Jackson just laying down and barely eating!?!?

Ricardothebeginner

Ricardothebeginner

New Member
Hello I had posted about my male Jackson chameleon not shedding and now my female just lays down all day not in a basking spot she doesn’t close her eyes I’ve had her for a week now She is 2-3 months and she is going through her first Shed with me and her head is only left so everything seems good but I have been feeding trying to feed her a bunch of insect she has only really been eating hornworms which I fed yesterday and super worms couple days ago but when I put crickets it there she doesn’t seem to like them when I first got her she was eating them I’m feeding her medium size cuz I feel like the small ones slip through the cage somehow now I’m trying Dubias but still doesn’t seem to like them I want to put a couple crickets in there to see if she will hunt them but I hate having to take them out and invade her territory the overall cage temp is 78 and basking is 85 she is in medium size reptibreeze and she is still pretty small I don’t see any signs of MBD and was wondering is this is normal for her to eat once in awhile or if she is pregnant at so young!? cuz I had her with another male
 

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I believe that the earliest a jacksons can get pregnant is at 5 months so I don't think she's pregnant. Jacksjill will correct this if I'm wrong

The eating issue might just be a good ol hunger strike. She is probably sick of crickets and dubias don't look good to her so she doesn't want to eat em. The fact that shes only been wating to eat hornworms just kind of really supports that. She will keep rejecting everything unless its a hornworm rn, but don't give in to it. I'll actually come back to this subject in a bit, first I gotta explain something else.

So you said that you've had her for week a right? A chameleon takes a while to get used to their new home. During this time it's pretty stressful so its common for them to do a few things like go on hunger strikes and being dark colors. This usually goes away in a week to two weeks. Each chameleon is a bit different.

So back to your chameleons eating situation. My chameleon actually went through the same thing. In the 1st week i had him he only ate 3 crickets in a week. The 2nd week he only had eaten 2 crickets and then refused the rest. On week 3 I introduced him to black soldier fly larva and he ate about 2 of those every 2 days. Then i introduced him to a hornworm and after eating 2 it was all he wanted. He reused everything and for a whole week he didn't eat because he was deadset on makimg me give him a hornworm lol. After that week he finally started eating cricket again and bsfl. So your cham is probably doing the same. My advise is to try giving her a flying feeder. That is how I snap my boy out of a hunger strike now. It really catches their attention. You can buy blue bottle spikes on joshs frogs and they'll hatch into blue bottle flies pretty quick. Blue bottle flies are gutloadable too. From there she'll start slowly accepting the other feeders.

About the laying down all day thing idk about that thats gonna up to jackson master jacksjill to figure out ?
 
Vert340 said:
I believe that the earliest a jacksons can get pregnant is at 5 months so I don't think she's pregnant. Jacksjill will correct this if I'm wrong

The eating issue might just be a good ol hunger strike. She is probably sick of crickets and dubias don't look good to her so she doesn't want to eat em. The fact that shes only been wating to eat hornworms just kind of really supports that. She will keep rejecting everything unless its a hornworm rn, but don't give in to it. I'll actually come back to this subject in a bit, first I gotta explain something else.

So you said that you've had her for week a right? A chameleon takes a while to get used to their new home. During this time it's pretty stressful so its common for them to do a few things like go on hunger strikes and being dark colors. This usually goes away in a week to two weeks. Each chameleon is a bit different.

So back to your chameleons eating situation. My chameleon actually went through the same thing. In the 1st week i had him he only ate 3 crickets in a week. The 2nd week he only had eaten 2 crickets and then refused the rest. On week 3 I introduced him to black soldier fly larva and he ate about 2 of those every 2 days. Then i introduced him to a hornworm and after eating 2 it was all he wanted. He reused everything and for a whole week he didn't eat because he was deadset on makimg me give him a hornworm lol. After that week he finally started eating cricket again and bsfl. So your cham is probably doing the same. My advise is to try giving her a flying feeder. That is how I snap my boy out of a hunger strike now. It really catches their attention. You can buy blue bottle spikes on joshs frogs and they'll hatch into blue bottle flies pretty quick. Blue bottle flies are gutloadable too. From there she'll start slowly accepting the other feeders.

About the laying down all day thing idk about that thats gonna up to jackson master jacksjill to figure out ?
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Thank you I will look into some flying feeders now ?
 
Your temps are way to high for a baby. She needs 72 F ambient and 78 F basking. Cool her down asap. Her overnight needs to be in the 60's. If you have to put ice packs on the top of her cage over night to get the temps down. There are small fans that hold ice on the market if you can't get your temps down with AC.
 
JacksJill said:
Your temps are way to high for a baby. She needs 72 F ambient and 78 F basking. Cool her down asap. Her overnight needs to be in the 60's. If you have to put ice packs on the top of her cage over night to get the temps down. There are small fans that hold ice on the market if you can't get your temps down with AC.
Click to expand...
Ok I am currently using 75 watt should I get a 60 or 50
 
It absolutely depends on your house but you might need a 75 watt when she's a year old and it's winter.
These guys will fool you they seem to like more heat than is good for them I think it come from living somewhere that high heat is scarce.
 
JacksJill said:
It absolutely depends on your house but you might need a 75 watt when she's a year old and it's winter.
These guys will fool you they seem to like more heat than is good for them I think it come from living somewhere that high heat is scarce.
Click to expand...
Thank you for everything?as you already know I’m a beginner but I have 4 chameleons I know it’s not good to start off with so many but the first one I had was male vielded now I have two Jackson’s one male and female and a piebald female I am thinking of breeding the Jackson’s because of how they do live birth and was wondering if it is hard to take care of all the little babies or putting up with the females needs?
 
Jackson's babies are notoriously hard to raise. A breeder friend once said to me "it's like they are looking for ways to die". That said it is not impossible. They are more expensive to raise because they need individual cages at an earlier age than most cham babies. I separate mine almost at birth. They don't tolerate stress well and all of your husbandry has to be correct, temps, humidity and supplements. You have time to figure it all out your female won't be ready to breed for well over a year, at a year and a half of age. Then it will be 6-9 months of gestation.
I was going to tell you you don't have to have your basking light on all day long, you can do intervals of on and off several times a day or use a thermostat. Also you can control the basking spot temps by raising your light up off the screen a few inches.
 
JacksJill said:
Jackson's babies are notoriously hard to raise. A breeder friend once said to me "it's like they are looking for ways to die". That said it is not impossible. They are more expensive to raise because they need individual cages at an earlier age than most cham babies. I separate mine almost at birth. They don't tolerate stress well and all of your husbandry has to be correct, temps, humidity and supplements. You have time to figure it all out your female won't be ready to breed for well over a year, at a year and a half of age. Then it will be 6-9 months of gestation.
I was going to tell you you don't have to have your basking light on all day long, you can do intervals of on and off several times a day or use a thermostat. Also you can control the basking spot temps by raising your light up off the screen a few inches.
Click to expand...
Would you have to separate all the babies individually or separate them from only their mom at birth and yes since I haven’t got small wattage bulbs I have been turning off the basking lamp through out the day yes I know I have a long time till she is ready but I want to make sure I know everything before anything happens
 
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