Last night my partner and I unfortunately lost my 23 week year old jackson, and I'm looking to see if anyone has had simular experiences and can explain what happened. We have had him for a month and until yesterday he had been eating/drinking/going to the bathroom perfectly fine. He spent majority of yesterday on the side of his mesh viv by his heat lamp which is unusual for him. Normally loves exploring. When my partner went to turn his heat lamp off he couldn't see him, which isn't unusual as he normally goes to hide in one of the plants to go to sleep. Before we went to bed my partner checked on him as we always do and spotted him on the floor. He had turned black from his tail to half way up his body, had completely loss of balance, had his mouth open panting and looked like he had blood in his mouth. We turned on the heat lamp again and my partner held him close to the heat, which my jackson seemed to react well to for a couple of minutes. He managed to roll onto his feet again and rose his head towards the heat. We also tried giving him some water but he didnt seem interested. He passed away sat on my partners hand after about 10 minutes of finding him and putting him under the heat. I called a friend who works with reptiles and went through everything (type a of feed, dusting food, plants, heat type ect) and said he couldn't think of anything that had been done wrong and maybe it was just one of these things as he was so young. I've spent all day racking my brain trying to think if I had done anything wrong. If anyone has any possible answers that would be really helpful.
Sudden death of jackson
- Thread starter Duskywolf
- Start date
Virgil1972
Avid Member
Fill this out https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/how-to-ask-for-help.66/. Just copy the questions on this thread and answer them. This will give everyone a better idea of what happened.
Chameleon Info:
Cage Info:
- Your Chameleon - Jacksons male, 23 weeks old,have had him 1 month
- Handling - Rarely handled, around 3 times in 1 month.
- Feeding - Crickets and curly wings (his favorite). About 5 Crickets and 5-10 curly wings (hard to count when they just jump out) was fed every morning, some times a top up later on if he had eaten them all, feed was dusted with arcadia full spectrum a full earth a, weekly was given feed dusted in calcium powder (don't have the name as was given some of the pet shops supply), Crickets were gut fed pro reptile.
- Supplements - look above
- Watering - repti rain, every 3 hours for 45 secs. Seemed to be drinking fine until yesterday
- Fecal Description - dark brown, looked healthy, seemed regular
- History -
Cage Info:
- Cage Type - large zoomed reptibreeze
- Lighting - zoomed reptisun led uvb hood with t5 reptisun uvb lamp
- Temperature - basking created 84f, viv daytime heat 75. Night time temp 65. Habistat dimming thermostat and thermo-hygrometer.
- Humidity - 50-60%, created with regular misting and live plants. Using a termo hygrometer to measure
- Plants - both fake and live plants. 1 ficus Benjamina and 1 schefflera arbroicola.
- Placement - cage is about 4 meters from the window, and about a meter and a half off the floor. Sits on top of snake tank.
- Location - uk
Virgil1972
Avid Member
Did the calcium you dusted with have D3 in it?
I'm unsure what was in the calcium powder as it was given to me in a little food bag by the pet shop. I was just told to use it once a week and the arcadia everyday. With regards to misting we were told 3 times a day but felt that was too little so we increased the amount of misting to 5 times a day and were told to adjust over time when we figured out the correct balance. The auto mister we have mists for 1 min maximum. We did mist more if we felt it was needed like when he shedded. The mister reached the whole viv and left the plants dripping with water. The live plants have been in the viv for 2 weeks and never needed watering as the soil was always moist.
jpowell86
Chameleon Enthusiast
Sorry to hear that you and you partner lost your chameleon.
Reality is, we could speculate all day and still have nothing definitive. Your only chance to have a better understanding of what happened and why is by having a necropsy done for diagnostic pathology. These workups are not always cheap. I have them done because I have quite a few chameleons and if something sporadic happens that could be a detriment to the others, I need to know. But, if this is your only chameleon, you forgoing this expense is reasonable.
I don't know you of course and I don't know how you react to things like I am about to mention. But, if you do forgo the necropsy, I would suggest opening up the animal yourself. Some causes of death/health issues in general are very apparent, especially if there is a high parasitic load.
Reality is, we could speculate all day and still have nothing definitive. Your only chance to have a better understanding of what happened and why is by having a necropsy done for diagnostic pathology. These workups are not always cheap. I have them done because I have quite a few chameleons and if something sporadic happens that could be a detriment to the others, I need to know. But, if this is your only chameleon, you forgoing this expense is reasonable.
I don't know you of course and I don't know how you react to things like I am about to mention. But, if you do forgo the necropsy, I would suggest opening up the animal yourself. Some causes of death/health issues in general are very apparent, especially if there is a high parasitic load.
He drank perfectly well though, there was always water droplets somewhere, it was never compleatly dry. If it was possible for the mister to go to 5 minutes it would of flooded the viv
He's already been buried now as he died nearly 24 hours ago and we don't have the money for a necropsy. I wouldn't have a clue what I'd be looking for if I had tried to open him up, plus he was so small I wouldn't be sure if I would of seen anything. I was just trying to make sure I hadn't done anything wrong. I've wanted a chameleon for years so I read as much as I could online and in books. We have both kept/keep other reptiles which have done really well so we are not complete novices. Just trying to make sure we didn't miss anything.
jpowell86
Chameleon Enthusiast
If you will post some pics of his viv, I will be glad to tell you if something is off.
rminnis
Established Member
The enclosure needs to dry out between mistings. I owned and used a reptirain for about a year it became pretty smelly pretty quick im wondering was it new? Was it cleaned before used for the month you had him? I would go back to previous owner and see how it was kept. Sorry for you sudden loss
I've also included a picture of what he looked like 4 days ago when we had him out to make sure his shed was going well
The enclosure needs to dry out between mistings. I owned and used a reptirain for about a year it became pretty smelly pretty quick im wondering was it new? Was it cleaned before used for the month you had him? I would go back to previous owner and see how it was kept. Sorry for you sudden loss
Yeah the reptirain was brand new and cleaned before hand. Also both the fake and live plants were also cleaned. The previous owner was a pet shop, they bred chams upstairs and used a reptirain up there. In the shop area they had smaller vivs with fake plants, branches, seemed to be hand sprayed, and had simular heating/lighting system to mine.
jpowell86
Chameleon Enthusiast
After seeing your setup, my first inclination as to his sudden death is impaction. Having substrate is okay if it is the appropriate substrate. But bark chips is a real killer in chameleons. That would totally explain his sudden death. They can get pieces of the bark in their system when shooting prey. These pieces don't digest and don't always get through the system without catastrophic effects. Your setup otherwise is fine. But if you bring in another chameleon, ditch the wood chips or you will more than likely see the same result.
Ah suppose that makes sense, he never crawled to the bottom and I just went on what they had in the pet shop and what was advised by them, which was orchid bark. What would of been a better substrate or was it not needed? Thank you very much
Virgil1972
Avid Member
Substrate is not needed. Many do not use it.
jpowell86
Chameleon Enthusiast
And he may have eaten something foreign before you even bought him. That is always a possibility. If you are using a screen cage, I would recommend not using a substrate at all actually. It is much easier that way. I keep all my montane species in glass, so I have bioactive substrates and fully planted enclosures. But the species I keep in screen have zero substrate except for the females.
Thank you everyone for the help and information. Just wished I knew about how to prevent this before hand. After looking it up more the symptoms look and sound all too familiar. Also wished I had spotted he was in trouble earlier on, there wasnt much I could do at mid night apart from give him water and heat. Suppose it shows you shouldn't always listen to pet shop owners. Going to miss watching the little guy.
