healthy chameleon losing grip

my little female chameleons are very healthy but every time i take them out of the cage they seem to be very active and they tend to fall off there branches all the time. this morning i had them out in there new cage outside and when i brought the back in my littlest female started to climb on the branch and then just fell. it got up and climb right back to the top of the cage. any help to stopp this from happening will be good.
 
Do you think that she/they could be weak from not having enough calcium or UVB light? I'm not an expert with chams by far, but that was the first thing that came to my mind. THe other being, maybe the branches are too big for her/they to properly get their hands around??
 
Is this a behavior you see frequently? A rare fall could be normal, but if you see this frequently something is probably wrong. How do the chameleons' grip feel when holding them? You might want to post some details about your feeding\supplement\watering routines.

Jam brought up some good points above as well.
 
my chameleons have a brand new reptisun bulb in there cage and i try to get them in the sun at least once a week. i dust there food with reptical and herptivite every feeding. they only fall as i handle them the like to move a lot unlke my other chameleons i guess it is because they are still young. there cage is a 4ft wire cage with a small ficus tree in it. they are both in great health
 
I agree that if it is behavior you see frequently and in more than one cham, then something isn't right.
How old are they? I see you dust their food with Rep-Cal (Calcium w/D3, I presume) and Herptivite every feeding. My personal opinion is that you may be oversupplementing both the Calcium and vitamins. The general schedule I have followed is Calcium 3-5 days per week and vitamins once a week for babies up to 4 months; Calcium 3 days per week and vitamins every couple of weeks for juvies 5 months to a year. Of course a really good gutload schedule and variety is equally important.
Also, a lot of times, baby chams will jump to escape what they perceive as danger. My quad moved faster than I every imagined he could, and would leap from branches when I cleaned his cage until he finally grew a bit and got used to my presence.
 
When my chameleons were babies. The female was very jumpy. I would be holding her and all of a sudden she would fly of my hand. Are your chameleons losing their grip or could they be jumping on purpose?
 
they probly just jumpy its just my first female never did it and all my new ones are i don't over dose them with vitamins and calcuim because i only feed them every other day and i put the food in a cup so they don't go all over the place easier to feed that way. does any know what species of chameleon actualy falls to the ground to avoid a predators and play dead after hitting the ground?
 
Rumor has it that some breeds of pygmys will play dead. But, they don't have far to fall to the ground, since they mainly live pretty close to it.

Heika
 
Back
Top Bottom