Sonny13
Chameleon Enthusiast
Hi fellow members,
This will be a heavy thread and some pictures will be shocking, however I thinks it´s essential for our community to increase the learning curve for every chameleon keeper and to try filtering out unknown trial and errors to prevent it from happening again.
Why this thread? I´ve read lately, including my own, stories about ´healthy´ chameleons from beginners to intermediate to experience keepers die without any obvious indicators within 12 till 36 hours.
That ´without any obvious signs´ I would love to crystallize till maybe obvious signs. Because, with bad husbandry declining chameleons are mostly pretty obvious for us with the well known health signs. However, I would like the hear the stories from our fellow members, of chameleon that suddenly declined and died before we could bring them to a vet. Because, what are for us obvious indicators that gives us red flags:
- Sunken eyes
- No eating
- No drinking
- No stool for days
- Sudden swollen eyes
- Blood in the poop
- Mouth open and nose the air
- Mucous mouth
But what if your chameleon didn´t show any of these indications 12 hours prior to death, this is exactly what happened to my chameleon and what keeps bothering me!
What I would wish and hopefully I find followers, is to share our stories about our precious ones passing away from us and especially in what chronological order of signs. If possible and others agree with this thread, then maybe @Brad could be pin it to the health clinic topic, to keep it under the attention for everyone.
I wi´ll start with my terrible experience of my beautiful purple dinosaur Cher.
A brief history about Cher´s last weeks. Cher started to show receptive colors around the first week of March and this went on with restless behavior and everything what comes to it. This was her first clutch and as I witnessed this with Bella, this can be hard for them the first time. By the beginning of May, she still didn´t show any digging behavior and that was when I started to get restless. She never went to the bottom of her bioactive enclosure. By the time she started hiding and not basking I knew she was getting close, same as Bella´s first time. When she started to loosing interest in eating two weeks ago, I knew it was becoming critical and I made a rigorous decision, I swapped Neo and Cher from enclosure, because Neo´s enclosure has more foliage and hide outs at the bottom (and this was pure intuition). The next morning Cher went directly down to the bottom and we hadn´t seen her all day, that´s when we started to get a good feeling. In the evening just after lights went out, she sat all covered in dirt back up on the branch. And in the morning she was basking all wrinkled, skinny and covered in dirt. So later that day I swapped her back gave her a good long drink and lots of yummy, which she ate and drank, this was the 20th of May. I could see she was a bit dehydrated, and therefore I added the dripper for her, which she also used several days.
As the days past she ate and drank normal, only her `gravid colors´ stayed (the black and pink). She did her normal routine and I even had put her in the olive tree outside for some fresh sun, which she enjoyed for hours. Then something happened which I noticed, after her last time outside, she didn´t bask anymore under the heat and UVB light and stayed underneath the led plant light. Therefore, she stayed dulled in color. I imaged that maybe because of the bright sunlight outside, she now was confused and choice the brightest light in her enclosure. This went on for the last week, but she was still eating and drinking and active. Then the last 2 days I noticed she was regularly closing her left eye, that´s what made thinking about a vit A deficiency or multivit overdosing. Have seen this with my Veiled and Jackson sometime, after giving them Respashy Calcium Plus (which I stopped using). And normally this goes away within 1 á 2 days. Monday she didn´t show interest in food, which made worried a bit and knew that maybe a vet appointment was needed within the following days. Then when I came home yesterday from work, I found her high in the enclosure not basking and with her eyes shut. When I took her out of the enclosure to check her, she had full grip and power, however she all the sudden grabbed her back leg with her tail and she laid down on a side on my hand, her colors where normal and no sunken eyes. Then I put her under the UVB and heat light and that´s when she suddenly rapidly declined. Retracted her eyes and saw her heavily breathing, colors stayed normal and 2 hours later she hang on her tail from the branch. This is when I tried to take her off, but she still had a firm tail grip. Eventually, I managed to get her of and laid her on a towel, to slowly slip away comfortly. She passed away in the morning, but still had the most beautiful colors…….
