Cleaning Your Chameleon's Cage and Environment



Cleaning your chameleon's cage is by far one of the most important aspects in having a chameleon as a pet. By keeping your chameleons cage and enclosure clean, this will keep your chameleon strong and healthy. A quick cleaning of the cage should be done at least once a week, and a thorough cleaning should be done at least once a month. A weekly cleaning consists of cleaning out any dead leaves, feces, dead crickets, or any other objects that should not be inside the cage. In order to make the weekly cleaning an easy task; simply get in the habit of cleaning the cage daily. When cleaning out your cage you might want to consider using kitchen tongs (tool for flipping chicken) for picking up leaves and feces in the hard to reach areas. Just make sure to clean them before flipping the chicken!!! The bottom of the cage should be cleaned too, whether it is paper-towels, plastic garbage bags, or Bark Blend. Paper-towels and plastic garbage bags should be replaced, while the wood chips should be rinsed in a bucket of warm water, and placed back into the cage. By rinsing the wood chips in the warm water, this also helps raise the humidity in the cage. Feel free to soak the wood chips in the warm water if you ever need help raising the humidity in your chameleon's cage. Once you have rinsed and reused the wood chips more than 5 times, it would be a good idea to just use a new bag of fresh Bark Blend or Repti-Bark.

To do a complete thorough cleaning, you must remove everything from the cage, including all accessories, and plants. You should leave your chameleon on the plant and by doing so, this will keep the chameleon from becoming stressed. Once you have cleared the entire cage, then you must prepare two buckets. The first bucket should contain warm water, and the second bucket should have warm water with a little bit of mild dish soap mixed with it. You should also have two clean towels and a sponge handy. Dunk the accessories into the bucket with the water and soap, and use one of the clean towels to scrub them down. Let all accessories soak in the bucket for about 10 minutes. Next, remove all the accessories and place them in the first bucket containing only the warm water. Then take them out, one at a time and wipe them down with the other clean towel. Once you have wiped all accessories down, place the accessories down to air-dry. Then, take the sponge and dunk it into the second bucket with the water and soap, and wipe down all walls, screen, and structure of the cage. Repeat this process once more to be sure to get all bacteria and dust off of the screen and cage. Then, with the clean towel (dunked into the warm water bucket) wipe off all soap from the screen and cage structure. Repeat this process as many times as it takes to get all soap off of the screen and cage. After completing this, you must take the same towel (dunked into the warm water bucket) and wipe down all the leaves on the plant making sure to get any poop or dust matter off. Then once this is done, carefully place everything back into the cage, and don't forget to change the bottom of the cage, (whether it is the paper-towels, or the wood chips). By having a clean and healthy environment, it creates a happy and healthy chameleon!!!



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