cham fell off my arm ! !

[Jeremy l]

i was holding and letting my new male panther walk on my arm today and he walked to the side of my arm and i guess didnt have a good grasp on my arm and fell about 9 inches to the table. has any one else seen their cam fall and do you think it will cause any damage? ? he seems to be ok and is still walking around his cage and looks good but i am now nervous ?

 

[Geckoxp]

Chams...the way they are built will take a tumble and be ok. I have seen my chams climb all around there enclosure and fall with a thud...they get right back up and climb around some more. You will be surprised as to what they are capable of doing. Imagine being way up high in a tree and crashing to the ground...sure there are leaves and other things but you have to believe that they will fall.

Just try not to handle them too much. If your cham gets to running around he feels unsafe and is looking for a high place to climb to away from you or anything it feels it needs to get away from. Keep it to a minimum and only handle when needed if possible.

 

[SoCaliSon]

I know how scary this is... Watch him and make sure he is using everything as he should be... I think he should be fine... My scariest moment in Keeping Chams came from a fall.

I once had my Female Panther Muffin in her outdoor cage...The weather was turning ugly that night so I was going to move her in but she was sleeping... well... when I tried to pull her plant out of the cage while she was asleep on it she suddenly slipped off... She feel from about 6 feet!!! I managed to shift my foot so that she landed on my leather shoe and rolled onto the concrete...My heart literally skipped a beat... She had to have woke up from the impact on my shoe... but it would have been much worse had she hit the concrete directly... I am telling you this was probably my single most scary moment Cham keeping. When I rushed to pick her up she was obviously shaken up.. She let me know that she did not like that... she was pissed! And I felt so bad!!! I put her in her inside cage and she promptly started climbing around with full use of everything.. I kept a close eye on her and Lucky me no problems ever arose... She is still happy and Healthy! And she doesn't hate me any more than a Cham should. This was scary but could have been a lot worse...

Edit: Gecko is right...They can take a fall... Muffins Dive is a testament to this... She takes giant Dives In her sleep! lol

 

[opihiman]

I saw this on You tube...at least I think this is the vid...cant see this at home cause the computer blocks stuff like this...but any way

http://youtube.com/watch?v=t7egDy5feHk

check it out...chameleon must be jumping to ground from about 4 to 5 feet or taller


OPI

 

[summoner12]

My boy Fred will jump from his Pothos that I have hanging from the cieling. I will open his cage and place a vine to his cage from the Pothos. He can go back and forth. Well one day he got bored and lowered himself as far as he could with his tail and fell about 4 feet. He landed... kinda sat there a second.. looked around... started to head for the bedroom. (He thinks there is another cham in there that he can beat up on, its just a mirror. shhhh don't tell him )

I will say though, they might fall and get up... but a lot of it depends on how they fall and what they land on. They aren't like cats... they don't always land on thier feet

 

[bucky]

Boy socal...that would make me have a heart attack!

One day i was putting Louie back in his cage, and he really wanted to get off my arm, so when i was near it, not quite there, he reached out, his back feet slipped and he fell like a foot, but he got his tail to hang on something, but it looked like it jerked him pretty bad, but luckily nothing was injured.

 

[AndrewH]

mine just fell this morning, he was strolling around the living room, climbed up my robe and perched on the back of my neck, i stood up to go the kitchen and he fell about 6 feet to the floor, i heard a thud looked down and he was looking at me like it was my fault he then stood up on both legs with arms waving out saying, you bi*ch, pick me up pick me up!!

hes pretty hearty at 9 months and i have read about them just dropping to the the forest floor in the wild. Of course there is foliage and leaves to break their fall, but they are not made of glass like most people presume. I was sooo worried about his delicacy when i first got him, but then you get over it and you know what he can and cant take. It s like having a kid i guess.

 

[OldChamKeeper]

This was years ago........

My Male Jackson decided he didn't like the little tree I put him in for some sun...fast forward 10 mins and now I find him in our 40' tree up near the top.

<sigh> So I climb up there. Just as I corner him on a branch and start to pull it towards me the little monster gives me a heart attack and just lets go. I watch as he falls and hits no less than 5 branches on his way down. He did a great impression of a pinball as bounched from one to the next before hitting the lawn. So I scamble down as fast as I can without breaking my neck figuring I'll find a near dead lizard. Instead the little bastardo is half way back to the original little tree I put him in. He had no injuries and lived a fair number of years after that incident.

They seem to be "built" just for this escape. I'd not recommend handling your Cham much. You'll have less heart attacks if you do.

 

[Jeremy l]

well i guess my little 9 inch or so fal dosent seem to be much of a fall from yall's chams falls. he is doing fine, i just got nervous because they do seem fragile but i guess there pretty hardy reptiles. now that i think of it ive had little house gekos jump out of myhands and im 6'4" and smack the groung flat and take off running like it was nothing.

 

[SoCaliSon]

We do need to remember though... It does matter on how they land... Chams have landed wrong from small falls that have resulted in debiliating injuries... Be carefull with them... and if for some reason they ever do take a spill... take it slow with them to make sure there is no injury... cause if something doesn't look right then the vet is the first place to go.