1 month old Furcifer pardalis

[sebitto]

Hi everyone,

I live in madrid and at yesterday´s reptile expo i fell in love with a cute couple of young Furcifer pardalis and brought them home. Its a boy and girl , which i hope will grow up nice and healthy. The boy seems to be doing great, but the girl has spent all of today hanging upside down with her eyes closed.

The setup I have for the little guys is as follows:

Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon -
Furcifer pardalis, M and F, both 1 months old in my care for 2 days
Handling - as little as possible
Feeding - feeding micro sized crickets (0.5 cm or so) The girl ate 4 the first day the boy 3. Today the girl has not eaten and the boy has eaten 1. Gut loading cricket with dried potato flakes, fish flakes and some carrot.
Supplements - I am dusting all crickets fed with a vitamin/clacium mix that the breeder i bought these guys from (real nice knowledgebale guy) mixes up himself. He told me from his personal experience to use the supplement at every feeding.
Watering - The enclosure is set up with an artificial watering system that mists three times a day (morning, evening and night). The chamaleons when they drank, was from droplets on the glass and from plant leaves.
Fecal Description - Male has yet to defecate (or he did and missed it), the girl after some trouble defacated today. Colour black, with white (uric acid)...looked healthy but hung from the cloaca for an hour or so after defecation.
Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites? No.
History - Bought a couple of days ago at a reptile show in Spain

Cage Info:
Cage Type - Exoterra style, mesh top glass terrarium with ventilation on the front. It has about 5cm on the bottom of coconut husk to maintain humidity (ive created some space underneath the substrate with plastic trays to create drainage)
Lighting - It has a UV 5.0 15W tube for light and a 60W spot lamp for heat at the top corner of the cage.
Schedule lights: On at 8.30am off at 7pm
Temperature - The maximum temperature under the spot lamp is 32oC and the minimum temperature is 24oC at the bottom of the enclosure (controlled by a digital thermometer).
Lowest overnight temp? 22oC Mesured digitally
Humidity - Measured with an analog meter, it ocillates between 60-80% The Chams have an automatic water/misting system that sprays them for 1 min, 3 times a day (once in the morning 8am, once in the afternoon at 2pm and once at night 11pm)
Plants - Mixture of live and plastic, though mosty plastic at the moment on account of the terrarium only recently being set up. There are also some live plants, of undetermined species (2 types only).
Placement - The cage is situated by a window in a relatively quiet part of the house. the top of the cage is about 1.5 m from the floor.
Location - Madrid, Spain

Current Problem - The young boy is behaving as you would expect a young pardalis to behave, moving about a lot, drinking from the leaves eating dusted crickets and flattening himself to get as much heat from the basking light as possible every now and again. The girl seemed fine yesterday but has spent most of today basically inactive with her eyes closed... she hasn´t shown any interest in the crickets in the feeding dish and has drunk very little water.

I have kept a male panther chamaleon before, but this is my first time trying to rear such young chamaleons. Any thoughts and advice from the community would be greatly appreciated? I´ll look into posting pics soon.

 

[bradley]

The basking temperature sounds a little high. I would aim for it to be about 29c for babies that age. To be honest they should not have been sold so young. If possible it would be good to separate them as they will need to be eventually anyway. That way the female can get as much food as the male and there will be no competition.

 

[sebitto]

Oh I forgot to mention in my original post that these guys are Ambilobe.

Terrarium placement:

Terrarium set up:

The girl (Rita): She´s the one not doing so great it seems

and finally The Boy (Luigi)

Comments/suggestions welcome Thanks!

 

[sebitto]

Thanks Bradley!

Thank you Bradley. I will try to lower the temperature on the basking site a little (although the boy seems to be loving it) and see if that helps. I already have a mesh enclosure ready (can´t remember exactly but something like a 1.22 high x 76 long x 45 wide flexiscreen) to separate them into when they get a little older (3-4 months?) Yesterday both these guys ate from forcepts and i was hoping to be able to keep that up to monitor their food intake and avoid fights. Lets see how the girl does this first week.

 

[pssh]

What brand is your uvb light and how old is it? Brand new bulbs have a burn in period where they may put out excessive amounts of UVB which can cause young animals to close their eyes. She might be more sensitive to it if that is the case. Try removing the light for a day or so and see what happens.

 

[carol5208]

I would remove the mulch at the bottom. He might shoot for prey and wind up eating that instead which can cause problems. Best is nothing on the bottom. Yeah, it doesn't look as cool but it is the safest most sanitary way to go. That stuff is gonna get all wet and soggy which will create mold overtime. Seeing that you are housing him in glass that will breed even more bacteria cause it will hold the humidity in more than a screen cage.

 

[Chameleonmaster]

Keep in mind that they're still young so they can be in the same cage but in about a month or 2 they will need separate enclosures.

 

[Olimpia]

Hola! A fellow member from Madrid! Welcome to the forum.

Unfortunately, like someone already mentioned, it's really very irresponsible to sell chameleons this young. Here in the US no one reputable sells them under 2.5-3 months of age to new buyers, unless the person really wants to assume the risk. They just tend to be more delicate, so it's hard to say exactly what could be going on with her, as it could just be the stress of the show plus the move to your house.

I, personally, would add in a few more plants to the cage. To add more cover, which may make her feel safer AND if it's a question of light intensity, will give her more shaded places to hide as well.

