OMG I'm a chameleon owner... 2/29 Rehoming this weekend. :)

[wodesorel]

So...... the crazy lady I got the starved geckos from is clearing out her entire collection due to her kids and grandkids having to move back in, and it wasn't just the geckos that weren't being treated properly. I've been complaining and lamenting about the poor cham to anyone I know that will listen since I saw it in August, and a friend of mine finally had enough and got her for me. She's overloaded and has no space left, I had the space and am home all day because of my health issues anyway, so we now co-own a chameleon, I guess? I'm holding it for her until she has room. We'll go with that. (cold dead hands....)

Anyway, she has Metabolic Bone Disorder. Possibly a previously fractured back leg. She's underweight. Dehydrated. And everything is so bad that she can't hit (non) moving targets and can only eat out of a bowl. She also has the shakes really badly from lack of calcium.

I think it's the last bad animal this woman had. There's two beardies up for sale (anyone near Columbiana County, Ohio? 2 adult females fer $100!) that look in okay shape. A friend told me she put sugar gliders (sugarselections, I haven't seen them, I can only hope that is the one thing she's taken care of right) and a hedgehog up this week. There was also a shelf full of tarantulas being kept in betta bowls she sort of halfheartedly listed. I remember seeing a rat snake and I think a boa in the room when we were there, too. Those haven't been listed but they seemed okay when I saw them. I blocked her so she couldn't see my Facebook rant about her, so I can't even see her stuff now. (Which is probably good...)

Anywho... I'm a chameleon owner. :freakout:









I nearly puked cleaning up the cage. She might have wiped it down once in a blue moon, but the thing needs taken apart to clean. The amount of junk under the platform was ugh. And there were mouse droppings on top of it.... it didn't even have a perch for her!! It took me an hour to take it apart, bleach it all, and then put it back together. And then I spent two hours freezing my butt off sitting on the front porch building up a jungle gym.










Houseplants on sale at Walmart since it's winter!



I think the most disturbing thing is it wasn't even being supplied properly with water. They will not drink from bowls. They need moving - dripping - water only. This was the state of the dripper:



There was a little spider with a web inside! She was trying to tell me she used it that day. Seriously?? I threw it away and made one from scratch using airline tubing.


So... yeah. Fingers crossed. They are not an easy species to keep. I never really wanted one because they are such a hard species to keep. But, she needed help. She was listed for sale originally back in June, and no one was interested in helping her. If we get in over our heads I have my friend's permission to surrender it to the reptile rescue. Although I've been messaging the rescue all day for help so I'm actually feeling pretty confident about this. I even sent them the ad and asked if it was a good idea to get involved when I found out it was happening and they said yeah, save the poor thing if possible.

And we put the male leopard gecko up for adoption since he's back to being fat and sassy. One in, one out.

[landlubber]

I am so glad you could give her a proper home. People like that should be barred from owning animals. I would die of guilt before neglecting an animal like that-I can't even imagine it. She looks so sweet, poor girl.

[CallaLily]

You've really improved her cage and I know you'll have her right as rain in no time! She's a lucky girl. What an awesome thing for your friend to do!

I love Chams! Never owned one and probably never will, they're just so delicate and expensive to start up. Please share tons of pics of her recovery as you go along. I can't wait to see her healthy.

[fluffythecrab]

I'm a former chameleon owner. I adopted mine out over 6 years ago when I was pregnant with my first boy. They take a lot of work and I figured both the baby and the Chan's would be to much. probably my favorite species! Great chameleon forum out there too. I wish you all the best with your rescue!

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

[Crabinski]

She's so beautiful, even in her malnourished state! Chameleons are one of my favorites so I'm always checking them out at Petco/PetSmart when I'm in there for supplies. Never had one (and never will, simply due to the delicacy of their care) but did have one of their distant cousins, an anole, when I was about 9 years old. Thank you, wode, and your friend for saving this sweetie -- I know she'll flourish under your loving and diligent care .

[wodesorel]

I have to wonder if lot of the expense and delicate stuff is still lingering from 20 years ago when chams were all wild caught and lived a few months. I'm sure it's because she's not my first exotic, but honestly the whole process has sort of been - "that's it"? I figured the rescue would tell me they are too hard, forget about it she's too far gone or bring it in immediately, but their response was "seen worse, calcium & UVB she'll be fine". Even on the cham forum I thought someone would say to turn it over to someone more experienced since it's my first, but they've been really supportive.

The crabs have been worse. So much worse. Seriously. I still worry about them more.

Heck the crabs cost more, even if she hadn't been gifted or had supplies on hand.

[CallaLily]

Mind you, I was comparing their care and cost to leopard and crested geckos. It always seemed like a much bigger step to me. One I thought I'd be prepared to cross at some point but have since decided not to. Maybe I'll rethink it in the distant future.

[wodesorel]

And I think cresties are too hard with their cool temperature requirements. In this house, anything topical is dubbed "easy" since our summers are so hot. If something is happy at 90 degrees in mid-summer, we're good. I can make that happen in the dead of winter. The inverse - something needing 60 degrees in the summer - is an impossibility. It rules out the two things I want most - gargoyle geckos and axolotls. Someday I'll find a chiller at a garage sale for $10 and be in heaven!

