Why did my Baby Sweety girl die?!?! :'(

[Jaime Delsman]

i have gotten a new baby female jackson. i was hopping she would grow up into a beautiful healthy little lady. the first few nights she was eating after that she stopped, also the last day i had her i noticed she was sleeping alot in the day, i was very worryed.. she was so small i thought it might have been because she was full. i was in the middle of ordering another screenmesh cage for her and the male she came with when that morning i woke up she was sitting up with her mouth open, tongue sticking out. she looked so sick it happened so fast. i put some crickets in her cage wishing she would eat and get better. seconds latter she started climbing down the log. i thought she was going after the crickets. but when she was half way off the log she just hung there with 1 foot and her tail and stayed there. i picked her up and held her her tongue came out of her mount again and she closed her eyes and the color in her skin faded. she died there in my hands. i had her in a glass cage only for a few days. i noticed the male she came with would push her around a bit so i separated them after the second day. i didnt handle her hardly ever, only to give her a bath once and put her in a safe place to eat away from the male which was just about same size as her. was there anything i did wrong that lead up to her death? did i do anything wrong? i thought you could pair up males and females? and i was trying to get a mesh cage for her, the shipping was delayed D: i feel horrible.

 

[Jaime Delsman]

when a chameleon gets sick, what can i do to help them get better?

aside from just taking them to the vet

 

[Branman]

You can only do so much to help a sick chameleon. It really depends what is wrong with it. In your case, I'm not really sure what happened. Did you notice anything at all when you first got her? I always look at my reptiles closely and thoroughly when I get them. I can't help much. By maybe a more experienced member will post. Sorry for the loss though.

 

[Jaime Delsman]

only the fact that the last few days she wouldnt eat, and the very last day she turned a funny light color and was sleeping all day. you dont think the glass cage would have done anything do you? or maybe the other chameleon hurt her some how?

but no, when i first got her she looked good and healthy aside from being really small. but she did eat when i got her home idk what could have happened.

 

[DanSB]

copy the form on this link, fill it out and post it here so we can tell you what likely went wrong or at least what you can improve for the male to hopefully keep him alive too.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/how-ask-help-66/

So far I see a waterfall, what looks like an aquarium and not a terrarium, no plants, and what is a bath?

 

[chameleoman]

Did you get her from a tree? aren't there a lot of wild jackson's out there in Hawaii?

 

[Ulrich]

Sorry for your loss. But don't pair them - ever. It can be very stressful especially on the female. I know of a lot of stores who try to tell you you can house them together as they are so small (just to make you buy two). But you can only do that if the cage is huge and has enough visual protection (foliage) from one another. As Dan suggested please fill in the help form. There might be people here who can advise you on proper husbandry for the left male.
And do take out the waterfall. It will be recycled water. The high humidity will cause bacteria to grow in the recycled water.

 

[Wykd]

light color means she was over heating, i think. My cham will do that when they get hot, and they get darker when they are basking trying to get more heat.

Was she drinking? She looks kind of dehydrated to me, but i am not an expert.

What was the temp and and humidity and all that good stuff on the fom Dan posted the link to.

 

[xanthoman]

more trolling

it can be an impossible thing to figure out what went wrong after the fact.
its always heartbreaking to lose a cham , but imo there are some things that can be learned from it.

not trying to be harsh just trying to put it in straight forward terms.

1. jacksons are metabolically sensitive. common simple mistakes that would likely be no huge short term issue for veileds or panthers, can be serious or even life threatening for a montane in short order. therefore they dont generally make the best choice for starter chams, and, the reality of it is, if they do get an issue (which they likely will at some point) that somebody who is inexperienced as a montane keeper will not likely recognize the problems in time or know what to do about them in time.

2. the fact of the matter is that jacksons dont stand up well to care given outside the parameters of their care requirements, they also dont fair well for long periods of less than optimum health, the reality of that is, if you get one before having a good idea of its care requirements or how to implement them, its likely going to die before you figure it out. they dont make a good learn as you go cham, and most who try that approach are likely to lose a couple of chams in the learning process.

3. as a general rule, and what i would consider basic xanth husbandry, co-habitation is not a good idea, or recommended. even experienced keepers co-habitating a small number in a greenhouse environment, often have difficulties.
imo, if you have more than one xanth in the room, its not even a good idea to let them see each other.

