New Chameleon not eating

Mchamex

New Member
I recently brought home my new panther chameleon, he’s a juvenile and has been quite stressed with the move although that was to be expected

when I first got him home I managed to feed him a couple wax worms as a treat while handling him- I do this with all my new pets to make sure they have a good first impression of me lol

Since then (3 days) he hasn’t eaten a thing, he did poo once and it looked perfectly normal to me although I found it quite late after he had done it so it was already damp etc, I’m getting a little worried as he looks pretty skinny & he won’t accept any of the variety I’ve tried (Dubia’s, crickets, wax worms, locusts)

Any tips / advice would really be appreciated- I’ve been misting 3 times a day and the basking temp is at around 30c ambient 22-24 depending on time of day, he’s been basking most of the day but becomes really active around the evening but still not hunting or wanting food
 

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How are you feeding him? Cup, feeder run, by hand? Are the feeders size appropriate for him, not too large?
Thanks so much for the reply! I’ve tried cup, feeder run and using tongs all with no luck, I believe the locusts may be too large, same with the dubias as I have no babies yet but the crickets & wax worms should be perfect size for him- maybe I should order some super worms?
 
Probably best to add that he goes almost completely black when basking- even when his body temp is reading 30 C on my heat gun
So it can take them a week to adjust to a new environment. But if the feeders are too large they tend to avoid them. If they are feeders they are not used to they will avoid them as well. Also he may not be used to eating the way you are trying to feed. Avoid tong feeding as this is dangerous, they can miss the feeder and hit the tong.

You can try building a feeder run. This will mimic the free range feeding while still having them contained but make it more like hunting for them. Here is a blog for how to make this https://dragonstrand.com/constructing-a-chameleon-feeder-run/


For the temps. Are you using a gauge with a probe to measure the basking temp? They will darken up to try to get warmer under heat. So I am wondering how accurate your basking temp actually is.
 
So it can take them a week to adjust to a new environment. But if the feeders are too large they tend to avoid them. If they are feeders they are not used to they will avoid them as well. Also he may not be used to eating the way you are trying to feed. Avoid tong feeding as this is dangerous, they can miss the feeder and hit the tong.

You can try building a feeder run. This will mimic the free range feeding while still having them contained but make it more like hunting for them. Here is a blog for how to make this https://dragonstrand.com/constructing-a-chameleon-feeder-run/


For the temps. Are you using a gauge with a probe to measure the basking temp? They will darken up to try to get warmer under heat. So I am wondering how accurate your basking temp actually is.
Thank you! I wonder if he is just slowly adjusting like you said- never thought of the tongs being dangerous but I’ll stop trying to tong feed immediately! For the temp I have a temperature gun, and I have a thermostat that keeps the temp at 30C on his basking log, I’ll buy another temp checker with a probe tomorrow to see if it’s accurate like you said, but it feels pretty warm to me up there so I’m not too worried.
 
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