3 month old died

Salty

New Member
Looking for answers. Please no comments about why people should not buy chameleons or about why people need to do research. Please do not respond with anything negative or insulting. Only adults answer please.
I had a 3 month old panther. Had him for just over 2 days. Woke up in the morning and he was dead.
While he was with me he ate a total of 2 crickets, and 1 milworm. I watched him drink two times. I kept him in a large cricket keeper with fake leaves at 80 degrees and RH of about sixty five percent. The cricket keeper was placed in a larger cage where I keep the 8 month old.They did not bother each other and could not get to each other. The larger enclosur is 4 and a half feet tall and about 2 and a half wide and 2 and a half deep. I have four live plants in the cage. All of which were included on the safe plant list. I did wash all of them off in the shower for quite some time prior to puting them into the habitat. I purchased lighting from Light your reptiles.com I have the 5.o UVB and 65 k. They are both 2 foot T5 bulbs. I also have a 150 wat heat bulb that is about 6 inches above the cage.

The night before he died I split bamboo like you would cut carrots into carrot sticks. ( in order to make the bamboo smaller like he was ) I made an elaborite looking little jungle gym out of the bamboo sticks and hot glue. I then glued some plastic leaves around the outside of it so he would feal hidden and placed his new jungle gym on top of some other fake foliage. When I last saw him, he was sleeping on a leaf, showing some blue and resting peacefully.

I turned off the lights. AT 10:30 Or 11 oclock.. No draft in the house. and my thermostat was set at 71 degrees.

6:00 this morning he was dead.

at this point I had him in my posetion for less than 3 days, I had held him one time, just long enough to transfer him from a bowl to his cricket keeper.

I have listed everything as accuratelly as I can in the hopes of learning my mistake.

What did I do wrong?
 
I am sorry to hear this.:(

How big is the "cricket keeper"? Do you have a picture of how you had them housed?
 
thanks, I'm really bummed out. One sec I'll post some pics.

(correction he was 2 months old)

(downloading pics from my camera)
 
I don't think you did anything wrong and sometimes it is not the fault of anyone when these things happen. There is a chance that your chameleon had a pre exisiting condition. They can fall ill very fast and die sometimes with very little symptoms or none at all. There have been experienced keepers on here who have had chams just up and die. No blame here. Very sorry for your loss and I hope this will not discourage you from getting another.
 
Thanks guys, I don't think he was ill when I got him. He was verry active. He drank water only minutes after he arived and looked verry strong.
Here are some habitat pics.
 

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your cage looks very nice. I am not so sure about putting him in that cricket keeper within the cage. You did not spot any injuries on him or anything did you? Just trying to think of anything that could have possible contributed to his death. Are you positive that the bigger cham could not have bothered him at some point?
 
i think you did fine, personally i think breeders should refrain selling chams by a cerain minimal age or even size.

it could be he was one of those babies that werent meant to live, the weaklings of the clutch. not all babies that hatch will survive 100% , which is why breeders hold on the babies long enough to evulaute the health and have the babies thrive before selling anything. just my thoughts
 
I am really bummed out. I put a lot of thought into everything to make sure everything would go smoothly. The cage is 3 sides screen and the top is also screen. Can't tell by the pics that's why i mention it..
 
your cage looks very nice. I am not so sure about putting him in that cricket keeper within the cage. You did not spot any injuries on him or anything did you? Just trying to think of anything that could have possible contributed to his death. Are you positive that the bigger cham could not have bothered him at some point?

The bigger cham is extreemly dosile. I suppose if he really wanted to he could have gotten in but he is to big to get at the little guy in the middle of his jungle gym (where he was at) and I really don't believe that is what happened.

Do you think the cricket keeper was a bad idea?
 
Sorry for your loss. I'm not sure you'll ever know exactly what happened. My guess is that it would have to have been something acute as opposed to chronic (type of cage, lighting, water, etc.).

Out of curiosity - can you remember the type of glue you used (name and part number). Some glues can off gas VOCs and two part epoxy sometimes contain isocyanates. Might be a shot in the dark - but the only thing I can think of based on your description.
 
Don't know what type of glue sticks they were. They were rolling around in a drawr at my parants house. I saw pics of others using hot glue so a light bulb went on and I used them to construct the thing... Didn't know there were differant types of hot glue.
 
There are many types of hot glues with wide range of chemical compositions. Thought was that the cricket keeper not having much ventilation and some possible byproducts being heavier than air could result in localized accumulation.

Again - this is just a wild ass guess on my part; can't think of anything else.
 
The critter keeper isnt bad. I wouldnt have put it in the cage or even beside it without visual barriers. The small one could have been stressing over what it thought to be a predator the whole time even though the larger one wanted nothing to do with it.

Who knows if that is what happened. I would ask about a guarantee unless you really think it was something you did. Any pics of the cham through out the time you had it?
 
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