karma chameleon
New Member
Hello everyone,
I've been reading this forum for weeks and it's been a great help so far. We are baby sitting our friends chameleon while they travel, so we are VERY inexperienced!!
Firstly, they (the owners) ownly found out the chameleon was a female a couple of weeks before they left her with us, and they nonchalantly said "oh she might lay eggs, so just sift the sand every now and then to check". Anyway, after a week she stopped eating, would show signs of stress (clinging low to the branches, digging in the sand, CONSTANTLY trying to escape from the enclosure, puffing out her throat and darkening in colour) which is why we turned the net (and our local pet store!) to find out what was wrong.
We tried everything to make her happy - we bought a thermometer for the tank and found out it was too cold, so we bought a heat lamp to warm it up. We bought more sand for her to lay in, bought some more greenery for the tank for her to hide behind, and more wooden tree type things so she could dig around to lay. While she didn't eat, she was exceptionally thirsty so we were misting her 3-4 times a day for 5 minutes straight. At one point she was so thirsty she grabbed the spray bottle and drank directly from it! Eventually after much work (over 17 hours of digging!) and finally getting the tank to 30 degrees, she did lay eggs, 88 of them in fact - now that seems like A LOT to me, especially for her first time. How many do they usually lay?
So the day she laid she finally started eating again thank goodness (no wonder she didn't eat for a week though, there was no room in her body for food!) and in fact, now she is eating more than double what she was before. She will eat 10 crickets/locusts a day without a hiccup, plus a couple of worms. She is so ravenous that as soon as she sees us pick up the container with the bugs in, she races to the door to get them. She is so keen that she sometimes has lashed out with her tongue before I have even got the lid off, and a couple of times she has collected 2 at once and gulped them down.
So the first question is: is that normal for her to be eating so much, and should we continue to feed her what she is currently consuming or could we be overfeeding her?
The second question is: how often should they be having bowel movements? I have not seen her poo since she started eating again, and I'm sure she had a movement at least every day or 2 before the laying. I've read threads about impaction, so this is an obvious concern, but she appears healthy, strong and very lively, and I thought she would stop eating if she had constipation? She still seems very plump though (definitely not as plump as she was before she layed!) and does not appear to be in any discomfort.
She's drinking normally (we mist her a couple of times a day for 3-4 minutes and set up a water dripper using a plastic cup) but I've seen a suggestion to try and shower her to encourage a movement?
Any suggestions would be much appreciated!
Many thanks!
Angie
FYI: yes that is her in the photo!!
I've been reading this forum for weeks and it's been a great help so far. We are baby sitting our friends chameleon while they travel, so we are VERY inexperienced!!
Firstly, they (the owners) ownly found out the chameleon was a female a couple of weeks before they left her with us, and they nonchalantly said "oh she might lay eggs, so just sift the sand every now and then to check". Anyway, after a week she stopped eating, would show signs of stress (clinging low to the branches, digging in the sand, CONSTANTLY trying to escape from the enclosure, puffing out her throat and darkening in colour) which is why we turned the net (and our local pet store!) to find out what was wrong.
We tried everything to make her happy - we bought a thermometer for the tank and found out it was too cold, so we bought a heat lamp to warm it up. We bought more sand for her to lay in, bought some more greenery for the tank for her to hide behind, and more wooden tree type things so she could dig around to lay. While she didn't eat, she was exceptionally thirsty so we were misting her 3-4 times a day for 5 minutes straight. At one point she was so thirsty she grabbed the spray bottle and drank directly from it! Eventually after much work (over 17 hours of digging!) and finally getting the tank to 30 degrees, she did lay eggs, 88 of them in fact
- now that seems like A LOT to me, especially for her first time. How many do they usually lay?So the day she laid she finally started eating again thank goodness
(no wonder she didn't eat for a week though, there was no room in her body for food!) and in fact, now she is eating more than double what she was before. She will eat 10 crickets/locusts a day without a hiccup, plus a couple of worms. She is so ravenous that as soon as she sees us pick up the container with the bugs in, she races to the door to get them. She is so keen that she sometimes has lashed out with her tongue before I have even got the lid off, and a couple of times she has collected 2 at once and gulped them down.So the first question is: is that normal for her to be eating so much, and should we continue to feed her what she is currently consuming or could we be overfeeding her?
The second question is: how often should they be having bowel movements? I have not seen her poo since she started eating again, and I'm sure she had a movement at least every day or 2 before the laying. I've read threads about impaction, so this is an obvious concern, but she appears healthy, strong and very lively, and I thought she would stop eating if she had constipation? She still seems very plump though (definitely not as plump as she was before she layed!) and does not appear to be in any discomfort.
She's drinking normally (we mist her a couple of times a day for 3-4 minutes and set up a water dripper using a plastic cup) but I've seen a suggestion to try and shower her to encourage a movement?
Any suggestions would be much appreciated!
Many thanks!
Angie
FYI: yes that is her in the photo!!
