Jackson fell, what should I be looking for/worrying about?

[jebronlames]

Clovis fell about 30 inches, and glanced off of a piece of grape wood toward the bottom. My fault, I was adding a new vine for him and I shook his branch by accident. I feel so bad. He froze on the bottom and turned super dark. I tried to get my fingers under him after a bit, because there were a few crickets running around and I didn't want him to get bit. He bolted to the other corner, but still looked like he was stressed to the point of shock. Out of ideas, I gave him a couple squirts of water and he started climbing the wall. His color gradually lightened also.

When I last checked him, about 10 minutes after he fell, he was still a little dark, what I'd normally consider mildly agitated for him, and he was moving around on the branches. He was moving pretty well, actually. He may have been hunting, but I didn't want to stick around to watch and see. I figured I'd give him some privacy. It sucks, because he was at a point of really trusting me around his space, and taking any food I offered from hand/cup.

What should I be looking for/worried about? Is that far enough for him to break bones or sustain serious injury? I will update when I check on him when I get home.

 

[brownie64]

Just keep watching him he will probably be fine they jump further than that in the wild to get away from predators. Just depends on how he landed actually.

 

[jebronlames]

@brownie64 I think he hit his side a bit on the grape wood, but it happened so fast I couldn't tell. He seemed to be moving fine afterward, and he was dark, but I couldn't see any immediate injuries. His eyes were open and moving fine, and he wasn't favoring a leg or a side.

 

[Virgil1972]

I have a veiled who fell about 48 inches and he was fine. It stressed him out but he started acting normal soon after the fall.

 

[jebronlames]

Thanks @Virgil1972 that's good to hear. He was sleeping when I got home, in an odd spot near the bottom, not his usual perch up top, but from what I can tell he ate at least six crickets after he fell.

 

[jajeanpierre]

Clovis fell about 30 inches, and glanced off of a piece of grape wood toward the bottom. My fault, I was adding a new vine for him and I shook his branch by accident. I feel so bad. He froze on the bottom and turned super dark. I tried to get my fingers under him after a bit, because there were a few crickets running around and I didn't want him to get bit. He bolted to the other corner, but still looked like he was stressed to the point of shock. Out of ideas, I gave him a couple squirts of water and he started climbing the wall. His color gradually lightened also.

When I last checked him, about 10 minutes after he fell, he was still a little dark, what I'd normally consider mildly agitated for him, and he was moving around on the branches. He was moving pretty well, actually. He may have been hunting, but I didn't want to stick around to watch and see. I figured I'd give him some privacy. It sucks, because he was at a point of really trusting me around his space, and taking any food I offered from hand/cup.

What should I be looking for/worried about? Is that far enough for him to break bones or sustain serious injury? I will update when I check on him when I get home.

Next time something like this happens, just leave him alone and let him sort himself out. Your handling him when he was a little stunned from the fall only added stress. It is a natural instinct to comfort him, but he's not a dog or a chile and it will only make him even more upset. Turning dark doesn't really mean anything. He might turn black if he isn't hurt at all, or he might turn black if he has internal injuries. The risk to a fall is internal injuries, often to the lungs. Of course, they can break bones especially if they have weak bones from poor nutrition/lighting. That said, most chameleons don't die or get hurt from a fall.

That freezing after a fall is, I believe, a defense mechanism. Falling out of a tree is one of their survival strategies, and lying still after the fall makes them appear more like a leaf that fell off the tree, or so I've been told. My baby chameleons all sleep at the very tips of branches like little leaves. I think so they can leap if a predator finds them.

If your crickets are so hungry they will eat your chameleon, you are starving your crickets and they have zero nutrition. I have never seen a cricket bite a chameleon. I don't feed really big crickets, so the big ones might be different. I have crickets in my baby cages most of the time and they haven't any bite marks. I guess it could be a problem, but just leave food in for the escaped crickets.

 

[jebronlames]

They were small gut loaded crickets. I had read at one point that if crickets were left in there when the chameleon was asleep or unresponsive that they might take a bite out of him, and that stuck with me.

It was also, like you said, a panic response to see if he was OK.

He seems fine today, though, although he doesn't seem as comfortable with me in the room, which I expected.

Thank you

 

[jajeanpierre]

They were small gut loaded crickets. I had read at one point that if crickets were left in there when the chameleon was asleep or unresponsive that they might take a bite out of him, and that stuck with me.

It was also, like you said, a panic response to see if he was OK.

He seems fine today, though, although he doesn't seem as comfortable with me in the room, which I expected.

Thank you

I do understand--our social mammalian brain is wired to comfort an injured or frightened animal. There really isn't much you can do if he is hurt in a fall and likely only harm if you try. You or your vet can't do anything about any internal injuries he might have so he has to deal with them himself. Handling him could only make it worse. Even if he broke a bone, there is not much a vet will do although I know I would have one of my animals in to a vet if I saw a deviation to the bones for two reasons. First, I would want to see if the vet could easily stabilize it and therefore reduce suffering. Secondly, if they broke a bone from a fall, I would be worrying about MBD.

Your chameleon might still have internal injuries that might be very severe but I doubt it. I just lost a newly imported big wild caught mellers to internal injuries a week after purchase and 13 days after he was put in a box in Tanzania for his 4-day trek to the importer's here in the US. He managed to live at least two weeks after suffering such trauma to his lungs that they were filled with blood. He had multiple fractured ribs. (He was probably smacked with a big stick to dislodge him from the branch when he was originally captured--that's how they often get them out of the trees when they "collect" them.)

You have to be really careful of what you take from the internet as fact. You will find a lot of illogical advice repeated here. If something is repeated often enough, people believe it to be the truth. I have no idea if a cricket will bite a chameleon but in my experience mine have never had any injuries and I have a lot of escaped crickets in my cages, including my baby cages. I suspect a big starving cricket might take a chunk out of your chameleon. I leave food in the cages for the few crickets that are loose in the cage just in case, plus I want any crickets my chameleons eat to be well fed at all times.

 

[DaChameleonKing]

He might just be stressed about the fall

 

[jebronlames]

@jajeanpierre yes, I've been following your thread about the WC trade & your mellers, and I saw the necropsy photos. I'm sorry for your loss. I'll remember that about the crickets. I do leave a bit of food on the floor for them, also. I never feed big crickets anyway, they're all sub-1in. Good to know that's not a problem, or at least not a common one.

I'll keep an eye on him. His behavior has returned to normal apart from being a little more watchful/wary of me.

Thanks as always for your responses!