If you ever do start considering it, keep in mind three things 1.) Don't get a female. Egg binding is a real thing and it's a killer. (Yay me. My pet shop lady refuses to carry them because of bad experiences with it. ) 2.) Variety in their diet is key, so if you can't get a hold of weird feeders, it's not a good thing. After a lot of research I realized I have no choice and will have to order worms online. (Although honestly not much more expensive once you factor how many crickets they can replace, it's just a pain to have to mail order.) and 3.) Buy from a home breeder or rescue if that's your thing. If their chams are producing viable eggs they are happy and healthy, and baby veileds are selling in my area for $25. It's also NOT supporting the stores that aren't carrying for them properly, which, like hermits, is almost all of them.

Ideally, any reptile's diet should be varied and watched closely to make sure the gutloading is right. In Chams it's more vital than a gecko since they start having problems faster. Other than that the care seems to be about on the same level as the geckos. The dripper is a pain, but we're getting that sorted out slowly. She needs misted twice a day, but I'm in there feeding that often anyway. The cage she's in is a zoo-med screen one, but it's just aluminium window track and metal window screening, all screwed together. I could make her something five times that size and stock it with plants for how much it cost new! If she does okay I'll probably skim-scam things and build her a bigger enclosure using one of the credit cards and then sell the cage she's in now to pay it all off. I redo our window screens at least once a year because of the cats, and it's incredibly cheap when you do it yourself.

[BrisHermies]

She's beautiful, even though she looks so poorly cared for. You're a good person, its not hard to tell. It's kind of burning me up that the lady is selling the animals instead of surrendering them, though. That seems...low. I understand asking for a rehoming fee to make sure no one just scoops them up as freebies, but still...

Good luck with her! She is a sweetie!

[fantasybookworm]

She's gorgeous, and so very lucky that you guys got her! I can't wait to see how she progresses now that she's getting properly cared for. My only experience with a chameleon was when I was working at a pet store. One of the managers ordered one in. Unfortunately, our reptile unit was malfunctioning & having the heat/blower turn off randomly in the night (and no one would bother to fix or replace it because it was too expensive). So she got too cold one night & died. I was extremely upset and the manager that ordered her agreed no more chams after that.

And I can't bypass the hedgehog mention...I'm too far away (and don't have the ability to have two right now), but if you're able/willing to, suggest the Hedgehog Welfare Society to her. If she really can't take care of the animals anymore, they'll ensure that the hedgie gets a good forever home, though they won't pay much (I think the limit they can pay for rescues/rehomes is $50 & they prefer not to since rescue stations do vet checks & quarantine before rehoming).

[Laurie LeAnn]

If anything happens to my crabs and I live longer..I want a lizard. I have wanted one for years..

[wodesorel]

Bris, both her daughters and their kids have moved back in with her. What was the family room is now a sea of beds. I think she desperately needs to recoup what she can. I can't blame her for wanting money, and she's asking well under what they go for around here. I just wish she saw that there was severe neglect!

Fantasy, the woman is just plain nuts. However, I mentioned the society to a friend who got roped into taking a bunch of old breeders. I hope maybe they can help. She needs it! Also, chams are generally good down to 50 degrees at night, so that is odd it died. Usually the care in pet stores and from big breeders is bad to start with and it's little things that add up to trouble. There was a juvi veiled at PSP that looked worse than she does. The Cham forum is always talking about how bad chams in pet stores look. It's a lot like hermits, bad conditions and bad advice. Don't buy to rescue or they just buy more and keep doing the same wrong things.

Just found out there hasn't been a humane agent in our county for several months. No one is doing the job for anything - cats, dogs, horses, reptiles. So people are getting away with a lot of horrible stuff because the sheriff doesn't want to be bothered. That's why no one could help when I tried calling months ago.

I ran into Andee over at the Cham forum and he's been guiding me. Turns out he's done veiled rescue before! It's making this whole thing a lot less stressful and it helps when it's a familiar face...er name.

Got a fecal done today and she has pinworms. However she has gained 11 grams! And nearly poked holes in my finger while trying to weigh her. I'm finally starting to relax a little.

[fantasybookworm]

Thank you for passing along the recommendation!! I hope they can help out with the hedgies. I'm constantly having to remind myself right now that I can't get more animals than I'm already signed up for...now that I'm moving out, I want to bring home everything. And PSP is the chain I worked at...I liked it sometimes, and it made me miserable other times. Twice I ended up taking animals from the store home to try & save them, both times I lost them. I was pretty inexperienced with reptiles at the time (still am, but I think my knowledge has increased a bit), so I wouldn't be surprised if she had been very bad off & I just didn't realize.

I'm glad she's gaining weight!! I hope she continues to do well for you, and that you can get rid of the pinworms quickly.

[wodesorel]

I got a video of her snacking on superworms.

https://youtu.be/SC1GO8y1LwE

[fantasybookworm]

She's so cool!! I wonder if I can talk my roommate into a chameleon at some point...