Help sleepy chameleon

[Zerah Morris]

Mark,
here is the deal, I am not attempting to come across rude or emotionless.

You bought a product, in this case yes it is a living animal. With that purchase there is an implied and often written promise of health. If you had bought say a CD at BestBuy and put it in your CD player in the parking lot and it did not work, you would have calmly turned off the car and walked in and traded it for a new one with a new promise of it working. The same concept applies here. You have in no way had the animal long enough to impact its health in such an adverse way as to be responsible to pay for the necessary treatment to recover it to a healthy state. You bought the animal in good faith and I believe LLL sold it in good faith. If indeed this animal does have MBD, is just of poor genetic quality, or has health issues related to poor care during the early stages of its life you are going to have problems with it for the rest of its life, be it short or long. You did not intend to "buy" these problems, you wanted a chameleon that you could enjoy and you paid for that. As I stated in a previous post there are many new chameleon keepers on this board that started with perfectly healthy animals and fail everyday. This is hard enough to do well with a healthy animal much less attempting to recover one from these type of issues.

In addition most reputable breeders have a 5-7 day health guarantee on the animals they sell if they are CB. Everyday you wait because you want to be sure of what is wrong makes it easier for the retailer/breeder to blame the problems on your lack of understanding of proper husbandry. LLL should have been your very first call the minute you thought you had a problem. If you had just been incorrect, they would have talked you through that, but if you had told me that one of the chameleons I sold you was trembling when reaching for a branch I would have drove to your house, picked it up, replaced the animal and brought the one you purchased home for observation. Once the condition was accessed I would have made a decision and now armed with this information had the ability to examine my own husbandry parameters as a breeder and make the necessary adjustments to prevent such unfortunate incidents from occurring again. If the animal was put down I could choose to have a necropsy done and look at the causes for where I went wrong. Your hesitation in calling them seems to stem from wanting to know what you are talking about, you are a hobbyist not the breeder, sure get educated but do not expect to be as knowledgeable as someone who does this for a living. It is like not taking your car to the mechanic till you can tell him what is wrong with your car, that is his job not yours, for you the car should just work. The chameleon should likewise be healthy, no one it their right mind buys a sick chameleon unless it is a very rare species/morph and it is a gravid female we hope to get eggs from before she goes feet up.

Call LLL explain the problem, ask them what they want you to do with their chameleon, before it becomes your chameleon.

 

[Will Hayward]

Agreed on all points Zerah.

I want to add something important. LLL Reptile NEEDS to be alerted of your problems in the event that they could be unknowingly be selling animals with health concern that are from the same origine as this one. It is your responsibility to call them and advert them to a problem with their product.

They may know exactly what is going on and know how to treat it, but it may be happening completly unbeknownst to them.

 

[markrydenfan81]

Thank you guys. I will call LLL regardless of the diagnosis tomorrow. I will let you guys know what the deal is. Thanks so much for your advice and patience!

 

[Sean]

Here is a piece of advice for everyone. It is always a risk to purchase a chameleon on the first day of a reptile show. Unscrupulous dealers put there worst animals out for sale on the first day, saving their best for last. That is not to say quality/rare animals can't be found on the first day, but take this into consideration.

 

[Jordan]

The tremors he is experiencing is from a low calcium ions in his plasma. This causes excitability in the nerve endings and discharges them irratically. In a human this would feel like the stabbing pain when your leg is asleep and you stand up on it. In this condition it may be present at all times just not alway visible through twitching. If the vet is not able to administer medication (calcium or vitamin D) because of his weight or inability to draw blood to know how much to administer or if the medication does not clear his tremors I would recommend putting him down. These tremors are probably very painful. I am not saying when any chameleon show signs of tremors they should be put down but considering that the age (and size) of this animal are coming into play it is honestly an option.

From what I read in the previous post if you have to destroy the animal I would try to do this in a proper manner in conjunction with LLLreptile procedures. Regardless I would still contact them so that they are aware of it. Calcium deficiencies can be caused by disease in the kidneys, liver, and intestines. LLLreptiles may reevaluate some of thier procedures to see this does not happen again. I do not mean to sound so pestimistic. If an injection can be given there is pretty good odds of your chameleon coming out of this good. After that it will be up to you to keep him healthy. I wish you the best of luck and I am sorry your first chameleon keeping experience turned out like this. Do not let it get you down these animals are awesome.

