Need advice--novice owner, young female at bottom of cage

[jajeanpierre]

Remember how I was soooo sure my very young female couldn't be gravid????

I think you experts were right and I was wrong.

Yesterday, I put in a laying bin, a big flower pot 12" in diameter mostly full of damp paying sand.

Up until this afternoon, she had rarely gone down to the floor of her cage except to hunt.

Right now, she has made her way to the bottom and is scratching at the sides of her cage. She has to go down the side of the flower pot to get to the bottom, so it isn't as if she hasn't had a good look at the laying bin.

I've put those fake bendy vines down to the floor and have sticks and fake vines into the laying bin.

How long do I let her be in the bottom of the cage before I either put her in a garbage can full of sand or try to put a floor made out of cardboard above the flower pot, so the lowest place she can go is in the laying bin.

I'm not able to post a picture of my set up, but I could text one from my phone to someone.

Is she likely to sort it out on her own? She's only 4 or 5 months old (complete guesstimate of age, bought a month ago at Petsmart).

This restless behavior just started this afternoon.

 

[ZiggyStardust]

Leave her be for a while a give her some privacy.

If she is gravid and you have provided a laying bin for her, she will find it eventually and will use it, as long as you leave her alone. Female chameleons often won't lay if they are being watched, so if you do see her in the bin, digging, then cover her enclosure with a sheet to ensure that she has privacy.

If she is still at the bottom of the cage, without showing any interest in the bin in the next day or so, let the forum know.

I don't have female chameleons, so am not an authority but there are a lot of owners on here who have vast knowledge - I am sure that someone will come along shortly who can offer more advice than I can give.

Good luck.

 

[jajeanpierre]

Here's the complicating thing--she has what looks like a minor eye injury from her walkabout on Saturday. I've been flushing it many times a day with sterile preservative-free artificial tears which the vet tech at the clinic said to keep doing.

Watching her, I suspect she is thinking about laying eggs. Do I continue to stress her by flushing her eyes and perhaps interrupt her laying eggs or do I leave the eyes alone and hope they will be fine? I flushed them one last time for tonight. I can do it without taking her out of the cage, just hold her right on her perch for a few seconds while I put the drops in.

I had tried to get her to the vet today to have a look at the eye, but he is off for two days. The eye is getting better and I think it is just scratched, but I still would like the vet to look at it. I have an appointment Wednesday.

Besides the eye, I wanted him to have a look at her general condition since I think she is gravid and I also think she is really, really young, and who knows how good or bad her nutrition was before I bought her from Petsmart.

For the last week or so she has been really quiet, just sunning at the top of her cage. She has been eating, since the dusted crickets that go in the cage disappear. However, I've only had her a month (the sum total of my chameleon experience) so I don't know what "normal" is for this particular chameleon.

I'm going to put some sort of visual block around her cage. Which is right now sitting beside my computer monitor.

She started a shed yesterday. Is a shed at all stressful for them? She pretty much has finished the shed, mostly just her legs, feet and tail left.

 

[laurie]

I would put a sheet around her cage. I would hand mist from the top so she does not see you. If you feel it is necessary you can try to slip in a couple bugs, but unless you feel she is skinny, I would not bother. If nothing happens before you can get in to see the vet, I would take her, get an x-ray, and if she has eggs, talk to your vet about a shot to help her lay the eggs.

Let me know how she is doing. I will answer questions as best I can.

 

[jajeanpierre]

I would put a sheet around her cage. I would hand mist from the top so she does not see you. If you feel it is necessary you can try to slip in a couple bugs, but unless you feel she is skinny, I would not bother. If nothing happens before you can get in to see the vet, I would take her, get an x-ray, and if she has eggs, talk to your vet about a shot to help her lay the eggs.

Let me know how she is doing. I will answer questions as best I can.

I just got back from the vet's. He did not think she was gravid. We didn't do an x-ray. I'm going to assume he is mistaken, just in case.

She's going to the bottom and digging at the glass every once in awhile. She's also going down to hunt. I don't know if her digging at the glass at the bottom is stress from losing a great deal of her cage to the laying bin, a 12" wide plant pot, or stress from thinking about laying eggs. Her cage isn't very big to begin with--16"x16"x26" tall.

I just ordered another cage (that will be my fourth for two chameleons!). Today I ordered Dragon Strand's medium keeper cage plus the layer box to fit under it. In the mean time, she is in the mostly glass cage I bought from PetSmart. It has a screen on top and down one side. I do have a Reptibreeze (24"x24"x48") that I haven't yet set up for her. Should I set up the Reptibreeze now and then move her yet again? That would give her a lot more room with the laying bin in as well. It's just that if she really is gravid I am just stressing her repeatedly, which is not at all good.

 

[ZiggyStardust]

is the vet that you took her to a reptile expert? If not, and not disrespect to the vet, then I would insist on an xray.

In the meantime, if you can, I would honestly set up the XL reptibreeze, they are big cages and would enable you to have a big laying bin at the bottom as well as leaving lots of space for her to roam.

 

[jajeanpierre]

is the vet that you took her to a reptile expert? If not, and not disrespect to the vet, then I would insist on an xray.

In the meantime, if you can, I would honestly set up the XL reptibreeze, they are big cages and would enable you to have a big laying bin at the bottom as well as leaving lots of space for her to roam.

My vet is probably a decent reptile vet. He is an avian vet by education with a lot of reptiles (and chameleons) in his practice. Birds and reptiles have a lot more in common with each other than birds and mammals do. Birds, after all, are very closely related to dinosaurs, with some ornithologists believing they ARE dinosaurs. I've had him doing some tricky stuff with my show chickens.

As I mentioned previously, she has never shown adult colors. She's not nearly as round looking as she has been.

Two things are different--I put a laying bin in her cage on the weekend, and she injured one eye on Sunday. She's kept her eye shut pretty much all the time since she injured it. The vet found a small bruise on the eyeball. I had found little tiny abrasions to the skin on the turret. I don't think she is eating as much although she is eating. Her eating less might be the presence of the laying bin, her eye bothering her or she is thinking of getting ready to lay.

I've wrapped a sheet around her cage to give her privacy. She has shown no interest in the laying bin, but does use it to get down to the very bottom where she has scratched at the glass or hunted crickets. The restlessness (scratching at the glass at the bottom) only started after I put in the laying bin. Maybe she is stressed by the laying bin. I am treating her as if she needs to lay eggs.

My new Dragon Strand cage with laying bin is being shipped tomorrow but I bet I don't get it for two weeks. That cage fits right on top of the laying bin, so the floor of the enclosure is the laying bin--if she goes to the bottom, she is in the laying bin.

I'll set up the Reptibreeze today or tomorrow. I bought two of the big cages, but when I set the first one up I realized they hadn't send me the proper-length screws to attach the doors so I had been putting off setting the second one up. ZooMed sent the shorter screws and they just arrived, so I can put it together without damaging the frame with the too-long screws the way I did when I set up the first one.

Thanks everyone for your help.