house geckos

SarahChamlove

SarahChamlove

New Member
So right now i have my male chameleon being housed at the exotic pets being he is under weight and refuses to eat. So they are keeping him for a week to see if there is a better option for him.

If he does eat crickets, it will be about 2 and then he won't want to eat again. He loves meal worms and although they don't give much nutrition, it is the only thing keeping him alive. He was the runt of his clutch and He needed a chance.

But anywho, he has been there for 2 days, and they said he is doing fine. He is fine and healthy. He just doesn't eat as much as he should for his age. They suggested that I put a house gecko in his cage so that he learns to compete for food. HMMM?

I don't know about that and I will explain why:

1. I have a female who lived with him for a month and half, and he still didn't eat much
2. Don't chameleons like to live alone? It would be werid to see a small gecko crawling on the roof of his cage
3. he is so small, I'm afraid that something else would just dominate it

So Tell Me What You Guys Think, bad idea or good idea?
 
Aren't house geckos mostly nocturnal? - If they were keeping different shifts, he might not ever know there's a competition going on. I'd be leery, myself.

My guy has been very iffy about eating for the past couple months, and stayed at the vets while we were out of town so the neighbors wouldn't have to battle to get food into him. He never stopped drinking well, and for about 4-6 weeks, I was grinding up bugs with some supplementation in a mortar and pestle, mixing it with water to get something I could draw up into an eyedropper, and administering it to him when he was in drinking mode. Now that it's warm enough to take him outside, he's been willing to eat when he's basked in the outdoor sun for a bit.

How big and how old is your guy? Has he been tested for parasites (fecal exam)?
 
he is approximatly 4 months old.

I took both my chameleon to the vet becasuse i was afraid for pest, and i got them both tested. and he did have pest. so that has been treated. He was weighing at 6 grams and that was three weeks ago. He seems to be a bit bigger then he was b4, but is still small for his age.

this is a picture of him taken b4 he went to the vet. you can see how small he is. He has plumped up a little since then. I can't not take a recent picture of him because he is being housed right now and is not home with me

earl.jpg
 
I have never heard of such a thing! I would not put any other type of reptile in the cage with him. how big are the crickets you are feeding him? If they are too big he probably will not eat them. He is awfully small so the crickets need to be the correct size.
 
carol5208 said:
I have never heard of such a thing! I would not put any other type of reptile in the cage with him. how big are the crickets you are feeding him? If they are too big he probably will not eat them. He is awfully small so the crickets need to be the correct size.
Click to expand...

the store that i go to has small and small medium. so I get medium for my girl, Talula, who about normal size and I get small for him.

I would say about half of an inch they are. I have seen him eat bigger ones tho, which was not intended for him but he gladly took it. But that was 4 weeks ago!

He has been living off meal worms for the past 3 weeks and thats not giving him the nutrution he needs.

Should I start hand feeding him with a dropper?? He HATES BEING HANDLED!
 
SarahChamlove said:
the store that i go to has small and small medium. so I get medium for my girl, Talula, who about normal size and I get small for him.

I would say about half of an inch they are. I have seen him eat bigger ones tho, which was not intended for him but he gladly took it. But that was 4 weeks ago!

He has been living off meal worms for the past 3 weeks and thats not giving him the nutrution he needs.

Should I start hand feeding him with a dropper?? He HATES BEING HANDLED!
Click to expand...

Also if you look at my avatar, it shows you the big difference between Talula and Earl.

Talula is 44 grams as of today!
 
I would go online to one of our sponsors and order some silk worms and some horn worms. Make sure they are small, never feed over sized food to your cham, they can have problems getting it down.
 
If you put another reptile in with your chameleons there is a good probability that you could be introducing more parasites to your chameleons. However, when your chameleons grows larger there is a good possibility that the chameleon may eat the gecko.
 
laurie said:
I would go online to one of our sponsors and order some silk worms and some horn worms. Make sure they are small, never feed over sized food to your cham, they can have problems getting it down.
Click to expand...

So what would be considered to big for him. I know a store that has them and I believe they were about an inch or so long. would that be too big for him?
 