 

[markrydenfan81]

Back from the vet

I am back from the vet. He does have early stages of mbd; however, it was caught early enough. He has injectable calcium then he will go back to oral calcium. Poor guy also has an intestinal parasite-coccidia(sp?). Ergo the other chameleons probably have that too. When I get home from work, I will call LLL reptiles and let them know that an ambilobe panther chameleon purchased from their booth at the reptile show in raleigh, nc has coccidia and mbd. Vet also said keep him hydrated bc mbd can cause kidney problems later on.

I will bake you all some really great cyber brownies after i get home from work.
Thanks again for all your help!

 

[Jordan]

I am not to familiar with that parasite but intestines not functioning properly could have caused complications that lead to M.B.D.

 

[markrydenfan81]

I talked to a guy at LLL, he said not to give my chameleon the calcium injections. He said without a bone density test, they wouldn't know for sure. I am torn about what to do.

 

[fabos]

i know this might sound like a stupid, but ive been following this thread seeing if i cant learn more about medical situations, but my Question is What is MBD?

 

[ChameleonsTree]

Metabolical Bone Disorder.

 

[markrydenfan81]

MBD is the acronym for Metabolic Bone Disease. It's like rickets for reptiles. It's caused by a calcium deficiency whether by husbandry or too much phosphorous i.e. unbalanced phosphorous-calcium ratio. It can cause breaks and deformities. In my particular case, it is early and hasn't gotten to that point.

 

[Jordan]

M.B.D. is an blanket term used to describe many problems all pertaining to calcium deficencies. Basically M.B.D. covers any thing pertaining to the thinning of bones.

Osteoporosis
Osteomalacia
Rickets
Secondary nutrional hyperparathyrodism
Fiberous osteodystrophy
There are two other kinds but they are extremely rare and I cannot remember them of the top of my head.

In the body a balancing act takes place between calcium, phosporus and vitamin D3. In the wild calcium and phosporus would be available in their food. The production of D3 would take place in the skin as they are exposed to uvB. To save some big words and your interest this is then transported to the liver transformed into another chemical that will help aid the intestines to properly absorb the calcium. In captivity we do not usually expose them to enough uvB for them to adequetly produce their own D3 so we supplement it. If any of these get out of wack the whole system usually fails to do it's job properly. The most common I would say is to much phosphorus in the diet. The ratio you want to keep these guys in is a 2:1 (calciumhosphorus). The main issue with alot of owners is that insects are high in phosphorus anyway and it is impossible to know how much calcium to supplement to meet this. Most chameleon owners probably keep their chameleons in a 1:1 ratio which is adequite for most case assuming the husbandry is good. All the words that are listed above really describe which imbalance went wrong first and the corresponding symptoms that prove this.

In your case I think it could be a little different as a parasitic worm in the body even if it was working well could be enjoying itself by consuming these chemicals that the body is producing. All the while denying your chameleon what it needed to be healthy. I am glad to hear that you are switching your set-up around so that he can be healthy and I hope he gets to feeling better. I had a jackson I adopted that got to the point of tremors and it made me feel like crap for the little guy.

 

[Lymorg and Friend]

whoa...

not to be rude but you seriously see these great little guys as "product"??? wouldnt sending them back be a death sentence for the poor sick little guy? it seems cruel. if a couple were to adopt a new baby and it had cancer but they didnt know until they had it for a while, you would suggest they mail it somewhere as well? buying pets comes with risk, people die, animals die. you know, i got hit by a car in front of my friend before and they still talk to me... perhaps i am wrong or just have a skewed perspective, but when i lost my poor little Lymorg, it crushed my world and i had only had him for a few months. i felt he was my little guy and i loved him, ergo, my responsibility. it's just not right to abandon them when they need you most.
good job for seeing this guy through and now that his problems can be fixed, even if only for a while, he will know and appreciate it.

 

[Will Hayward]

They are being labled as a "product" for the reason of "you should get what you are paying for, a quality chameleon".

Sending it back wouldnt be sending it to its death, as the company that sold it in this case is honest and good natured as well as experienced and has a better chance of using their knowledge to care for its sickness.

This isn't abandoning per say, its returning a chameleon that needs experienced care, for one that a novice can handle.

