Im sad to report when i got home last night Trig passed away. This afternoon we will bury him in the back yard. I want to say thank you for all that helped, maybe i should have tried the liquid diet sooner. Hopefully hes eating all the bugs he wants now in heaven.
@JacksJill thanks for your recommendation.
@Andee thank you for being so informative with the information you gave me, i have saved all that you said and plan to use it if im in need to again. Ill take action a lot sooner.
I'm very sorry for your loss. I didn't chime in earlier since you already had all the help you should need, people here but most importantly, a competent vet. You needed to take the advice given by a trained veterinarian who has seen the animal, not be distracted by us well meaning lay people.
You did not let anyone down, including your Trig.
Your Trig was most likely a wild caught with all the problems that go along with wild caughts. Virtually every wild caught has parasites that they keep in check. When stressed (at capture, on display at Petco, when stressed by inappropriate caging or hydration), their immune system is weakened and the parasite level can get out of hand.
Parasites should not kill a healthy chameleon with a healthy immune system, but a stint in a Petco cage will suppress any immune system and parasites can get the upper hand and overwhelm them. There may be complicating factors such as kidney disease from dehydration, which I'm sure happened to him at Petco. Your good care cannot undue that kidney damage.
Your vet was correct, that sometimes a fecal comes back negative when in fact the animal is loaded with parasites. My own zoo vet also recommended wax worms for one of my newly imported wild caughts that was failing to thrive.
I'm glad you are getting a necropsy. It will tell you a lot and probably show you that you did a good job with Trig. In hindsight, perhaps getting him to the vet earlier, a more aggressive approach and repeated fecals, maybe fresher ones, might have made a difference, but it might have made no difference at all. Aggressively treating any wild caught causes its own harm by stressing them.
I am a firm believer that a chameleon should be able to heal itself. I don't say that as being anti medical care, but as believing that if things are set up right for your chameleon, he will have a very robust immune system and keep himself healthy. An ill chameleon suggests all is not right in his world, but I want to tell you I think that all happened before you got him.
Someone mentioned the mental aspect of a chameleon becoming depressed in captivity. Having worked with so many wild caught chameleons, I have experienced that first hand. The one that first showed that to me was a young mellers chameleon I picked up from the importer's and held for a friend for a couple of weeks. I didn't have appropriate caging for her, but it was appropriate for my own wild-caught montane chameleons which were just a bit smaller than she was. But for her, those walls made her horribly depressed. She gave up and tried to die on me. I fought to get her to live and about 10 days into her stay with me she changed her mind and decided to live. I was never so glad to get an animal out of my house as the day she was picked up! I'm sure if I had kept her six months in the caging she was in, she would have gotten sick and died on me, just because she wasn't housed the way she needed to be even though it was wonderful housing for my graciliors.
The second animal that made me be more aware of the toll captivity takes on chameleons was a young wild caught gracilior. He was imported in May 2016 weighing about 22g. He immediately started dropping weight. I ran fecals and cleared up his parasite load. While being medicated, I force fed him silk worms (why not, his mouth is open and it won't stress him anymore than he already was and will at least get something in his gut) and I was able to stabilize his weight get his weight up from a low of 18g to about 20g. While I force fed him, he maintained his weight around 20/21g. As soon as I stopped, he dropped weight. I had him in to the vet many times with many fecals. The vet decided that the best course was to force feed him one of those critical care carnivore prescription diets. The vet was board certified in whatever a zoo vet is called by the AVM. He said that the critical care food would give him nutrition until the day he decided to live. Every day for four months I force fed him and he maintained his weight at about 21/22g while the others imported at the same time had doubled their weight. I waited for him to die. One day he just had a different feel to him and he started gaining weight. I dropped the force feedings to every other day and soon stopped. I haven't weighed him recently, but visually he has caught up with the others and is probably about 60g. (He was imported in May this year.)
I just wanted to share some of my experiences with wild caughts, which I think yours was. They are very tricky to deal with, even for experienced competent vets. Keep us posted about the necropsy results. It adds to the knowledge base.
