Really, I'm not a stupid person...

[jajeanpierre]

You can be forgiven if you don't agree with my self assessment....

I am a new chameleon owner having bought Emma exactly a month ago from Petsmart. I believe she is 4 to 5 months old now.

She's been gaining a lot of weight and eating like a little Miss Piggy. Some suggested she might be gravid. I have been overfeeding, so hope not, but set up a laying bin today anyway. She still has her baby colors but better safe than sorry.

While I was rearranging her cage, I put her outside on a 4 1/2 foot tall hibiscus beside my husband who was lying in the sun by the pool. I want her to have unfiltered sun because I don't know whether she had good UVB lighting or even good food before I bought her. I'm especially worried about her calcium/D3 levels if she is gravid at such a young age.

Emma happily sunned on her tree. She's used to that tree, having sat on it in the window of my office. She's never come down, other than to grab some soldier fly larvae I left for her in a bowl at the base.

I checked on her every five or ten minutes, harassing my husband to check on her in between. After an hour, I went to check again. No Emma. The tree was on bare concrete. No Emma anywhere. I triple checked the tree. Still no Emma.

We widen our search area and my husband spotted her climbing on a Sago palm not five feet from the base of a 40 foot oak tree..... Lucky, lucky, lucky me and even more lucky Emma. She had traveled 10 feet across bare concrete, another 10 feet across a mulched area and up a Sago Palm in about five minutes. I feel so lucky to have found her.

I'm worried because the Sago Palm is very toxic, but I think it is only toxic if it is ingested and she has never given any inclination to eat greenery. I noticed one eye is squinting, so I flushed it with artificial tears that have no preservatives in them and are in little individual one-use sterile packets. I then washed her with hand dish washing detergent, gave her a really good rinse and then rinsed her again in her cage with a spray bottle in case the Sago Palm had a toxic residue she could have picked up.

Her eye is a lot more open, but will still squint and getting better every time I flush it. If need be, I'll take her in to the vet Monday. I think she scratched it climbing up the Sago Palm. I found little tiny scratch marks her turret of that eye and her side.

I feel very lucky.

 

[frikitiki]

You were soooo lucky... It only takes a couple of moments or a simple distraction to lose a chameleon. Personally I use a caging system that a friend made out wire screen and conduit piping. Its a block of 16 cages on caster for when I put them outside.

 

[happiness]

Similar thing happened to me. My male Nosybe climbed out of his fake tree. I searched 4 hours and it was starting to get dark. I was so upset! I know how you felt! MY last efforts was to bring my 2 females out, cages and all. I put the female he loves on a picnic table underneath this huge tree right next to our house. I sat there looking around for a while, not wanting to give up but knowing it would be even harder now that it was getting dark.. then I looked up to see this bright blue object above. It was my Nosybe!! His tail was curled around a higher branch, basically hanging from it. Eyeballing the female. It was a real relief. From an emotional sadness to complete joy.

I'm lucky mine didn't go into these thick thorny bushes we have next to the house. I don't think I would have found him.

I've learned my lesson!

 

[sharp229]

I'm glad you were able to find her. They can get away pretty fast. I would recommend you watch them constantly while outside unless in a cage. Even then, there have been stories of birds swooping down to grab them right from in front of their owners.

 

[jajeanpierre]

I'm glad you were able to find her. They can get away pretty fast. I would recommend you watch them constantly while outside unless in a cage. Even then, there have been stories of birds swooping down to grab them right from in front of their owners.

I was surprised it happened. Her tree was right beside my husband (who insisted he would notice any movement out of the corner of his eye). I can blame him all I want, but really it wasn't very smart to put her out where she could get lost so easily.

I did have a circle of wire with a top that I could have thrown over the tree, but it would have bent or broken a few of the branches. I hadn't gotten around to fashioning one that would fit the bush. I mean, really, I should have known better.

Birds are a big threat. Accipiters hawks (Sharp Shinned hawk and Coopers hawk) are incredibly bold. I've heard of them snatching parrots right off the shoulders of their owners. Ravens, crows and seagulls would also not be intimidated by a person's presence. When she was lost, I was terrified my chickens that were in the back yard might find her first.... I feel really lucky.

The thing that really bugs me is I really should have known better. Even if Emma had always stayed high in that tree didn't mean she would yesterday and the risk to her life if she went on the ground was very high. I just shouldn't have taken the chance unless I was sitting with her watching all the time.

That's why I wrote, to remind people how easy it is to do something risky like that.

 

[PattyCake]

Bringing your chameleon outdoors and not in a cage can be a risky move. They can wander away surprisingly fast!

 

[lindseymeder16]

Ooo you are lucky! I had the same thing happen with my veiled...only he pretty much jumped off the stick that I was holding and grabbed onto our orange tree. We had to get a latter and chop some tree off just to get him! They are adventurous little ones

 

[MeruJack]

A similar incident happened to me and a pair of Jackson's this summer. The male and female were each in their own tree several feet away. My male hates walking on my dead lawn and so never ventures to the ground. I ran inside the house to get something and when I came out the male was not in his tree! I couldn't believe it! I frantically searched the yard watching for the smaller of movement and saw none. Then I noticed that my female had begun to turn black so I searched her tree and found he had made it out of his tree, across a few feet of grass and a foot or so of pavement and had climbed up the female's tree and made it to within two feet of her. Her color change was my only indication of where my male had escaped to. I felt very lucky and very grateful to my female chameleon. That same female chameleon, a few months later, mated with said male and is now 4.5 months pregnant! How long should I expect her first pregnancy to last? She is huge! Literally huge!