Veiled Chameleon passed recently

mdross

New Member
I'm pretty new to chameleons, I had two and one just died. I wanted to know if anyone on this board has had a similar experience and could tell me why. I'd hate for it to be a mistake on my end and end up offing the other one.

Here's all the information about her set up:

Cage Info:
Cage Type - Cloth Mesh Cage ("Reptairium"), ~2ftx2ftx4ft
Lighting - one incandecent heat lamp, and one florescent UVA/UVB light. left on for ~ 12 hours a day. It is on an automatic timer.
Temperature - Basking spot is in the mid 90s, top of the cage is high to mid 80s, bottom is probably around 75-80' temperature at night is room temp ~75-76 degrees.
Humidity - Dont know an exact number. Leave dripper on top in mornings, mist cage in the afternoons when i get home from work.
Plants - All artificial plants one large container of potting soil for egg laying.
Location - high up in a bedroom. no fans or vents near by.

Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Female Veiled, 1yr to 1.2yrs old
Feeding - Mainly a cricket diet. occational mealworms/superworms/waxworms. 10-15 crickets every morning. Gutloading crickets with fluckers cricket feed/orange cubes
Supplements - light coat of calcium dust every feeding.
Watering - dripper, or melting ice on top of cage. also spray in afternoons. see chameleon drinking but usually not right away.
Fecal Description - usually black with a spot of white. lately has looked a little runny. maybe a little more white than usual.
History - stopped eatting about 1 week ago. Was Gravid. Layed 10-15 eggs. She didn't actually dig a hole in the potting soil to lay her eggs. She just laid them on top of the soil.
Current Problem - When i got home from work today found the chamelon dead in the bottom of the cage. Chameleons colors were very pale, almost white. Large purple bruise on one side.

here is a picture of the bruise:
http://imageserver4.textamerica.com/user.images.x/95/IMG_513195/_0705/T520060705143719358.jpg
 
well im not exactly sure what it could be, it sounds like you were taking good care of her, you are over feeding her , cut the amount of food in half..when chameleons die they usually turn black because the pigment cells stop working(thats probobly the bruise), that being said chameleons do acasionally bruise...she may of had a parasite, or she might have gotten drained of energy when laying those eggs....sorry to here about your loss.
 
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If you fed her 10-15 crickets a day, she probably had many more eggs than 10-15. MANY more. She was being overfed. I feed my females that many insects per week, sometimes less than that.

Chameleons dig nests, lay eggs, then cover them up. If they deviate from that, something is wrong.

If they lay eggs without digging a nest, they almost always do so because they are eggbound without a suitable nest site.

If females cannot dig a suitable nest, they almost always die eggbound. She probably still feels like a bag of marbles, doesn't she?

A female that lays eggs looks like a deflated ballon - she's probably still loaded with eggs.

I can't be 100% sure, but if what you describe is true, I'd say the chances are that your female died eggbound, due to lack of a suitable nesting site. Sometimes, a simple container of soil is not enough. It could also be that she was so bloated with eggs, she was unable to dig. This is not common, but possible, due to overfeeding.
 
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