4. i didnt view the entire thread, but the cage pictured is imo, completely unsuitable for a xanth. imo, an otherwise healthy xanth would start to go downhill in short order if kept in that cage. i would elaborate, but its not my intention to try and teach entire xanth husbandry in a single post. (nor is it possible)

5. even without seeing a help form, just based soley on your location. i dont know the story of how you acquired your cham, but, the overwhelming likely hood is that it was born from wild caught stock, which means it almost certainly had parasites to start with which puts even an experienced keeper or otherwise healthy cham, at a disadvantage from the get go.

6. if you are intent on getting another one, then my advice would be not to rush into it. spend a couple dozen hrs reading on their care requirements, including cage setup, diet/supp choices, dealing with pathogens, etc.,and also get their cage and everything in place and dialed in to the best of your ability before getting one.

7. keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of chams in hawaii, come from recently wild stock, and the hdlnr has already confirmed that virtually every wild specimen has some kind of pathogenic infection. so, given that, it would be prudent to have some idea of how to care for it and be all set up and ready, before you get it. imo, it would also be prudent to avoid any animals under 7 months or gravid females and be prepared to take fecal samples as you get one. jmo

 

[Jaime Delsman]

i now have a big 5 foot by 2 feet screen mesh cage, i'm raising my own crickets baby crickets have already hatched. i now know glass cages where bad i was ordering the mesh cage befor Swety died, i was not that much of a begginer, i had 1 big male chameleon for 6 months now and nothing went wrong with him, he is still doing good. i have no idea why Sweety died, it might have been a mix of the male stressing her out and the glass cage. i hardly handled her at all. i had 5 chams all together and i had 3 cages. my vet says you can keep males and females together in mating pairs so i paired em up and kept the extra one by himself. i know chameleons as baby's have a high mortality rate or so i'm told. Sweety was just about a baby. the last few days after sweety died i kept my chameleons in open air in a Plumeria tree. now i have another problem, one of my males is not eating consistently. and the other day i saw him open his mouth really wide and spit out something, whats that about, is he sick now too?
they all have open air, they all have UVB light and natural light. they all get fed by hand so to make sure one dose not get more then the other. i been watching them, no fighting what so ever everything looks good, just one thing, my smaller but not the smallest male is not eating consistently.


BTW the light color on Sweety my vet told me is a color you have to look out for. it means they are sick. Sweety only turned that color on that last day she was alive. i dont want the same thing to happen to Guy.

 

[Jaime Delsman]

what can i do for parasites????? you are right they all are from the wild. can parasites get transferred from one chameleon to another?

 

[ChamBust]

I currently own two healthy and happy female Jacksons, and just wanted to add my 2 cents...just some observations based off your posts and pics

-She appears to be about 5-6 months old in the picture. Once they reach that age range, it's best to separate them from all other chams, otherwise they will stress out.
-She looks very dehydrated - they need misting 2-3x day.
-She most likely stopped eating due to dehydration; it's a painful process for them to eat when not hydrated.
-Eyes closed during the day is always a bad sign...only time its okay is at night when they're sleeping.
-There's no foilage or hiding/safe areas. If they don't have this, they stress out (dark coloration) and thus will be more susceptible to getting sick.
-There's no leaves for her to drink off of...even if you mist regularly, they will not trust water unless it's on a leaf or dripping down from a leaf. My guess is she drank little, if at all, under your care.
-Glass tanks are no-no; they need airflow, so she may have gotten a respitory infection.
-They definitely don't need 'baths'; a nice, healthy misting once every couple of weeks should be fine
-Based on her species and care history, she may have had parasites but they can still lead full, healthy lives as long as they have everything they need (food, water, etc.)
-Her young, sensitive age may have been a factor of falling ill

Okay, well if you have any questions, let me know...be happy to answer and help any way possible.

