Harry you are doing all you can. You offer food & water, let her have heat & UVB or elect to get away. You are NOT the problem (SYN), I think she will come around. She is named after me so she has to be stubborn as hell.
I am not happy with the breeder putting the blame on you. Guess you can't do much except not use that breeder again. It is good the would replace her if you lose her, but I agree with you, we will get her back to normal.
SYN means well, it's just that she has a habbit of not reading everything that is posted and then posts a reply based on nothing.
on the first day I spent a total of 20 mins out of 11 hours with her before finding her on the foor of the cage on her side.
5 mins when I took her out of the UPC box, and 5 mins for each misting (3 mistings).
if a 5 month old chameleon, freshly shiped, can not take being misted, 3 times in 11 hours and have no other contact, then that chameleon should not be shipped.
on day 2, I spent 5 mins on a misting, and an hour later, I spent 2 or 3 mins setting up a dripper.
I stayed away from her cage and out of the living room as much as possable.
out of the 2 hours before she bugged out, I spent about 10 mins that she could see me at most.
on day 3, a day when she did not freak out at all, I spent about 35 mins with her.
remember I took her out of her cage, moved the cage back into the bedroom, reset everything up, put her back in the cag, gave her 3 mistings at about 5 mins each, feed her (she only ate 2 crickets-not 4 like I originaly thought, but she ate), briefly looked for any poop...35 mins out of 12 hours.
more then both days before put together.
if SYN would reread my replys she would see that I DIDN'T spend any more time then you should on the first few days, unless there was a problem.
ONLY THEN DID I GIVE HER ATTENTION.
agree or disagree with what I did, or how I did it. I don't care.
I might be new, but I did what I felt was the best for MY chameleon in her time of need.
I have no regrets.
I have raised Splat from 6 weeks old and done things I'm sure most here would not aprove of.
yet he has never been shy, never hides in his plants, will walk up to stragers in his cage to get a better look at them, will feed from anyones hand, will walk onto anyones outstreched hand from a branch or plant when he's out of the cage, he comes out on his own from the cage-I have not removed him from the cage in 4 months, is calm as can be and I can count on one hand all the times he extended gular crest (throat).
now I know that alot of this is his personality, but I must have done a few things right with a cham that was sent to me 1/3rd smaller then this 5 month old female.
I made a video today to show how fast he's willing to eat and how he will come to the front of the cage to eat it...ofcorse he wouldn't listen as he knew he was on camera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Req7isUT-Jc
as for the breeder. I think it is a misunderstanding or miscomunication on thier part.
she keeeps saying that I held her too much and forced water in her and thus stressed her into this behavior...I even made it a point that she was in my bedroom and had no contact or attention other then misting/feedings, for 11 hours before I found her freaking out.
sadly she had no advice for me other then leave her alone and proper husbandry.
this is not bad advice, just that I'm looking for more.
unless I'm mistaken she doesn't feel that I need to see a vet.
she asures me that she is parasite free and quite heathy with white urates before being sent to me...kept in a cage with her sisters, I wonder how her husband knows her urate from her sisters...???
yet I will say that she realy cares enough to keep PMing me and asking me how she is doing.
again, I do feel that I need to see a vet regardless if this is the end of her problem(s).
I just don't want to ferther stress her at this time unless it gets worse or continues.
regardless, I hope to have a colection of fecals and urates to be looked at and tested for parasites some time next week.
what I will say is that she showed some realy nice colors today (diferent) each time I briefly saw her.
twice she was almost redish/pink, once she was like in the original photos, and once she had baby paterns.
Harry