The competing for food thing is pet store garbage. I am not sure I would even leave him there. You need to bring him home and house him separately from the female. Try raising his temps a bit and see if you can get him to eat some appropriately sized crickets.
 
Julirs said:
The competing for food thing is pet store garbage. I am not sure I would even leave him there. You need to bring him home and house him separately from the female. Try raising his temps a bit and see if you can get him to eat some appropriately sized crickets.
Click to expand...

I've had them seperated for 4 weeks now. The first weeks, he did great. He ate 10 crickets in a week. Now he is not eating. I am giving him small crickets and small meal worms. He has no interest in the crickets at all!

I've let a few crickets roam the cage. I've put them into a deep container, and he will just leave them there. I've used tongs to feed him, he will just walk away. Everything I put into cage ends up dying or i'll have to take them out. I've even removed must of his plants to increase visiblity.

Here is a picture of his terrarium
Earl and Talula sleeping together 022.jpg
 
Those analog thermomters are garbage for measuring basking temps-what it the temp in his basking spot? Was he pooping at all? Some chams are amazing closet eaters. 10 crickets a week? He should be eating 15 crickets a day.
 
Julirs said:
Those analog thermomters are garbage for measuring basking temps-what it the temp in his basking spot? Was he pooping at all? Some chams are amazing closet eaters. 10 crickets a week? He should be eating 15 crickets a day.
Click to expand...

that one is a humity gage. and yeah it is crap. i bought a new a few days ago actually. It works alot better.
the basketing area is 85 (sometimes can get to 90, i live in the driest and hottest climate ever, arizona, and even with the air on, it get hot here) and the ambibnt area is 78.

He definately poops, white and dark brown as normal.
I'm cleaning it everyday. but he is only meal worms, for sure!
 
I've had every test done to him that you can imagine, and he is healthy and happy, he is just under weight and a very picky eater. I'm working on getting him variety but unfornately I am limited to what my store offer. I bought some horned worms once, and they came to me all dead and they were the wrong size. So Im afraid of using them again.

I have a girl talula who is eating 10-18 per day plus super worms as a treat. and she is normal weight and doing great!

:( I'm Just so worried about my little guy. he was a runt when i bought him and was always alot smaller then the others. But thats why i fell for him, i wanted to help the little guy out
 
What is that bowl in the bottom? You certainly could use some more vines, and branches(places for him to climb) and more foilage overall.
So wait a minute.... I just read your caption for the photo...you are housing these chameleons together? The male and the female? And if they are "sleeping" why is there a light on in the cage?
 
carol5208 said:
What is that bowl in the bottom? You certainly could use some more vines, and branches(places for him to climb) and more foilage overall.
So wait a minute.... I just read your caption for the photo...you are housing these chameleons together? The male and the female? And if they are "sleeping" why is there a light on in the cage?
Click to expand...

No they live seperately, I was cleaning out my females cage once and left them her in there because they both fell asleep together. there is light because of my flash on the camera. When I first got them there were stayed together. they came from the same clutch, the pictures are named that because i upload a bunch from my camera on my facebook
 
SarahChamlove said:
No they live seperately, I was cleaning out my females cage once and left them her in there because they both fell asleep together. there is light because of my flash on the camera. When I first got them there were stayed together. they came from the same clutch, the pictures are named that because i upload a bunch from my camera on my facebook
Click to expand...

oh and the bowl at the bottom was an effort to try to get him to eat more. I would put 10 small crickets there and have him hang on to a branch above it and left him there. but he wasn't interested.

I had other plants in te terrarium like i mentioned before but i took them out because when i would clean his cage out i would find all the dead bugs under that containers i kept my plants in. so i removed it so he could find food easily. that little custer of fake leaves does have alot of branches under it believe it or not. it may not look like it, but it is two vinyle silk plants twisted together. If you seen a side profile of it you see how much leaves are on it.

Here is a picture of talula's terrarium (female), I do think I need to get her more vines tho.
Earl and Talula sleeping together 023.jpg but if you see i have two different plants in there. the one with the long leaves use to be in Earl's terrarium
 
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