HOW LONG THE BASKING LAMP SHOULD BE SET TO ON”?
HOW LONG THE BASKING LAMP SHOULD BE SET TO ON"?
Two times a day for few minutes or all day?
Some people advice strictly either on full day some on two times a day short time. Some stay diplomatic and say eg. "It's at your discretion alot of people provide basking for a few hours in the morning then again in the evening some leave the basking on all day…"
Messy and contradictory, right?
Not at all…
There is a need not for ad ise but for inderstanding, so: good to explain…
It is less about your discretion as as it about correct assessment of the environment factors around the cage…
If the daytime ambient temperature around the cage is approximately equal to the required ambient temperature inside the cage, then short basking in the morning and in late afternoon is perfectly fine. It is recommendable as it is naturalistic: copying the natural basking cycle. Chameleons bask usually in the morning to heat up their bodies that cool down in the cold and foggy nights. And then, thy bask in the late afternoon to gain a little bit more heat for the time around and after sunset to cool down slower and perhaps to finalize also some metabolic processes.
If the room temperature is significantly lower than the required ambient temperature inside of the cage, then the basking lamp has two functions:
1. to be available for basking
2. to be used for increasing the ambient temperature and as such, it can be either ON the whole day or a part of the day or even regulated by a thermostat.
Why we simply do not let the lamp
ON all the time and complicate things?
They cannot auto regulate fully in captivity.
Beware you can literally kill some of the montane chameleon species by providing them basking light all the day because they overheat and die.
Therefore, we must meaningfully regulate for them.
https://www.chameleons.info/l/autoregulation-myth-unleashed/
Disclaimer:
All strict recommendation should be taken with a grain of salt. It is imperative to understand the purpose of any measure, monitor the parameters of the environment plus observe the animal and always fine-tune when required