 

[Zerah Morris]

Friend,
I quite frankly do not see your point. They are specimens not pets. You pay for quality specimens not a buddy. All this petting and holding and walking around with them on your shoulder, TAKING THEM TO THE BEACH, is the reason many are sick and dying. Do not humanize them they have no emotions, they have pain receptors yes, but like much of the animal kingdom they have no memory of pain at least not the way we do. They can be conditioned yes. Everyone understand Pavlov? They come out of their cages to some of you because you bring food, not because they like you. They climb on your head or shoulder because they naturally seek high places not because they want to take walks or fun days at the beach. These are not domesticated animals, in fact most are less than a single generation from WILD, if that. When I buy one it is a product, I grow fond of it, because I like the specimen, if it dies I feel loss because of the loss of specimen and the loss of investment, not the loss of a buddy, I am not adopting a child. The word "pet" is extended loosely to these animals, they do not like you! You like them! They rely on you. That's it. So next time one dies because you handle them to much and they "unexpectedly" get sick do not post, next time one jumps out of a car on the sunday afternoon drive with the sunroof down do not post, next time one drowns while surfing the pipeline do not post. It is the creation of pets, from wild animals that caused their deaths. You have no way to quantify what all this emotional attachment does to the stress and health of the animals in your care. Leave them alone and enjoy them from a distance.

 

[Jordan]

Markydefan81 agreed to buy a chameleon. Not a chameleon and two vet bills. That is alot of money for a chameleon that he has really no centimental attachment to. If it where me I would be very mad. This is probably why they have a guarantee. If I spent $200-300 for a panther and who knows on the vet bills. I would probably never buy a chameleon again.

I adopted a sick jackson before and honestly it left a bad taste in my mouth. I would never do that again even though I do feel bad for them. I knew about the money I would have to spend ahead of time and I do not think Markydefan81 did. If it where at fault of my own that the chameleon was sick that is one thing but it is on the breeder at the time frame we are talking about here. I want my money back.

I have spent countless hours reading and planning so that I could find ways to better take care of my chameleons. Yet the only one I have had that had to go to the vet was the one I obtained in bad health.

 

[markrydenfan81]

The first chameleon I had was wild caught and except for a skin infection, he was in perfect health. He didn't even have any parasites. I only paid $20 for him. I paid $170 for my current sickly chameleon. I am not happy that the first few days I had him I had to shed a couple hundred bucks. I talked to LLLreptile and dude i talked to, told me to ignore what the vet said.
My attachment to him has been that of empathy. He's so young and it kills me to see his arms tremor when he reaches for a branch. I hardly slept at all last week, worrying that he might die. I wouldn't send him back for 2 reasons a) i don't know if he would survive the trip back and b) i have spent so much on him already. I joked to my friends that he is the world's most expensive chameleon. Including how much i paid for him, I spent around $700 on him for the first 5 days i had him-husbandry improvements and medical bills. I have compared his aquisition to getting a pure-bred dog and the next day, it getting hit by a car.

By the way, I'm a girl

 

[Lymorg and Friend]

having a sick guy is hard...

Lymorg was sick (respiratory infection) when i got him from the pet store but whenever something made him feel bad, he went to the doctors to get it fixed. i do not believe he has no emotions, even wild animals can feel things. i also own a pit bull, next someone will tell me i'd better watch out before she turns on me... (and this is a 70lb pit that will not even take her own toys back from some little butthead jack russel terrier. what a killer...) animals heve personalities whether you are open to seeing it or not. even our vet said Lymorg was pretty "in your face" for a chameleon so no, your pet is in your care so you should care... ok, not talking about teaching a chameleon to fetch but why bother if you do not even care?
...and by the way, i will not be getting another chameleon, it cost me about $2,000 in vet bills since february, and even though i still think he was worth every bit of it, i couldnt go through that again. financially or emotionally.

 

[Lymorg and Friend]

oh, and what i meant by sending it to its death is if it is sick , it would die on the way... not at the breeders... just that it would die alone at the post office.

 

[Will Hayward]

Chameleons are instinctive animals not emotional. No emotions! They can become comfortable, because their instincts tell them, ok this person I know will not threaten me.

Personality: the complex of all the behavioral attributes --that characterize a unique individual;

Sure a chameleon has a personality... but almost all creatures that have a brain do. Still no emotions though. They don't feel sad, or happy- they feel lacking of something or satisfied. They may prefer someone over someone else which you may perceive as companion ship, though it may only be because they recognise you as trustworothy and the other person as still a threat.

The pitbull issue has no comparison to this debate.