hello all. This is my first time posting so I hope that I do everything right. Unfortunately my chameleon died and I am hoping that someone can give me some insight to the problem.
Corey was a female captive bred veiled chameleon. I got her as "a baby" (that's how the pet store described her, and she was quite small, and my vet agreed with it), and have had her for 4 months. She grew by leaps and bounds at first, and was eating about 10 crickets twice a day (first small crickets, and then medium ones), and 10 meal worms once a day. I started gut loading the crickets with dog food, but then moved to flunkers gut load, because it guaranteed to have calcium in it for her. I tried feeding her fresh vegetables but she never was interested. We also dusted her crickets with calcium/phosphorus powder everyother day and reptivite once a day. She lived in a 10 gallon aquarium (we were planning on getting a larger one as she grew up). It was lined with indoor/outdoor carpeting. I used reptile UVA/UVB lights in it and the hot spot was about 82* and the cool spot was about 70*. She was lighted for 12 hours (and would "put herself to bed" if she desired to sleep sooner ... she would go to the dark side and curl up). We let her out to climb around (supervised) for about an hour a day and she would jet around. She had a vew different "sticks" (pet store bought) to climb around on, and we had reptile store bought sand in there in a dish for her. She had two "dishes" of water in her cage which she was actually freely drinking from even when there was dripping water. I used a water bottle with pin holes in it to drip water (which rolled down a stick and into one of the dishes), which she would also drink from. In fact, in the mornings she would hook her front feet on the top of the cage and stand there demanding you to drip water into her mouth (which we would do of course). When I got her I took her to the vet right away for a check up, and she did a fecal and had worms, which we treated and later she had a negative fecal. About a month after that I took her into the vet for a check up, just to make sure she was looking ok, and the vet said she couldn't have looked better, and I couldn't have gotten her to grow faster had I wanted to.
About a month ago she cut down on her eating ... about 5 crickets a day, and no longer wanted meal worms. I thought it was just because she was no longer on a growth spurt. She still was very active and drinking like crazy. Then, last friday I came home from school (she had been acting normal the day before and had woken up like normal that morning), and she looked horrible! Her color was like that of cardboard, her eyes sunken in and closed and listless. We rushed her to the closest emergency vet that works with exotics (our normal vet was already closed) and they gave her subQ luids for dehydration. They rebounded her nicely, but the next day she was looking sluggish and eye sunken again so I took her back for more fluids. That monday morning we took her to her vet (who specializes in exotics). They hospitalized her, started her on baytril and interferon, subQ fluids, force feeding (AD canned dog food), and vitamins. They gave her an enima with barrium so that we could do a barrium study with xrays. It appeared that something was impacting her (but not eggs, there were none), and after 8.5 hours it had only made it to her stomache. They were givng her warm soaks to try and move things along. Tuesday she was looking better, but still had not passed any solid feces, but her color was normal and she was more active. Wednesday when I got there to pick her up for th eholidays (I'm a college student and my mom takes care of her when I'm gone but wasn't up to all of the intensive care), and she had taken a turn for the worse. She kept opening her mouth wide up like she was yawning. An hour after I got her home she died in my hands.
I feel horrible, like I killed her. I don't know what I did wrong. My vet is afraid that our problem has been a long running one, and started when she cut back on her eating. You could feel the buldge in her belly from the stopped up food at the end.
Tomorrow I am taking her in for an autopsy, so I guess that i will know more then.
I loved her, and she was such a joy .. she even would eat her crickets off of a spoon, and would snuggle up against your chest and fall asleep after she had been around climbing.
If anyone can tell me what I've done wrong, I would appreciate. In case I decide to get another one ... which i'm not so sure of right now, considering I've apparently already killed one ... maybe I can learn from my mistakes.
Sorry this was so long.
Corey was a female captive bred veiled chameleon. I got her as "a baby" (that's how the pet store described her, and she was quite small, and my vet agreed with it), and have had her for 4 months. She grew by leaps and bounds at first, and was eating about 10 crickets twice a day (first small crickets, and then medium ones), and 10 meal worms once a day. I started gut loading the crickets with dog food, but then moved to flunkers gut load, because it guaranteed to have calcium in it for her. I tried feeding her fresh vegetables but she never was interested. We also dusted her crickets with calcium/phosphorus powder everyother day and reptivite once a day. She lived in a 10 gallon aquarium (we were planning on getting a larger one as she grew up). It was lined with indoor/outdoor carpeting. I used reptile UVA/UVB lights in it and the hot spot was about 82* and the cool spot was about 70*. She was lighted for 12 hours (and would "put herself to bed" if she desired to sleep sooner ... she would go to the dark side and curl up). We let her out to climb around (supervised) for about an hour a day and she would jet around. She had a vew different "sticks" (pet store bought) to climb around on, and we had reptile store bought sand in there in a dish for her. She had two "dishes" of water in her cage which she was actually freely drinking from even when there was dripping water. I used a water bottle with pin holes in it to drip water (which rolled down a stick and into one of the dishes), which she would also drink from. In fact, in the mornings she would hook her front feet on the top of the cage and stand there demanding you to drip water into her mouth (which we would do of course). When I got her I took her to the vet right away for a check up, and she did a fecal and had worms, which we treated and later she had a negative fecal. About a month after that I took her into the vet for a check up, just to make sure she was looking ok, and the vet said she couldn't have looked better, and I couldn't have gotten her to grow faster had I wanted to.
About a month ago she cut down on her eating ... about 5 crickets a day, and no longer wanted meal worms. I thought it was just because she was no longer on a growth spurt. She still was very active and drinking like crazy. Then, last friday I came home from school (she had been acting normal the day before and had woken up like normal that morning), and she looked horrible! Her color was like that of cardboard, her eyes sunken in and closed and listless. We rushed her to the closest emergency vet that works with exotics (our normal vet was already closed) and they gave her subQ luids for dehydration. They rebounded her nicely, but the next day she was looking sluggish and eye sunken again so I took her back for more fluids. That monday morning we took her to her vet (who specializes in exotics). They hospitalized her, started her on baytril and interferon, subQ fluids, force feeding (AD canned dog food), and vitamins. They gave her an enima with barrium so that we could do a barrium study with xrays. It appeared that something was impacting her (but not eggs, there were none), and after 8.5 hours it had only made it to her stomache. They were givng her warm soaks to try and move things along. Tuesday she was looking better, but still had not passed any solid feces, but her color was normal and she was more active. Wednesday when I got there to pick her up for th eholidays (I'm a college student and my mom takes care of her when I'm gone but wasn't up to all of the intensive care), and she had taken a turn for the worse. She kept opening her mouth wide up like she was yawning. An hour after I got her home she died in my hands.
I feel horrible, like I killed her. I don't know what I did wrong. My vet is afraid that our problem has been a long running one, and started when she cut back on her eating. You could feel the buldge in her belly from the stopped up food at the end.
Tomorrow I am taking her in for an autopsy, so I guess that i will know more then.
I loved her, and she was such a joy .. she even would eat her crickets off of a spoon, and would snuggle up against your chest and fall asleep after she had been around climbing.
If anyone can tell me what I've done wrong, I would appreciate. In case I decide to get another one ... which i'm not so sure of right now, considering I've apparently already killed one ... maybe I can learn from my mistakes.
Sorry this was so long.
