Update on my Panther Cham swallowing a rock

A few days ago I posted up an emergency thread about my 7 month old Male Panther ingesting a rock. I had smaller polished rocks in his aboricola pot when he was a baby and planned on putting bigger ones in there after he reached a certain size. Well about 4 days ago I walked in and saw him grab up a rock and start chomping on it. I went to scare him hoping he would drop it but he just swallowed it right down. It looked to about 1/4-3/8 inch in size. DO NOT EVER PUT ROCKS THIS SMALL IN AN ENCLOSURE!!! All seasoned Cham owners will already know this, but to you beginners please follow that to the letter. Rocks of that size are fine when they are babies, but Chams grow up fast so just fore go smaller ones altogether. Use bigger rocks in your plant pots, like over an inch in diameter, preferably bigger. Anyway, the second he swallowed that rock I got out my shop vac and vacuumed out each and every last rock and replaced them with large round river stones that are well over an inch. I had a few members highly advise me to take him to the vet, but in my area herp vets are few in number and the ones we do have no jack about Chameleons. I am convinced I know more about Chams than they do. I have had 2 Chams die within 24 hours of taking them to my local vets who deal in "exotics". The long story short is I left my little dude alone, watched for his stools. He pooped everyday normally since he ate the rock and has been acting fine. I already told myself if he was producing no stools at all in about 3-4 days I would have taken him somewhere. So I fed him normally and I am happy to report he passed the rock this morning. I am one happy Cham dad

What a relief that must be, these chams do know how to worry us. Glad he is fine.

That's really good to hear.

I'm glad to hear that all worked out with your guy. Years ago one of my daughter's female panthers ate a rock out of her plant. The vet kept thinking it was an egg and in order to save money my daughter opted not to x ray. Well the female died and the autopsy showed one of those pretty little green rocks that she had in the plant.

Glad to hear thing worked out for you

Give him a good misting hahha i imagine his lil bum hole is probably sore

GlassEyez said:

Give him a good misting hahha i imagine his lil bum hole is probably sore

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LOL poor lil guy

Thanks everyone! I am so relieved. I swear he is going to end up giving me an ulcer. He is constantly nibbling on leaves of the plant and gnawing on stuff. I just hope that was the only rock inside of him. After all I only caught him eating one rock. I am glad I did catch him in the act though because it prompted me to get those rocks out of there immediately. He is ornery!!

Glad it worked its way out without harming him!
I don't know if your local vets are clueless about chams or if they were just too ill to recover by the time they got to the vet but maybe someone can recommend a decent cham vet near you.

WOW what a relief SO happy it turned out good

Glad to hear he is okay

Sometimes, I swear, these little guys do things just to make us freak out, and give them special attention lol

Lovereps said:

Glad it worked its way out without harming him!
I don't know if your local vets are clueless about chams or if they were just too ill to recover by the time they got to the vet but maybe someone can recommend a decent cham vet near you.

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Honestly a little bit of both. Both of my Chams were pretty ill, but the vets really seem to know more about Iguanas and Turtles. Two of those vets didn't even know the species of my Chams, that's a red flag for me. Yes I really need to find a good Herp vet with Cham knowledge.

Adding another update to this story. Just cleaned his poo out today and there was another rock in it!!! I was afraid of this. It was quite smaller than the other one. Hmm, he is acting really active and he ate way more today than he has in the time since I saw the first rock swallowing. Guess I will just have to keep monitoring him closely.

Thats great to here dude! I hope he lives a happy and healthy life!