why do my chameleons keep dying?

[pantherchamlove36]

a few years ago I purchased a chameleon from screameleons, he lived for about a year and a few months just fine...he eventually stopped eating crickets all together and died, he never had an issue with eating in the past, all of a sudden stopped eating, any idea as to why this happened?

 

[Nursemaia]

I'd look at the care sheets and try to figure out what you were doing wrong

 

[Remkon]

a few years ago I purchased a chameleon from screameleons, he lived for about a year and a few months just fine...he eventually stopped eating crickets all together and died, he never had an issue with eating in the past, all of a sudden stopped eating, any idea as to why this happened?

No clue because without any details on your husbandry there is no way we can know.

Did you only feed him crickes?
Did you take him to a vet when he was declining food for a longer period of time?
Did you provide supplementation and UVB?
Did you provide sufficient opertunities for he chameleon to hydrate?
Do you have a picture of the chameleon from when his health was declining?

 

[pantherchamlove36]

I fed him crickets dusted with calcium and vitamins gutloaded before I fed them to him provided uvb light and basking site was between 85 and 90 degrees, have a mist king that ran on a timer, diet consisted of crickets silkworms and occasionally hornworms and roaches I did everything I could to to keep him healthy.

 

[pantherchamlove36]

also I live in new England area It can get very cold here, maybe that has something to do with it

 

[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

We human beings spent sooooo much money every year eating out! In our big cities we have all kinds of restaurants: Chinese, Italian, Korean, Vietnamese, Cajun, Indian, Mexican, Puerto Rican etc, etc, etc...... The amazing thing is that all these restaurants are financially flourishing! See, we humans love variety, we act like it is the end of the world when we have to eat leftovers! An amazing 40% of food in the United States of America ends up in our landfills! Wow, we are wasteful! But, why do we waste so much food? Because we can! Because we love good tasting food and we have an abundance of it and it is quite inexpensive! (At least compared to in other countries). We do not have to look the same food in the eye, day after day, after day!

How sad for our chameleons that we do not feed them the way we like to eat! Most chameleons spent their entire life eating nothing but crickets! Not fair! In most cases, if I was a captively kept Chameleon I would go on a hunger strike and rather die!

I once was married to a lady that could not cook! My diet consisted of fried egg sandwiches, potato salad and stirfry! After 12 years of that, a bullet in the head did not sound too horrible! And then she blessed me by requesting a divorce!

My chameleons eat a massive variety of buggs! Besides for breeding a massive variety of bugs, I hunt for grasshoppers, katydids, prying mantis, cicadas etc! On top of that, I feed my bugs that I propagate (with only the best interest of my chameleons as my focus) a massive variety of foods! The bugs we feed our chameleons taste different due to what we feed them! The bugs also act different when they are healthy versus barely alive! This does affect our chameleons appetite too!

When I communicate with customers I do not just call it gutloading, I rather call it the "art of gutloading"! My dry gutload mostly consist of organic foods I grow myself and amazing wild foods that I go and collect in nature myself! For the few ingredients that I do buy, I do my research and buy the best quelity, freshest, organic products! My dry gutload consist of over 200 researched ingredients!

We are what we eat! And so are our chameleons! Let's beef things up with our chameleons a little shall we!? Let's feed them like we care about them! I know I do!

 

[JacksJill]

Many keepers are from your neck of the woods. That by itself is probably not the problem. There are problems associated with cold dry weather cham keeping but many have found ways to compensate.
At this point evaluating your previous husbandry will be your only clue to your losses and may not root out the cause. (MBD, obstruction, infection, parasitism)
If you really plan to get back into cham keeping then this would be the time to do your homework and optimize your keeper skills, find a good vet in case of emergency and establish a relationship and haul out your old gear and disinfect the heck out of anything non porous and toss the porous stuff in case it's contaminated.
Oh, and have the folks here review your setup/husbandry plan to see if you missed anything before your cham arrives.

 

[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

I have a few thaughts on chameleon health that I would love to share!

A well overlooked factor of longevity is the fact that most large breeders of any kind of pet depend financially on mass production. The more pets they produce and sell, the bigger the profit over time. Females therefore gets bred at a younger age and bred more frequently. Longevity fits no where in this equation!

The flip side of the coin would be to breed males that are at least 4 years old (a massive amount of male panthers die off by age 3) with females that are at least 3 years old (females often die before they are 3 years old!

Studies with rats fruit flies etc. Has shown this to impact longevity dramatically! With my fruit flie cultures (that I keep as feeders for my baby chameleons) I have tested it for myself! It makes a massive difference within a few short generations with longevity!

Customers in the USA are very lucky! Most of our popular, well known chameleon breeders are also incredible, wonderful and conscientious people with a steady moral compas!

As a chameleon breeder I constantly do research and adjust my chameleon care practices to reflect what I learn! I sincerely hope and believe these will make a positive difference for the health and longevity of chameleons in the long run!

