5 month old panther chameleon crashed and died in a 24 hour period-looking for potential culprits

[kinyonga]

@jajeanpierre So it seems that the chameleons are following the pattern in other animals that the young or old or somehow "compromised" (gravid, etc) are the ones most affected.
Maybe fresh veggies and greens are unlikely to carry it too as long as they aren't left long in the cages or in the cricket's containers?

 

[socalman75]

• Lighting reptisun 5.0 and 100w powersun uv basking bulb. On from 630 to 8

how/where was the powersun light on the cage??? PICS???

 

[jajeanpierre]

@jajeanpierre So it seems that the chameleons are following the pattern in other animals that the young or old or somehow "compromised" (gravid, etc) are the ones most affected.
Maybe fresh veggies and greens are unlikely to carry it too as long as they aren't left long in the cages or in the cricket's containers?

Aspergillus fungi are part of the decay process, so fresh veggies aren't going to be a source. My friend, a research wildlife vet wanted me to raise my own crickets. He said he had never had a fungus problem raising crickets on potatoes and lettuce. He said grain fed feeders was a big problem.

Any problem will be worse in compromised individuals. Chameleons are no different from the rest of the animal kingdom.

 

[kinyonga]

I've always used nothing but fresh greens, veggies and fruits and never had a chameleon die/act/decline the way you described the deaths in yours...so I assume it works. I started doing that when I started keeping turtles.

Do you know what the people you got the culprit crickets from fed them? I'm wondering in particular if what they use had formaldehyde in because that's a problem IMHO for chameleons too.

 

[jajeanpierre]

I've always used nothing but fresh greens, veggies and fruits and never had a chameleon die/act/decline the way you described the deaths in yours...so I assume it works. I started doing that when I started keeping turtles.

Do you know what the people you got the culprit crickets from fed them? I'm wondering in particular if what they use had formaldehyde in because that's a problem IMHO for chameleons too.

I've talked to two other big breeders who had an experience very similar to mine. They didn't do necropsies. One breeder is 100% positive it was a certain shipment of crickets because he fed half his large collection the new crickets and the other half older crickets. Every animal in the new-cricket group got sick and he lost most of them.. The other breeder had the same kind of symptoms and lost a large number of animals. He was positive it was from the crickets before I even talked to him about it.

So, yes, it does happen and I think more frequently than most people realize, including the vets. It goes largely unreported. How many people do necropsies? They aren't cheap. Also, what breeder wants to admit in public they have lost animals? I went public for chameleons and for their owners because I did not want to see what happened to my animals happen to anyone else's. It was awful. It cost me dearly to go public.

All commercial crickets are raised on a grain-based (corn because it is the cheapest) feed. The cricket farms have their own recipe they give to the feed mills. In the beginning, cricket farms fed chick starter feed. Later, they consulted insect specialists and tweaked the blend.

Death from aflatoxicosis depends on the amount of toxin the animal ingests and how strong and resilient they are. That's why I lost my gravid newly imported malthe and my babies. The rest of my collection were largely unaffected.

Forgive my clipped tone on this topic. This is still too fresh in my mind. It really gutted me--to see so many animals suffering so horribly, wanting to euthanize for humane reasons and having vets tell me, no, just keep them going until we can figure it out. They were suffering horribly.

This little guy below was having seizures for weeks on end. He took months to recover but he did.

 

[Mr.Pickles]

So I got the initial necropsy report back. Mr. Pickles had end stage renal disease which in turn caused visceral gout. Visceral gout is the official cause of death. My vet is reaching out to confirm everything but it looks like the renal disease was caused by either the breeder or the shop I got him at not watering enough causing kidney damage OR it could have been the result of an injury the chameleon sustained from the pet store's employee dropping him two months prior to his death. My wife informed me about the employee dropping him a few days ago, she had made the initial purchase and then when the employee went to put him back in the cage he dropped him. The employee made it seem like it would be fine. I was misting him three times a day and I had seen him drinking daily when he was in my care but it appears that the damage was most likely already done to his kidneys, leading to the build up of uric acid in his blood.

