess it just wasn't complicated enough until those were added! I have gone through several iterations to land with something that the chameleons and I are finally happy with. There are a few more details to heating the water in the last 3 feet of line that I won't bother talking about because they are really the "Rube Goldberg" of misting system design.

If all of this sounds a bit too much, then I'd go with a nice pump-up hand mister. Try the "RL Flowmaster Home and Garden Sprayer Model 1998" or equivalent that you'll find at places like Home Depot etc. It holds 2.5 pints and you pump it up and trigger release anything from a very fine mist to a sharp stream. They're about $7. It's the middle one in the photo. http://rlflomaster.com/sprayers/hand.htm You can fill it 3/4 full with nice warm water. It'll last for at least 10 minutes a fill when set to fine. Now you can have very good control over how much water lands on him. If he gets upset, you can quickly move away etc.

 

[Sammy Bava]

Thanks Dave! That was very helpful. I'll be sure to bug you with more questions as we get closer to actually installing the new misting system.

cheers,
Suzanne

 

[Chameleon Company]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Two years of success is a good track record, and is always better to over-hydrate than be borderline. BTW, the earlier post about two years of under-hydration by Dave:

That's because it takes that long to slowly kill one from partial dehydration...

is way off the mark. Sorry guy, but you might be able to stretch out slow organ failure due to periodic under-hydration for two months, and if its daily under-hydration, less than that. What is the study basis for your conclusion that it can be a two year event? Its preposterous to state such a thing short of a study that does not exist. If chameleons where even half that hardy, every keeper out there would have nothing but long-term success stories. Are you going to tell me that you, or anyone, knew the prescribed minimum water ration for a veiled, and then under-hydrated for two years? Ridiculous !!! I think that the overwhelming preponderance of evidence would suggest that once a chameleon ... any chameleon ... shows any sign of chronic debilitation, if not remedied and cured pronto, that animal will be dead in a month an overwhelming majority of the time ... probably in excess of 90%. Your set-up looks like you put a lot of time and passion into your animals, and I will conclude by looking at it that you know how delicate chameleon keepng can be. It makes your conclusion all the more perplexing !!

Jim Flaherty
The Chameleon Company, LLC

 

[Dave W.]

...... There's an old(?) saying that you haven't proven your keeping ability until you've kept a chameleon past 2 years. That's because it takes that long to slowly kill one from partial dehydration....

Howdy Jim,

Sorry for the delay in a reply - just got back in town. First, I have nothing but the utmost respect for our opinions and I've seen your photos of your great setups! I guess the point I was trying to make was, similar to what you said, there are degrees of sub-hydration and that erring on access to more water than less is often a way to prevent subtle hydration problems that could be lethal in the long run. As far as hydration studies go, the phrase: "There's and old saying..." at the beginning of that sentence was partially meant to warn the reader that this statement was not necessarily backed-up with a research paper. Since severe to chronic to partial to sub etc. hydration could take its toll from days to weeks to months etc. my point was merely to make sure that the original poster understood that just because he has made it 2 years doesn't necessarily mean that his chameleon has had optimum hydration. I guess I'm a bit hypersensitive to the hydration issue since I've seen so much death in pet stores caused by terrible hydration problems - like water dishes and waterfalls... I also worry sometimes that I might be providing too much water to my Veileds. My Panther and my Veileds are on the same schedule. Some literature indicates that Veileds have exposure to the same annual rainfall as Nosy Be' Panthers. Veileds also live in what has been described as the tropical part of Yemen. Any comment that you can provide about that would be much appreciated!