My veiled chameleon died--WHY?
jbeavers
I came home today and offered my 2 month old pet a mealworm. He tried to
take it as he usually does, but caught the worm's midsection and couldn't
get it into his mouth. This has happened before, and I just pulled it out
and gave it to him again and he ate it fine. Today, however, he started to
act like he was choking and closed his eyes and fell off of his branch.
Then, he started rapidly changing colors and gasping and sticking out his
tongue, 10 minutes later, he was dead.
I had his home set up with proper heat,branches,food, water(which was misted
on him 3-4 times daily, vitamins 2 times a week, and gentle care and an
excellent check-up from an experienced vet in my home-town. I just don't
under stand what went wrong!!
Joel Beavers
jbea...@digitalis.net
ConcertBiz
Well @ 2 months old, you werent feeding your veiled properly. The mealworm was
definately too big for your veiled and it choked to death from the sounds of
what your telling us. @ 2 months, you should be feeding fruit flys, pinhead
crix., stuff really small, in large amounts as they will eat alot. I'm sorry
for your loss.
dave
Gymbo4
>came home today and offered my 2 month old pet a mealworm
>10 minutes later, he was dead.
Sounds like he choked to death. A veiled at that age should be fed on pinhead
crickets or fruit flies. Mealworms are way too big. Before you get another
chameleon, you should maybe read up on them and ask the questions before you
have problems. A really good book is Linda Davison's "chameleons their care
and breeding". You can get it from Sticky Tongue Farms website
http://www.biohaven.com/bus/stf/index.htm.
Sorry about your chameleon...
Jim
Pluto77189
>pinhead
>crickets or fruit flies.
Pinhead crickets are too small for a hatchling veiled, not too small, but 1/8
inch crickets are better( economical reasons) a 2 month old should be eating no
smaller that 1/8 to 1/4 inch crickets. But yes, mealworms aren't good until
they can manage them fully.
GatorFan
> I had his home set up with proper heat,branches,food, water(which was
misted
> on him 3-4 times daily, vitamins 2 times a week, and gentle care and an
> excellent check-up from an experienced vet in my home-town. I just don't
> under stand what went wrong!!
> Joel Beavers
> jbea...@digitalis.net
You didn't mention either a UVB fluorescent bulb or that you dusted his
prey with calcium. Did you have these?
ConcertBiz
yeah, but small amounts in quantity can work great. esp. w/a little baby food
in the dish for them to walk on, and stuff for it to eat in the process.
SkyWolf
On 17 May 1998 23:13:13 GMT, pluto...@aol.com (Pluto77189) wrote:
>>pinhead
>>crickets or fruit flies.
>
>Pinhead crickets are too small for a hatchling veiled,
Bzzzzt! Wrong.
> not too small, but 1/8
>inch crickets are better( economical reasons) a 2 month old should be eating no
>smaller that 1/8 to 1/4 inch crickets.
Actually the smaller Crix have a better guts to chitin ratio. It's
ALOT more important to avoid too large feeder insects than it is to
worry about how many small ones they eat. You can hatch a million
pinheads from 24 adult crix in about 3-4 weeks. Timing is everything.
> But yes, mealworms aren't good until
>they can manage them fully.
Actually....Superworms are better.But not until the animal is MUCH
older.
Mac
Pluto77189
>
>>>pinhead
>>>crickets or fruit flies.
>>
>>Pinhead crickets are too small for a hatchling veiled,
>
>Bzzzzt! Wrong.
>
>
How annoying... Did you SEE what I wrote?? I said ECONOMICALLY speaking.
Pinheads are fine, but why bother? even the smallest runt baby veiled can eat
a 1/8th inch cricket, 1/16th are smaller still, but BOTH are much better than
pinheads. Pinheads DIE, plain and simple. Hatchling crickets are way too
fragile, even those a few days older are much hardier.
Most people aren't going to be hatching pinfheads themselves, especially
beginners. But if you're going to order crickets, try to avoid pinheads, they
die very easily---they don't like shipments.
Besides, some cricket companies package larger crickets AS pinheads, Rainbow
comes to mind. I used to order pinheads from them, and they were perfect, I
ordered pinheads from Armstrong, and couldnt believe what I was seeing, they
were 4X's smaller than what I got from rainbow.
ANd yes superworms ARE much better, but we were talking about mealworms...
SOrry for the rant, I just woke up.