SmithSe
Established Member
I know a variant of this thread has been posted on this forum more times than any of us can count, but I’m going to add one more post to that list today.
The local monthly reptile show I attend in dinky little SW MI is typically pretty small, and I attend only to peruse and buy feeders. Fortunately, chameleons rarely surface at the show, and the few times they were for sale in the past, they were veileds in decent condition. Yesterday was a different story, however. A new vender I had never seen before had three Rubbermaid tubs on their table, and the closest bin to me had a meller’s chameleon perched on the side of it.
I was pleased with its condition until I actually peered into the bins and realized each one was filled with chameleons. One with WC meller’s, one with veileds, and the last with WC flapnecks. There were no sturdy branches in any of the bins, just a bunch of fake leaves haphazardly thrown in. Notice in the pic below how emaciated the chameleon on the right is.
Their little eyes peering up at me as to say "halp me!" absolutely killed me, but I knew there was nothing I could do for these animals in the way of purchasing a couple that wouldn’t promote the vender to continue selling them and subjecting them to these conditions. I moved on to a few more tables only to find a couple of panthers housed together in a 12x12” glass terrarium. It was a young adult female with what looked like a 3-4 month old male blue bar Ambilobe. Everyone was commenting on how beautiful his colors were, completely unaware he was flashing stress colors living in such cramped conditions with another chameleon. These living circumstances looked permanent by the amount of feces caked to the cage floor. The vender informed me he rarely deals with chameleons, and was just trying to get back what he paid for him. This little guy was so beautiful and I wanted to give him a fighting chance, so I talked the vender down to $200 from $250 after pointing out his nipped tail (not a steal by any means, but at least the female can have that enclosure to herself now) . He really is a beaut, though:
About 2 mins after I got him into my car, his stress colors subsided and he started closing one eye.
That’s when I realized I’ve got some work ahead of me. He was able to open his eye long enough to take about 8 crickets from my hand as soon as I introduced him into his new enclosure (the guy was famished!), so that’s encouraging. I’ve already got a vet appointment lined up for next week, but since I’m focusing more on parsonii, I’m planning on adopting him out if his recovery goes smoothly over the next couple months! I also have another male Ambilobe that’s only a month older that I removed from a bad situation as well, so if anyone is qualified and interested in adopting a sweet male Ambilobe in the near future, please PM me!
The local monthly reptile show I attend in dinky little SW MI is typically pretty small, and I attend only to peruse and buy feeders. Fortunately, chameleons rarely surface at the show, and the few times they were for sale in the past, they were veileds in decent condition. Yesterday was a different story, however. A new vender I had never seen before had three Rubbermaid tubs on their table, and the closest bin to me had a meller’s chameleon perched on the side of it.
I was pleased with its condition until I actually peered into the bins and realized each one was filled with chameleons. One with WC meller’s, one with veileds, and the last with WC flapnecks. There were no sturdy branches in any of the bins, just a bunch of fake leaves haphazardly thrown in. Notice in the pic below how emaciated the chameleon on the right is.
Their little eyes peering up at me as to say "halp me!" absolutely killed me, but I knew there was nothing I could do for these animals in the way of purchasing a couple that wouldn’t promote the vender to continue selling them and subjecting them to these conditions. I moved on to a few more tables only to find a couple of panthers housed together in a 12x12” glass terrarium. It was a young adult female with what looked like a 3-4 month old male blue bar Ambilobe. Everyone was commenting on how beautiful his colors were, completely unaware he was flashing stress colors living in such cramped conditions with another chameleon. These living circumstances looked permanent by the amount of feces caked to the cage floor. The vender informed me he rarely deals with chameleons, and was just trying to get back what he paid for him. This little guy was so beautiful and I wanted to give him a fighting chance, so I talked the vender down to $200 from $250 after pointing out his nipped tail (not a steal by any means, but at least the female can have that enclosure to herself now) . He really is a beaut, though:
About 2 mins after I got him into my car, his stress colors subsided and he started closing one eye.
That’s when I realized I’ve got some work ahead of me. He was able to open his eye long enough to take about 8 crickets from my hand as soon as I introduced him into his new enclosure (the guy was famished!), so that’s encouraging. I’ve already got a vet appointment lined up for next week, but since I’m focusing more on parsonii, I’m planning on adopting him out if his recovery goes smoothly over the next couple months! I also have another male Ambilobe that’s only a month older that I removed from a bad situation as well, so if anyone is qualified and interested in adopting a sweet male Ambilobe in the near future, please PM me!