 

[Jaime Delsman]

i found out why she died. one of my other smaller chameleon males started displaying the same symptoms so i got him to a vet before it could progress. he and the others where wild so some of them had parasites in there intestines. seance Sweetys death was so sudden the vet said that would explain it. she had parasites. there where to many in her system to manage the vet said she was under a bit of stress so her imunsystem was low and thats why the parasites got out of control.

warning to all that are new to owning chameleons. if you see your chameleons behavior and eating habits change dont second guess it! get them treatment right away and if they are already to the point of sleeping all day it would not be long till they are dead. so watch out! dont learn this lesson the hard way. its very sad and painful to watch.

well i got a 5 ft high 2 ft wide mesh screen cage now with lots of leafage and UVB light and little dripper so they should be good now + 2 plumeria trees for the bigger chameleons i have, 1 tree for each of them

 

[xanthoman]

5. even without seeing a help form, just based soley on your location. i dont know the story of how you acquired your cham, but, the overwhelming likely hood is that it was born from wild caught stock, which means it almost certainly had parasites to start with which puts even an experienced keeper or otherwise healthy cham, at a disadvantage from the get go. jmo

not trying to say i told you so, but considering your location, that was pretty much a given. the Hawaii dlnr has already acknowledged that every wild specimen they have tested or autopsied has had some sort of parasitic infection. imo its unlikely that anyone selling them there, would pay more to have them tested than they could sell them for (assuming their intention was to sell some). imo, its also a reasonable assumption that nobody is importing captive bred xanths, so the logical deduction is that the overwhelming # of xanths for sale locally either came directly from infected wild stock or captive bred from wild stock that was most likely infected. imo to get a cham purchased locally in hawaii off to a good start, job/day1 would be a fecal float.

glad you managed to save the rest. lesson learned for next time. just curious, did the vet say what kind of parasite it was and what did they prescribe for treatment? thanks. jmo.

 

[AllFallDown]

I have no experience with Jackson's at this point. I just wanted to pop my head into this thread and offer my condolences. Losing a pet is never easy- especially watching them crash so quickly as you did. I cannot imagine that was easy.

I think it is great that you came here to find some answers. A lot of people I know would just stop at "well the lizard is dead...". You chose to take it a step further and attempt to understand why, you also learned from past experience and jumped quickly without hesitation when you noticed your other cham was showing symptoms.

To this I say Bravo!

Best of luck with the rest of your chameleon clan and as I am sure you know- do not hesitate to ask everyone for help. You have a very good crew of people here that really know their stuff

 

[Jaime Delsman]

i want to breed these chameleons but i also want them to live a healthy live so yea i spent the extra money to care for them and i hope Big Mammas babys come out healthy too. i want to sell her babys given i'm going to have to get them checked up or treated for parasites too so i will also have to sell them a bit more then most other people around where sell them for. i also have thought about making a care sheet for buyers so they dont make the same mistake i did. i love animals and want to keep them around and keep them happy.

The vet said Sweety had Filarial worms and Guy had round worms

idk what the vet first gave Guy but he put him in a cage at his office place for 12 hours then told me to come back and get him and the vet gave me some Reptaid he says it pretty much treats everything under the sun. $30 for one little boddle

i am a professional horse trainer i had no idea these little guys would be so much trouble

 

[Rambully]

Just wanted to pass on how sorry I am for your loss and how glad I am that everything is ok now with your other chameleons!!!

I too have horses and as both you and I know they can be incredibly fragile under certain circumstances too! I've spent my fair share of winter nights (keeping in mind I'm in Canada) in a barn with a sick horse... at least when reptiles are needing extra attention its somewhere heated LOL

 

[AllFallDown]

i want to breed these chameleons but i also want them to live a healthy live so yea i spent the extra money to care for them and i hope Big Mammas babys come out healthy too. i want to sell her babys given i'm going to have to get them checked up or treated for parasites too so i will also have to sell them a bit more then most other people around where sell them for. i also have thought about making a care sheet for buyers so they dont make the same mistake i did. i love animals and want to keep them around and keep them happy.

The vet said Sweety had Filarial worms and Guy had round worms

idk what the vet first gave Guy but he put him in a cage at his office place for 12 hours then told me to come back and get him and the vet gave me some Reptaid he says it pretty much treats everything under the sun. $30 for one little boddle

i am a professional horse trainer i had no idea these little guys would be so much trouble

Well, I am not a breeder, but if I may offer a suggestion...

" i also want them to live a healthy live so yea i spent the extra money to care for them"

Don't look at it as spending a little extra, look at it as spending what is necessary to ensure their health and comfort. I do not see this as extra personally- comes with the territory.