 

[foxrun]

I am new to this and this is probably common knowledge but worth saying anyway. I learned the hard way that just because your UV bulb is on doesn
't mean it is working. No one told me that they lose UV benefits the older they get. I now change my bulb every 3 months.

 

[pantherchamlove36]

thanks for all the help everyone ill deffinately let you all see how the setup is before I purchase a chameleon

 

[jajeanpierre]

a few years ago I purchased a chameleon from screameleons, he lived for about a year and a few months just fine...he eventually stopped eating crickets all together and died, he never had an issue with eating in the past, all of a sudden stopped eating, any idea as to why this happened?

How many have died? You use the plural in the title.

If you've had a captive born and bred panther live only a year and then dies, there is probably something very very seriously wrong with how you are keeping them.

That said, it could be something completely unrelated to your husbandry, but you did mention that it stopped eating, declined and died. That suggests disease or husbandry issues.

How many times and for how long did you handle it in a week?

 

[leedragon]

We human beings spent sooooo much money every year eating out! In our big cities we have all kinds of restaurants: Chinese, Italian, Korean, Vietnamese, Cajun, Indian, Mexican, Puerto Rican etc, etc, etc...... The amazing thing is that all these restaurants are financially flourishing! See, we humans love variety, we act like it is the end of the world when we have to eat leftovers! An amazing 40% of food in the United States of America ends up in our landfills! Wow, we are wasteful! But, why do we waste so much food? Because we can! Because we love good tasting food and we have an abundance of it and it is quite inexpensive! (At least compared to in other countries). We do not have to look the same food in the eye, day after day, after day!

How sad for our chameleons that we do not feed them the way we like to eat! Most chameleons spent their entire life eating nothing but crickets! Not fair! In most cases, if I was a captively kept Chameleon I would go on a hunger strike and rather die!

I once was married to a lady that could not cook! My diet consisted of fried egg sandwiches, potato salad and stirfry! After 12 years of that, a bullet in the head did not sound too horrible! And then she blessed me by requesting a divorce!

My chameleons eat a massive variety of buggs! Besides for breeding a massive variety of bugs, I hunt for grasshoppers, katydids, prying mantis, cicadas etc! On top of that, I feed my bugs that I propagate (with only the best interest of my chameleons as my focus) a massive variety of foods! The bugs we feed our chameleons taste different due to what we feed them! The bugs also act different when they are healthy versus barely alive! This does affect our chameleons appetite too!

When I communicate with customers I do not just call it gutloading, I rather call it the "art of gutloading"! My dry gutload mostly consist of organic foods I grow myself and amazing wild foods that I go and collect in nature myself! For the few ingredients that I do buy, I do my research and buy the best quelity, freshest, organic products! My dry gutload consist of over 200 researched ingredients!

We are what we eat! And so are our chameleons! Let's beef things up with our chameleons a little shall we!? Let's feed them like we care about them! I know I do!

why didn´t you just Cook for yourself those 12 years?

 

[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

why didn´t you just Cook for yourself those 12 years?

Excelent question! Princess lovely was a stay at home mom (I had three to four jobs at a time) with an breathtaking array of skills and techniques she deployed on a day to day basis to keep the bank account emply! I spent many hours away from home raking in the money as fast as I could! When I got home, I still had to do the dishes, clean the house and do the laundry! O, yeah and I had to make sure that I make all the meals on my off days to make sure we get in some other nutrients too! Lol! I braught my ex-princess many cook books and VHS tapes to help her learn how to make some new foods, but they did not help! I also tried to teach her how to cook, you now, like in the romantic movies where he stands behind her with his arms around her while both their hands are in the same bowl lovingly manipulating the dough to perfection! "Cause there just ain't nothing in the world like home made bread!" So, I am so sorry that I left that part out of my previous post, or the 80% of the meals I cooked. I was merely mentioning what she cooked! Haha! How sweet to reminis! NOT!

 

[pantherchamlove36]

How many have died? You use the plural in the title.

If you've had a captive born and bred panther live only a year and then dies, there is probably something very very seriously wrong with how you are keeping them.

That said, it could be something completely unrelated to your husbandry, but you did mention that it stopped eating, declined and died. That suggests disease or husbandry issues.

How many times and for how long did you handle it in a week?

i did everything i was supposed to and i only handled it a few times a week

 

[jajeanpierre]

i did everything i was supposed to and i only handled it a few times a week

Your question is, "Why do my chameleons keep dying." That's plural. "Chameleons keep dying," not "Why did my chameleon die." So more than one, maybe more than two. You are specific about the age. You give no other information, except the above, so it is impossible to give you even a suggestion of where to look for answers.

I'm sorry your chameleons have died. One might be acceptable, but more than one? I suspect you are doing something very wrong but that you might not recognize the problem. Poor hydration is a big killer of captive chameleons, and spraying by hand really just doesn't do a good job.