Baby Chameleon help please!

P

PurpleHaze

New Member
Hi i just got a Bradypodion pumilum (cape dwarf chameleon) it's 5 days old...i bought it an enclosure and everything is fixed up, but it doesn't seem to eat? he hasn't eaten (i think) in 4 days...what must i do???? Somebody told me to try force feed it by holding open its mouth and putting food in it...i really dont wanna do that, he's tiny, about the size of my thumb and think it will hurt him....I have baby crickets the size of his head in a little bowl with a branch over it for him to get them but still nothing??? please help im worried...
 
Crickets should be no bigger than the space between their eyes. Even crickets the size of it's head are intimidating to the baby. Use fruit flies and pin head crickets. You should not have bought a baby that's 5 days old, it should have been at least three months before you bought it.
 
PurpleHaze said:
Hi i just got a Bradypodion pumilum (cape dwarf chameleon) it's 5 days old...i bought it an enclosure and everything is fixed up, but it doesn't seem to eat? he hasn't eaten (i think) in 4 days...what must i do???? Somebody told me to try force feed it by holding open its mouth and putting food in it...i really dont wanna do that, he's tiny, about the size of my thumb and think it will hurt him....I have baby crickets the size of his head in a little bowl with a branch over it for him to get them but still nothing??? please help im worried...
Click to expand...

..So he only ate the very first day he was born?
 
So the crickets are too big?...
so what would happen if it was in the wild and there were no baby crickets the size of the space between his eyes running around for him?
 
PurpleHaze said:
So the crickets are too big?...
so what would happen if it was in the wild and there were no baby crickets the size of the space between his eyes running around for him?
Click to expand...

He would die. Natural selection at it's finest.
 
ok well i don't want that...so he hasn't eaten in lets say 4 days...should i be worried? the pet store i go to obviously sucks so first thing in the morning i'll find a new one and get smaller crickets.
 
I agree, many pet stores suck. Our local pet store was selling us tiny crickets when we asked for medium and our panthers won't touch them. Give me a big meal or nothing at all! If you were local, I'd just give them to you.
 
PurpleHaze said:
ok well i don't want that...so he hasn't eaten in lets say 4 days...should i be worried? the pet store i go to obviously sucks so first thing in the morning i'll find a new one and get smaller crickets.
Click to expand...


You must be in Europe somewhere? You found a Bradypodion pumilum at a petshop? WOW

Anyway, there are quite a few people on here with that have experience with b. pumilum. I am personally keeping thamnobates.

I sent a pm to a few to see if they wouldn't mind helping out with this one
 
No, he must be located in SA. In Europe aren't no Bradypodions in pet stores avaiable, especially not pumilum.
Please try to get fruitflies for him. Crickets are for chameleons in this size not optimal. Between a week they can change the predator / prey relationship into a bad one for the small chameleon. Try to catch the fruitflies with old food/bananas/apples etc. Sometimes old coffee filters help too. Put those things in a lil box or something similar which could be closed completely. After they are catched, but this box in the cage and open it carefully so that the feeders stay in the cage and not in your house.
From what I read about this species it's also very important to spray minimum two times per day. Lil chameleons dehydrat very fast. Buy plants like Asparagus/Ficus/Schefflera which help to provide water for several hours

Hope you can care well for the lil guy.
 
eisentrauti said:
No, he must be located in SA. In Europe aren't no Bradypodions in pet stores avaiable, especially not pumilum.
Please try to get fruitflies for him. Crickets are for chameleons in this size not optimal. Between a week they can change the predator:prey relationship into a bad one for the small chameleon. Try to catch the fruitflies with old food/bananas/apples etc. Sometimes old coffee filters help too. Put those things in a lil box or something similar which could be closed completely. After they are catched, but this box in the cage and open it carefully so that the feeders stay in the cage and not in your house.
From what I read it's also very important to spray minimum two times per day. Lil chameleons dehyrat very fast. Buy plants like Asparagus/Ficus/Schefflera which help to provide water for several hours

Hope you can care well for the lil guy.
Click to expand...

Nice one Benny, A+

Thanks!
 
Eisentrauti you are awesome! thank you sooo much, i've been searching and asking for days now and you are the only person that has actually helped me. So he well be ok for now? i'll get fruit flies FIRST thing in the morning...
 
I must agree with Benny on the fruit outside. That is the very best way of collecting decent food.

Please keep in mind that those chameleons are made for the SA climate. When you keep them inside glass cages then this can cause problems. I would recomend screen cages and best inside the garden.

Baby's also love lice and they should be easy to find.

But I would strongly recommend you to put back this little chameleon into nature. When you really would like to keep chameleons then first inform you.

Now you're risking a life.
 
I don't know really anything about this species, but does anyone know how long a brand new baby like this can continue living off the retained yolk sac? They may not start hunting for a while because of that.
 
Yay he finally ate this morning. woke up at 5am put him outside in the natural light and when i came back 5 min later he had a cricket in his mouth:D
 
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