Pygmy Chameleon Community

Intro

This site has a lot of new members always asking about general care and how to make the perfect set-up for Pygmy Chameleons. As most people often trawl through all of the threads trying to gather the relevant information we felt it was about time to put all that information in one place. There are some variations in the care of each species, but mainly this is to do with temperature and humidity.

General Care of Pygmy Chameleons

Enclosure

In general Pygmy chameleons are best suited to glass enclosures. The reason for this being that it is easier to maintain the high humidity that is needed. They also help maintain temperature gradients, which would be very difficult in an all wire, mesh cage. As a general rule, more room is better when it comes to housing Pygmy chameleons.

30 x 30 x 30 cm 12" x 12" x 12" (WxDxH) = 2
30 x 30 x 45 cm 12" x 12" x 18" (WxDxH) = 3
45 x 45 x 45 cm 18" x 18" x 18" (WxDxH) = 4
45 x 45 x 60 cm 18" x 18" x 24" (WxDxH) = 5
60 x 45 x 45 cm 24" x 18" x 18" (WxDxH) = 5
60 x 45 x 60 cm 24" x 18" x 24" (WxDxH) = 6

Some people say that more pygmy can be placed in the terrarium sizes above, but once you have placed your substrate, plants, decoration etc, you will already have lost around 20% of the original enclosure space.

How to set up your terrarium

An important part in the husbandry of pygmy chameleons is the fact that they need to have high humidity. This results in the enclosure needing to be misted 2-3 times a day. To prevent water logging of the soil, it is a good idea to have a drainage layer at the bottom of the enclosure. The common drainage layers used by keepers are Hydroleca clay balls or Lucky Reptile’s Hydro-Drain. Both do the same job and absorb excess moisture. It is common to have between 1-2 inches of drainage layer. On top of this is placed some weed mesh. This prevents the ...

Before you think about getting a Pygmy Chameleon, You must make sure you have all the correct equipment and Pygmy requirements.

I have made a list of items that i think are needed for a pygmy setup.

Exo-Terra Style Terrarium - Size depends on how many pygmies you plan on housing.

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