Geriatric veiled

[Wuntu Menny]

Here's a pic of the old girl taken by JeffT today

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/500/152Im001174-med.jpg

Ms. Piggy will be 5 years old in March. She's a little scuffed up as she just dropped another clutch of eggs two days ago. Other than that she looks pretty good for about 90 in chameleon years.

WM

[CDN-Cresties]

She looks great and so does her cage. What are the dimensions and what materials is it made from????
Thanks

-Steve-

[Collide]

Wow what a babe... my female MrsMoo is also Mrs Piggy lol. nice and ripe old age I think that if u take care of your chams they can live to be faily old...even the females.

[marisa]

Aw my Gus would love to meet a lady his age! LOL. He is about 6+ now.

She looks great! Nice orange colors on her too

Marisa

[Trace]

So that is your old girl... I've read a lot about her. She looks fantastic. I can only hope I can age as gracefully as her.

Neat placement of the flourescents too... I might steal that idea from you.

Trace

[JeffT]

Well im glad that pic turned out really good, it really shows the blue specs and turquoise.

Jeff

[Collide]

lol look at te similarity Sometimes I think that all females are the same lol, she is about 3+ I hope she lives to a ripe old age too...

http://www.elev8r.com/chams/MRSMOO23.jpg

[choriona]

still dropping eggs huh? Thats a really good sign of great health. She looks awsome. I was thinking of trying to put the flourescent tubes verticle to get better uv coverage.....I see you have more than one though. How many tubes do you have on one cham? And how does that placement work for you?

[Wuntu Menny]

Thanks for all the feedback, now I'll try to answer some of the Q's

Cdn:
Her cage is 4wX2dX3h, framed with mostly 2x4. The top and bottom are 3/4 plywood with the center cut out of the top and meshed for lights and water. The mesh is my little trademark touch. Its a nylon hardware cloth from Home Despot with a very open pattern (I thinks its 3/8 inch) that has no sharp edges or burrs to damage feet. Its practically indestructible and it doesn't conduct electricity. All my cham cages use this material.

Trace & Choriona:
I use all sorts of lighting configurations depending on the cage position. In this one there are a pair of 4ft full spec Vitalite or Verilux horizontal across the lower back of the cage. The area directly above that has plastic over the mesh to prevent water damage to the wall behind. The little vertical one is either a 2.0 or used 5.0 for a little added UV due to her terminally gravid condition. I placed it next to her feeding station because she spends so much of her time there anyway. I've run as few as two tubes to as many as nine tubes for a single cage.

Above and outside the cage is a 75w basking light that's raised or lowered according to seasonal temp variations. Her pothos hangs in the white pot behind her and the ubiquitous ficus benjamina is to the right. The entire front wall of her cage is hinged at the bottom and latched on top, so one quick flick and the whole thing is open for maintenance.

Marisa:
Its funny but I hardly ever notice the orange in female veileds. Now that you mention it, her's is pretty bright. I always seem to look for the blue first.

Collide:
That's a chubby little girl you've got there too. She's got great color and pattern, I especially like the rings on her tail.

Jeff:
Thanks again for the pix!

WM

[Trace]

Ok Lowell, I haven't gotten around to trying your UV light placement yet as I've been working on some home renovation projects the last few days. I'm finding those projects are neverending aren't they. Hmmm.

My question: Why nine UV tubes? What species was that? Was it even a chameleon for that matter. Did you put up the nine tubes during a specific season? (pregnancy or winter).

Trace

[Wuntu Menny]

They weren't all UV tubes. The cage was huge: 6hX4wX2d with a 4-5 ft weeping fig, a hibiscus and two hanging pothos. I needed that much light just to keep the plants happy. A bank of four 4ft horizontally across the back, another similar 4 tube fixture vertically on one side, and another 2ft tube with higher UV than the plant lights. Oops, and a basking light.

That was one happy veiled chameleon, let me tell you! I might drag that cage out of storage if I can find a suitable sp. I was going to get some Oustalet's but Connie stopped breeding them at the same time I became interested.

WM

[Trace]

Ahhhh ok. That makes sense! I guess I was looking at some of my smaller cages here and thought that if I strapped 9 ballasts to them, it would end up looking like some sort of bizarro R2D2 unit.

Trace