If you aren’t familiar with chameleons, you might be wondering if they are messy animals or pets to have. Some pets can be very messy to have around and it’s a huge headache for you to clean up after that. Pets such as dogs might run around the whole house and mess everything up. How about chameleons?
Chameleons aren’t messy at all. They tend to spend their day climbing around hunting for food or just sit idle doing nothing. That doesn’t mean you should let them walk around the house though, it can get messy if you aren’t careful.
Chameleons are one of the least messy pets among all pets. They barely do anything in captivity so a mess rarely happens. As long as you understand a few fundamental things about your pet chameleon, they will not make a mess.
How Messy Are Chameleons In Captivity?
As mentioned before, chameleons aren’t messy at all. This is mostly due to their timid and conservative nature. In fact, chameleons are very efficient hunters who don’t need to do much to get food.
They move very slowly and carefully as well. This adds to why chameleons manage to stay so quiet and clean as you don’t see it running around in the cage, or jumping up and down destroying the branches.
Most of the time you will just see it grabbing onto a branch, walking up and down, or staying still doing nothing all day.
Excrement
Just like any other living thing, they do poop and they don’t poop in a specific area.
Unlike dogs or cats who can be easily potty trained, chameleons sometimes just roam around and do their “business” wherever and whenever.
Normally, adult chameleons will poop somewhere around two or three times a week. Their excrement isn’t particularly messy or smelly so don’t worry about that.
Caretakers should clean this up as soon as they see it. Don’t fret if you missed it and it has dried. If anything, it will be easier to clean after that.
How To Clean Their Excrement
To clean it, just pick it up with any paper towel and wipe off with a damp cloth to clean any residue.
Make sure you do a more thorough clean with the cage every two or three weeks. You can also use substrate but it isn’t needed, so generally, it isn’t recommended.
Do Free Roaming Chameleons Mess Up The House?
Ever left a dog alone at home just to come home and see every piece of furniture ruined and dog poop all over the place? Do you think a free-roaming chameleon would do the same?
Well, first of all, letting your chameleon free-roaming too often isn’t recommended as it may stress them out a lot.
If you do manage to let them free-roam though, they could mess your place up if you aren’t careful.
Climbing
Chameleons are excellent climbers and they love it. They can climb to places normally thought impossible. If there is a thing that they can reach, they will attempt to climb it for sure.
You may have desk lamps, water bottles, bookshelves, or just tall furniture lying in your house. A chameleon will just see all of these as potential climbing areas and pounce around trying to climb onto them.
This may cause your furniture to be knocked down, possibly breaking it. Other than that, they might even climb onto unclosed doors or tilted windows which are hazards to them.
Keeping an eye on them will not just ensure the safety of your pet but also the safety of your furniture. If not, your house could become a real mess.
Using The Potty
Though it is possible to potty train a chameleon, usually they just roam around and poop wherever and whenever they please.
As you can imagine, this can be a nightmare if you allow them to roam around your house freely.
Luckily, their excrement isn’t that hard to clean nor is it that smelly. So, this isn’t a problem at all, other than the fact that they might poop on your favorite carpet.
Conclusion
Chameleons aren’t messy animals. They tend to not do much all day and even if they do, they do it very conservatively. On top of that, their excrement isn’t messy as well so don’t worry.
In the case where you let them roam around freely, they might break your furniture like any other pet. Another issue is that they might even poop all over the place.
Keeping an eye out for your chameleon is key if you don’t want it to make a mess when it’s free-roaming.
However, not to worry too much as chameleons tend to be very neat most of the time. So, just relax and clean when needed.