After almost 2 hours when I took her of the branch
During the morning before she passed away
This will be a heavy thread and some pictures will be shocking, however I thinks it´s essential for our community to increase the learning curve for every chameleon keeper and to try filtering out unknown trial and errors to prevent it from happening again.
Why this thread? I´ve read lately, including my own, stories about ´healthy´ chameleons from beginners to intermediate to experience keepers die without any obvious indicators within 12 till 36 hours.
That ´without any obvious signs´ I would love to crystallize till maybe obvious signs. Because, with bad husbandry declining chameleons are mostly pretty obvious for us with the well known health signs. However, I would like the hear the stories from our fellow members, of chameleon that suddenly declined and died before we could bring them to a vet. Because, what are for us obvious indicators that gives us red flags:
- Sunken eyes
- No eating
- No drinking
- No stool for days
- Sudden swollen eyes
- Blood in the poop
- Mouth open and nose the air
- Mucous mouth
But what if your chameleon didn´t show any of these indications 12 hours prior to death, this is exactly what happened to my chameleon and what keeps bothering me!
What I would wish and hopefully I find followers, is to share our stories about our precious ones passing away from us and especially in what chronological order of signs. If possible and others agree with this thread, then maybe @Brad could be pin it to the health clinic topic, to keep it under the attention for everyone.
I wi´ll start with my terrible experience of my beautiful purple dinosaur Cher.
A brief history about Cher´s last weeks. Cher started to show receptive colors around the first week of March and this went on with restless behavior and everything what comes to it. This was her first clutch and as I witnessed this with Bella, this can be hard for them the first time. By the beginning of May, she still didn´t show any digging behavior and that was when I started to get restless. She never went to the bottom of her bioactive enclosure. By the time she started hiding and not basking I knew she was getting close, same as Bella´s first time. When she started to loosing interest in eating two weeks ago, I knew it was becoming critical and I made a rigorous decision, I swapped Neo and Cher from enclosure, because Neo´s enclosure has more foliage and hide outs at the bottom (and this was pure intuition). The next morning Cher went directly down to the bottom and we hadn´t seen her all day, that´s when we started to get a good feeling. In the evening just after lights went out, she sat all covered in dirt back up on the branch. And in the morning she was basking all wrinkled, skinny and covered in dirt. So later that day I swapped her back gave her a good long drink and lots of yummy, which she ate and drank, this was the 20th of May. I could see she was a bit dehydrated, and therefore I added the dripper for her, which she also used several days.
As the days past she ate and drank normal, only her `gravid colors´ stayed (the black and pink). She did her normal routine and I even had put her in the olive tree outside for some fresh sun, which she enjoyed for hours. Then something happened which I noticed, after her last time outside, she didn´t bask anymore under the heat and UVB light and stayed underneath the led plant light. Therefore, she stayed dulled in color. I imaged that maybe because of the bright sunlight outside, she now was confused and choice the brightest light in her enclosure. This went on for the last week, but she was still eating and drinking and active. Then the last 2 days I noticed she was regularly closing her left eye, that´s what made thinking about a vit A deficiency or multivit overdosing. Have seen this with my Veiled and Jackson sometime, after giving them Respashy Calcium Plus (which I stopped using). And normally this goes away within 1 á 2 days. Monday she didn´t show interest in food, which made worried a bit and knew that maybe a vet appointment was needed within the following days. Then when I came home yesterday from work, I found her high in the enclosure not basking and with her eyes shut. When I took her out of the enclosure to check her, she had full grip and power, however she all the sudden grabbed her back leg with her tail and she laid down on a side on my hand, her colors where normal and no sunken eyes. Then I put her under the UVB and heat light and that´s when she suddenly rapidly declined. Retracted her eyes and saw her heavily breathing, colors stayed normal and 2 hours later she hang on her tail from the branch. This is when I tried to take her off, but she still had a firm tail grip. Eventually, I managed to get her of and laid her on a towel, to slowly slip away comfortly. She passed away in the morning, but still had the most beautiful colors…….
After almost 2 hours when I took her of the branch
During the morning before she passed away
