Melleri common disease in imports investigation

[shaneofall]

Does anyone have confirmed parasite and/or bacteria in there T.melleri imports at any time or any articles with confirmed fecal?

I am still continuing my investigation and "parasites" or "bacteria" are the common generalized terms used, but it would be nice to establish if some types of infestation are more common than others.

From what I have read, these infestations are of fairly aggressive strains (at least referencing bacteria) and some likely introduction at exporter; so could potentially never have established a way to fight off properly even if given adequate care.

 

[kinyonga]

Don't know if this will be of interest to you or not...
http://www.chameleonnews.com/02NovKalischMelleriMyth.html

And these....
http://thechameleonfarm.blogspot.ca/2013/07/our-melleri-are-dying-and-we-dont-know.html
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ADCHAM/conversations/topics/4275
http://pinnacle.allenpress.com/doi/abs/10.1645/GE-2984.1?journalCode=para
http://www.melleridiscovery.com/stress/stress.htm

 

[shaneofall]

Thank you kinyonga, the first article I am very aware of and at the time I worked for an importer/wholesaler (Southern California) in the early 90's. We had a thousand Chameleons (including these spp) and many other South African lizards, Madagascar, etc and other reptiles all sharing rooms. It was also common to feed things like house geckos and such cheap infected lizards at the time, so really hard to pinpoint if 100% a mellieri bacteria, but I would guess for this to happen in two locals is very suspect these mellieri had some really bad bacteria before coming into the States.

I will check out the other articles as well.

 

[shaneofall]

I have read the other articles, thanks again. The virus article was very interesting and scary! That would something if true, to have a virus strain that can be deadly and in all imports and passed to offspring.

 

[shaneofall]

Someone claiming a CB melleri tested positive for a virus...

https://www.facebook.com/ChameleonRescue/posts/621626301200924

Maybe I will follow up.

 

[Olimpia]

I had my last WC melleri tested when I first got him in October and he tested positive for trichomonas, giardia, and roundworms. I was told he spent a month with the importer. It was nothing that a round of Panacur didn't clear up.

 

[shaneofall]

I had my last WC melleri tested when I first got him in October and he tested positive for trichomonas, giardia, and roundworms. I was told he spent a month with the importer. It was nothing that a round of Panacur didn't clear up.

Just out of curiosity, how did you do the panacur? I ended up doing a first, I measured out and dabbed on the backs of crickets, then fed them out. Mine eats out of a large feeder with 100% reliability so that made it easy. I hope it is this easy on future imports.

 

[Olimpia]

I injected the dose directly into insects. I told the vet I would be doing this and she gave me several syringes and every day I would grab a large cricket or a roach nymph with tweezers, inject the panacur slowly into the abdomen, and then feed it off immediately. I always do it with the first bug of the day so that their hunger encourages them to tong-feed, especially when they are still new to me and aren't as conditioned to tong-feed. But it always works!