Post Office Nightmare

One of our members was shipping me his veiled chameleon he could no longer keep. He sent it Express mail on Monday. The chameleon didn't ship out until Tues. from the SW - I live in the SE. Basically, when he didn't arrive Wednesday, we grew concerned. Yesterday (Thurs.) he was unable to be tracked and we feared the worst. It was a comedy of errors.

This morning, I was fortunate enough to get in touch with the right people (most at the PO were not very helpful) at the right time and my mail carrier was about to put him on the truck along with the day's deliveries. I insisted they keep him right where he was and drove over and got him. Luckily, he was still alive and alert. He immediately crawled out onto my arm and we drove home. He warmed up and ate pretty well. I'm just looking for advice on minimizing stress now and I have not seem him drink although his owner states that he didn't drink in front of people. I know how the body works for the rest of the animal world (kidneys shut down w/o water) so I'm worried about something similar here. I suppose the appetite is a good thing and he is moving around well. I misted well a few times today and set up a dripper. He also is used to distilled water. Is that better than the RO I use?

Thanks for any advice,
Dana

most of the time if a chameleon is dehydrated it will not eat. My veiled never drinks in front of me thank god for little drippers.

That's terrible but I am glad you got him right on time! Ok so my best advice is just to mist his cage. Make sure you have plants, vines and lots of branches where he can climb and hide in. He will eventually drink from the drops produced on the plants and vines. Also give him his space right now to get adjusted to his new home. Try not to handle him now because if he is this stressed out, handling will cause a little more stress and you don't want anything had to happen. He will calm down on his own hopefully. Let him just explore his new home and get a good nights rest. I hope this helps.

you can always feed some juicy worms like silks or horns. What I do sometimes if I cannot get my chameleon to drink, I take the worm and dip it is water or set it on branch where the dripper drips right on top of it. Wet worm!! lol

Thats one of the problems with usps (I'm assuming thats what you used because of the "express mail" comment.) You have to check to make sure they can get your package to you the next day. Sometimes they cant get the package to you until 2 days later. It's usually much better to use fedex or ups.

I guess there are new laws and FedEx would only ship between businesses as that was our first attempt. The sender was phoned to come back and pick him up, so it was back to square one.

Dana

In the future's anyone shipping a live animal should use websites like shipyourreptiles.com and reptilesexpress.com.

They are fedex shippers with live animal permission

is it expensive to post chameleons?

sarahlynne said:

is it expensive to post chameleons?

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$45 to $60 depending on where you sending it. It has to go overnight delivery.

Instate costs about $25

Some chams are anti-social drinkers
I just check the urates in their poop.

I would NEVER send anything alive other then maybe, roaches, via USPS.
They are waaaay too unrelieable.

I wouldn't risk shipping a live animal using US Postal. Too many variables, delays, and poor tracking issues.

At ShipYourReptiles, we use FedEx for the carrier. They do a great job.

For folks with individual FedEx accounts and certifications, there is a restriction of only shipping business to business. However, using the SYR service, you are allowed to ship both to and from residential addresses as well.

Our rates start at 20% off the FedEx retail rate as well.

Glad to hear your cham made it ok.

ShipYourReptiles said:

I wouldn't risk shipping a live animal using US Postal. Too many variables, delays, and poor tracking issues.

At ShipYourReptiles, we use FedEx for the carrier. They do a great job.

For folks with individual FedEx accounts and certifications, there is a restriction of only shipping business to business. However, using the SYR service, you are allowed to ship both to and from residential addresses as well.

Our rates start at 20% off the FedEx retail rate as well.

Glad to hear your cham made it ok.

Click to expand...

Wouldnt use anyone else!

Glad he arrived safely. That could have been much worse.

Wow, wish we had asked the forum about shipping last week and avoided the trouble. I have shipped fire bellied newt eggs without any issues with the USPS Express Mail, but again, they were eggs. The thought of my veiled sitting in the dark, cold PO lost still makes me cringe. I'm so grateful he arrived alive, but I am still concerned about his lack of interest in food since that initial day and he is still rather dark. I bought a new thermometer that quickly broke. I've had no luck with those, but have plenty of heat on him and the cage is 4 feet tall so he can get away from it if he wants to.

Dana

Sorry I know this thread is a bit dead, just wondering on how he's doing.