Also, sounds like you are excited about breeding and selling chameleons. I can certainly understand that but in all fairness, you did just lose one of your chams and it sounds like you have only been caring for them for a few months (was it 6? I forgot). Perhaps it would be to your benefit and the benefit of your chams to slow down a bit- put that goal on hold for now and get to know what chameleon husbandry is all about. This will benefit you in at least two ways as a breeder:
1) You will be more effective as a breeder and will be able to quickly identify signs of illness and act accordingly. This will ensure the safety of the parents and offspring and help ensure healthy strong young ones
2) From a business perspective- it will protect your reputation. If you sell a chameleon that is not healthy- people are going to come to you for answers. Will you be able to answer them? Do you want the reputation of being the chameleon breeder that sells sick chameleons? I guarantee that will not go away for a long time. People remember that stuff long after it no longer applies.

"i also have thought about making a care sheet for buyers so they dont make the same mistake i did."
- Respectfully, you did not know what the mistake was until a few days ago.

As a last note and please forgive me if I am being a bit presumptuous. I am hearing a lot in this last post about breeding and selling and price tags and expenses cost of care and how it will effect the prices you charge customers. Not so much about health of your chams, ensuring their future comfort. Loss of your last one and how you are grieving.

Breeding is great, no problems with that. Turning that into a business, other than some personal philosophical dilemmas which I will not go into, I can certainly understand wanting to make a business out of this. But I would advise you to SLOW DOWN and examine what your intentions and priorities are here. That last post sent up a lot of red flags for me both as a chameleon caretaker and as a (hypothetically) potential customer. Personal recommendation: drop the breeding and business aspirations for now- focus on your current crew of lizards, get through at least a year before you start breeding merchandise (and for that matter- don't see them as merchandise, they are animals, we should consider it a privileged to have them in our personal lives).

Again, please forgive me if I am being presumptuous or forming hasty assumptions.

[Edit]

I want to make it clear, I am not trying to come down on you and I am not trying to discourage you from pursuing your goals as a breeder. Not by any means. Chameleon husbandry is challenging enough, to add in the extra stress and expense of breeding presents new challenges. All I am trying to suggest is slow down and do this smartly and carefully. Also, make sure you know what your guiding principles are here. If your guiding principles are $$$, personally I hope you drop your ambitions and walk away right now. If your interests are in a true fascination and love of these creatures and an honest desire to see more healthy individuals out there and in good care, money being a nice consequence, then I look forward to seeing you succeed. That is my point. Ball is in your court.

Respectfully stated of course

 

[Jaime Delsman]

i understand you concern and the reason for slowing down but the reality is i now have a chameleon that is going to have babys weather i like it or not and also the fact that i probably dont have the capacity to care for them all so i was either going to sell them or let them go for this first run. i do understand that i am a beginner and need to learn a lot more before i could even come close to turning it into any hobby or business. i'm going to keep some of the babys because now i have extra space and because i my Sweety. but most ar most likely going to be realest/given away or sold. i would like to keep my chameleons for at least a year and have them grow a bit bigger before i start on any of that.

but yes sooner or latter i would like to try breeding chamys....god knows i'm going to be paranoid and want to keep them all being afraid that if i sell them little kids are going to be poking at them and what not lol i'm going to be like *Noooooooo their miiiiiinnneeee!!!!*

i can ensure you even though i posted the comment about breeding i am not moving that fast *it dose sound like i'm planing for right away dont it O,o lol* i like to talk about things that get me exited kinda talking out of my ass a bit. But it is more if a side hobby for now simply because one of my chammys happens to be pregnant, yes it is something i want to do in the future but again the facts are i cannot care them all atm so i have to get rid of them much less keep breeding them.

thank you for all the information very helpfull. if anyone has anymore information they think i could use plz replay

 

[Jaime Delsman]

If your guiding principles are $$$, personally I hope you drop your ambitions and walk away right now. If your interests are in a true fascination and love of these creatures and an honest desire to see more healthy individuals out there and in good care, money being a nice consequence, then I look forward to seeing you succeed.

lol nooo i'm not thinking $$$ i'm thinking of a room full of cute chammys all different shapes, sizes and colors i just like animals. omg i saw a video today of a leopard gecko OMG SO CUTE!!!!! its like cat/lizard my boyfriend wants one now lol