I also wonder what is in this supplement the breeder is using. Is there any way to get his recipe? At least how many vitamins are in it and in what quantity, mineral/vitamin imbalances can cause symptoms like these. In adition, what you feed your crickets is important as well, so try to avoid the fish flakes (too much animal protein), and use a few more fruits/veggies. Carrots are a good start, so look into other good fresh produce to feed the insects.

 

[Texas Panther Man]

First thing I noticed was your misting at night. STOP misting at night immediately. You should mist about 1hr after lights are turned on again at mid day and mist again about 2hrs before lights out. That gives the cage enough time to dry out before lights out. Misting at night can cause upper respiratory infections or the baby could actually inhale some of the water into the lungs while sleeping.

You should be gutloading the feeders with a proper dry & wet gutload. Repashy makes a good dry gutload with their bug burger product. But you will need to add fruits (apple, orange, etc..) & veggies (carrots, zucchini, romaine lettuce, cabbage, etc...) to make up the wet portion of the gutload.

Plain calcium should be used on most feeding days.
2x a month use calcium w/D3 added
2x a month use a multivitamin dust on feeeders
I use the D3 & multivita on Sundays as its easier to keep track of what is to be used by doing it on the same day.

I would attempt to put the female outside in a screened cage with supervision for a cpl of hrs and see if the natural uvb might perk her up a bit. Make sure its in an area where she can get sun & shade if she gets to hot. And mist her cage while shes out there to keep her hydrated.

 

[claki]

hi Sebito
well this is the problem her in europe, pardalisbabys are sold from meny breaders way to young . 4 weeks old pardalisbabys is verry risky.
Like other members already sayd
the temp. is much to high , i keep my babypardalis at 26-28 grad, and you must but much more plats into the terrarium .
also good is fruitflys for so young pardalis

 

[sebitto]

Thanks for all the great help guys... unfortunately i woke up today to find the girl chamaleon dead on her branch. I know it happens, but i still feel pretty bad about it. Anyway, I will make the changes to the setup suggested by the everyone and keep a close eye on the surviving boy. I´ll post updates (hopefully with good news) soon.

To answer Pssh´s question: The fluro tube is a 5.0 reptisun that is about 3 months old. UV outpust got tested in september last year (still releasing plenty of uv),l before it was put away.

 

[Chameleonmaster]

Sorry to hear about the baby dying. Hopefully the male will survive and become nice and strong. Just make changes that were suggested and you'll be set.

 

[Olimpia]

I'm sorry to hear about the female, babies this small are hard to raise sometimes, even for very experienced keepers.

You could contact the breeder, as typically breeders will offer some sort of a guarantee (at least 7 days). This seems to be a fairly universal thing among reputable breeders, so I would check and see if he's willing to help you at all with a refund or replacement. Although with how Spain is right now, I don't know how easy getting anything for free is lately...

 

[Texas Panther Man]

I doubt he will get anywhere with the breeder. He said he bought them at a pet shop in Spain. I bet the store doesnt offer a health guarantee.

Good luck with the male.

 

[sebitto]

Update: The Boy was active and moving around today and starting to display lighter, I´m not so stressed out, colours. He ate three crickets today and drank plenty of water after misting. Hopefully i can look after the little guy well enough for him to grow up nice and strong.

I have sent a couple of emails to the breeder, who said he would keep in touch but I have yet to get a reply. The guy is from a company in Czech Republic called "Terra Company". Like i said when i met him at the reptile expo here in Madrid (expoterraria) he seemed like a real nice guy, and that he honestly cared about his animals. Hopefully he gets in touch and lets me know what he thinks may have happened.

Again thank you everyone for your helpful advice and also your kinds words (Olimpia your message really made me feel a lot better, thank you )

 

[sebitto]

Doing great!

1 week down and Luigi is doing great and really taking to his new surroundings. It might be my imagination, but he seems to be getting bigger everyday. Thanks again for all the great help. I´m looking forward to him growing up. I´ll post pics of him every now and again on the forums, though this is probably the last one of him on this thread. He´s out by the window getting a bit of that nice mediterranean sun while perched on our bonsai.

 

[Texas Panther Man]

Great, he looks good in that pic. His eyes are nice and full and he looks healthy.

 

[Tay And A]

Just an opinion about the crickets: he should be eating way more than 3 crickets. My little girls eat about 15-20 a day! :-\

 

[sebitto]

Thanks for the advice Tay! The crickets he is eating were originally micro, but they are also growing (must be all that great veggie and fruit mix i give them). They are much larger than pinheads, they range in size but most are about a quarter of the size of an adult cricket so i think 3 or four is a sizeable meal packet for little Luigi.

Nonethelss since he has started to pick his own food out of a feeder cup now, I will take your advice and add a few more crickets in there for him and see what happens

 

[sebitto]

Just a few updates on Luigi:

I took him to the vets a couple of weeks ago to check that he was all good and his fecal analysis showed that he was loaded with parasites (flagellates). Doc gave him his worming treatment and then i had to give him the remaining doses over the next 4 days. The vet pumped the medicine directly into the little guys gut, i had to inject a few mealworms and crickets with the meds for him to take it. He didnt eat all the medicated food items, so most like he´ll have to repeat the treatment before too long (Vet said it should be ok for now though).

Two weeks on and he´s doing fine, although lately he´s developed a strong like for his fruitflies and is showing little to no interest in the micro crickets. He also goes crazy for freshly hatched stick insects, but he only gets those occasionally. I´ve put in a fesh reptisun 5.0 tube yesterday hoping maybe the fresh uvb will stimulate his appetite.