To answer the question above the powersun bulb I have mounted above the cage, the bottom of the fixture is about 6 inches above the top of the cage. I had my set up going a week before I picked up the chameleon to make sure my temps and humidity were in the correct range.

***My conclusion about the shop and/or breeder not watering enough is based on the employee telling us that they just spritzed the fake plant in their cage twice a day and all of the poop in the shop's cage had orange urates. Unfortunately the shop was holding him for me for a month until I got my set up dialed in, maybe if I would have picked him up earlier he would still be alive :-(

 

[ChamLB]

I'm sorry for your loss. Thank you for providing this information for other keepers to learn from your experience.
This thread has a lot of good information in it.

 

[Mr.Pickles]

I am working on getting the necropsy posted here, just trying to get it saved without my personal information on it.
I want to say thank you to all who responded and all the information about alfatoxicosis is very good to know, I did not know about this before posting here. I am very broken up about the whole thing, I am waiting to see if my conclusions are backed up by my vet before talking to the pet shop I got him at. I should also add that when I say "pet shop" I am talking about a shop that only deals with captive bred reptiles and amphibians, not something like a petco or pet smart.

 

[jamest0o0]

Not to give you trouble while you are already down, but the fact you said he regularly drank in your presence could mean he was dehydrated the whole time. Seems as most* hydrated chams don't regularly drink in front of people.

 

[ChamLB]

If his kidneys weren't working properly he probably needed more water to replace what was lost by his damaged (leaky) kidneys. We've seen this excessive drinking in some of the rehabs we work with.

 

[Mr.Pickles]

Here is the report with my info chopped off

 

[kinyonga]

I don't think drinking more water does any good if there is kidney disease...can you please post a site that explains this @ChamLB please.

 

[Carlton]

The few rescue chams I've kept that were most likely in late stage kidney failure when I got them (didn't have access to much vet support so this was my best guess) usually drank almost desperately every day if not a couple of times every day. Probably couldn't stay hydrated because of their kidney problems no matter how carefully they were set up. One melleri in particular I remember would just about run for the sprayer (I hand sprayed them or syringe watered them individually), drink long and hard, producing long strings of clear saliva every session. He hung on for quite a long time. I started added rehydration fluids in addition to water, which helped slightly, but always seemed to be teetering on the edge.

 

[Nursemaia]

I know it sounds counterintuitive but in people when they have end stage kidney disease we put them on a fluid restriction, usually 1000 ml a day. I don't know if that would apply to chams as, knock on wood (hits self in head), I haven't had to deal with that issue in my chams.

 

[Ceycham]

I have to disagree with you on this. Yes they can crash and die that fast if they are poisoned. Food that is heavily contaminated with aflatoxins can kill in minutes.

The description of his chameleon inappropriately hissing and puffing was what I experienced with many of my collection that succumbed to a toxin. One research vet is 100% sure it was aflatoxins from the feeders. I'm still waiting for the final reports and then will sit down with the head vet at the zoo who also happens to be a reptile vet and chameleon breeder and we'll go over everything together.

Read this: https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/aflatoxicosis.158656/

How would you describe inappropriate hissing and puffing? Reading this is seeding my thoughts with worry, as I'm a new chameleon keeper, and my guy hisses and puffs pretty regularly if I invade his space...is this a bad sign? I thought he was just behaving like a chameleon.

 

[jamest0o0]

@Ceycham that's normal

 

[jajeanpierre]

How would you describe inappropriate hissing and puffing? Reading this is seeding my thoughts with worry, as I'm a new chameleon keeper, and my guy hisses and puffs pretty regularly if I invade his space...is this a bad sign? I thought he was just behaving like a chameleon.

The hissing your guy is doing is perfectly appropriate!

 

[kinyonga]

@Nursemaia said..."I know it sounds counterintuitive but in people when they have end stage kidney disease we put them on a fluid restriction, usually 1000 ml a day. I don't know if that would apply to chams as, knock on wood (hits self in head), I haven't had to deal with that issue in my chams"....exactly...so while there chameleons are drinking like crazy when they have kidney disease it doesn't mean the kidneys can handle the extra fluids....but I don't understand why they seem to need to drink yet. I have to study it more.