Beautiful WC Ambanja, still recovering

Panther Company

Established Member
Showing some of his nicest colors yet, but still working on getting his casque full reflated. Eats and drinks, and most importantly finally got a clean fecal from the vet after treatment w/panacure. Just got off the meds, so we're hoping he'll continue eating & drinking and start looking happier/healthier soon. Urates are nice and white, though. This is him slightly agitated after have his mistking nozzle adjusted to better fill the cage.

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Seem's he looks similar to some of the other Ambanjas that were imported this winter.
 
He looks GORGEOUS Josh!! Yea, alot of red bars came in this winter. I have a nice WC male Ambanja coming on Tuesday, I can't wait!! The pic isn't great, but you get an idea how he looks. I will post better pics when I get him settled.
 
:) Charlie's a good guy. Honest and transparent as far as I can tell, but we have had mixed results with his animals. One ambilobe female had severe MBD when she arrived, and a couple males that we've gotten have been struggling -- but overall he's been a good resource if you're looking for fresh genetics. I know you're an experienced chameleon buyer, so I probably don't have any advice you don't already know. Good luck with the Ambanja!
 
And, just for the record, the Ambanja guy above came in as part of the larger import we took part in with Jim from Chameleon Company. In our collection, we've got 2 male Nosy Falys, 4 female Ambanjas, and 2 female Sambavas from Charlie. We originally ordered 3 female Sambavas, but one was very sadly DOA (heat pack seems to have dislodged from top of box and was resting directly on the female). She was replaced at no charge, but the replacement was an Ambilobe with severe MBD. Charlie eventually "made right" on that, too, by cutting a bit off the price of the Faly males we got, which was right after other exporters told us Faly exports were no longer possible (including the exporters that Jim @ Chameleon company had connections with). And he did deliver 3/3 great looking Falys... we're just a bit depressed about that last part as one of the Falys--the one with the most awesome colors--seemed to be doing fantastically well, then just one afternoon he was hanging by his rear legs and a few hours later on the bottom of his cage.

With Jim on the other hand, we received 24 animals at the end of December as part of a larger import he was making. Most of them are females and seem to be doing quite well. Of the males, we got 4 Ambanja, 4 Nose Be, and 3 RB Ambilobe. 2 of the Ambanja didn't make it past the first week (I should not have posted photos of them, learned my lesson there), but all the others seem to be doing well and all but one finally got a clean fecal after panacure and flagyl. 12/13 females are still with us and seem to be doing relatively well, though one did pass away with what was diagnosed by the vet as a pretty bad bacterial infection (likely made worse by the extremely stressful ordeal of the capture/export process).

In the past we had purchased 4 other LTC WC Nosy Faly females from Jim. We had a generally bad experience with them. They never quite recovered after presumably giving jim 1-2 clutches then getting shipped to us. One had a prolapse and had to be treated by a vet but seems to have healed just great. Of the two others that had problems, one just never seemed to get acclimated, and the vet had no ideas on what to do... she survived a few months but was on a slow decline and we eventually lost eher. Another arrived missing part of her lower chin (not MBD, just looked like she had been injured in a fight or a fall). She seemed to be doing ok for a couple months, slowly recovering from wat was a stressful stint in her short life, but then she took a turn for the worse and we lost her very quickly. The lesson we learned from that was basically not to take WCs that have been imported and bred then are overtly being sold just at the start of their recovery process. We also got 2 CB Faly females from him, as well as 2 CB Nosy Bes, and they seem to be doing just fine. One of the CB Nosy Be's even gave us a huge fertile clutch not too long ago (after being paired with Vinnie's "True Blue" male Vader).

Edit: None of this is meant as a criticism of Jim or Charlie. Both have been great to work with and, though we've lost some WC animals, the overall success rate seems to be at least slightly above what others expect with WCs. My recommendation would simply be to try to make sure you talk to whoever you're working with directly, get the information you can, and set your expectations accordingly.
 
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:) Charlie's a good guy. Honest and transparent as far as I can tell, but we have had mixed results with his animals. One ambilobe female had severe MBD when she arrived, and a couple males that we've gotten have been struggling -- but overall he's been a good resource if you're looking for fresh genetics. I know you're an experienced chameleon buyer, so I probably don't have any advice you don't already know. Good luck with the Ambanja!

Yes, I concur. I have done business with Charlie before and everything went well. As a matter of fact, that LTC Ambanja male you bought from me came from Charlie! I really regret selling him and that is why I bought this one. The only real problem I have had with his animals is coccidia. Other than that they all ate like champs right out of the box and acclimated well.
 
Yes, I concur. I have done business with Charlie before and everything went well. As a matter of fact, that LTC Ambanja male you bought from me came from Charlie! I really regret selling him and that is why I bought this one. The only real problem I have had with his animals is coccidia. Other than that they all ate like champs right out of the box and acclimated well.

Good to know. All of our LTC Mitsios indirectly came from Charlie as well, so we've definitely got other success stories to share about him if I think a bit harder. And again, talking to him on the phone he was extremely transparent and even refused my offer to "pay more" try to guarantee a nice group of Falys, telling me that honestly he always gets the best he can and would feel like a "jerk off" if he took more money from me to promise something he has no control over. I appreciated that.
 
Sorry for getting so off topic, everyone. Some anecdotal info for anyone considering WCs from Charlie or potentially Jim at CC, but back to the original point... sure am happy with this Ambanja boy. Really hope we can continue getting him healthier and happier.
 
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