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I bought a breeding trio of Jacksons About 8 months ago. I setup a big screen cage and gave them everything they needed. All of the sudden my male got sick, so I took him to the vet. he died they next day so she did a autopsy on him and found he had had samonila. She gave me antibiotics for the females and advised me to disenfect the cage. i did every thing she told me to do. They were fine for about two months then one female got sick and died before i could get her to the vet. The cut her open and found she was full of babies and had died of samonila. So this time i had my other female tested and she tested negative for samonila. Again i had to give her antibiotics but this time i threw away the cage and everything inside it. All of the sudden she got sick tonight so the vet came over and did her best but couldn`t save my last chameleon. if Anyone has any advice i would love to hear it. Although i am kind of discouraged on keeping chams. I have more than 30 other herps and all of them have been doing fine. some are over six years old.

I can't help but to notice the word turtle in your user name, You have any turtles? This could be your problem! If you are not taking extreme care to wash your hands and keeping everything meticulously clean, you could have easily transmitted samonela to your chams. If anything that in anyway came in contact with your turtles (or any other herps for that matter) came in contact with anything that had to do with your chams, this could have spread the bacteria to them. I would have all your animals checked for samonela, expecialy your turtles so that you can avoid this tragedy in the future. Don't get discouraged, figure out the problem and learn from it! Good luck!

Thought of another thing. Did you say that you kept all three chameleons in the same cage? If you did, this probably caused all of them stress. This might have not been very noticible, but it probably weakened their imune system enough to make them suseptable to the bacteria. If they could see other herps (i.e. if they were in a herp room) this would also stress them leading them to having a weakened imune system. Hope this helps!

...to hear about your losses! I recently lost my trio of leaf chams within a 2 week period - my heart goes out to you!!! You sound like a responsible owner and that you did everything right re: the vet visits, etc. but the three together may have added to the problem, as micky points out.

I don't know much about turtles, but micky's reply seems to make sense. I recall as a kid we were "warned" about salmonella and our turtles.

All this is hindsight and I don't want to minimize your grief by speculating - as I am no expert! Please accept my empathy and sympathy - it comes from the heart

lele

>>I bought a breeding trio of Jacksons About 8 months ago. I setup a big screen cage and gave them everything they needed. All of the sudden my male got sick, so I took him to the vet. he died they next day so she did a autopsy on him and found he had had samonila. She gave me antibiotics for the females and advised me to disenfect the cage. i did every thing she told me to do. They were fine for about two months then one female got sick and died before i could get her to the vet. The cut her open and found she was full of babies and had died of samonila. So this time i had my other female tested and she tested negative for samonila. Again i had to give her antibiotics but this time i threw away the cage and everything inside it. All of the sudden she got sick tonight so the vet came over and did her best but couldn`t save my last chameleon. if Anyone has any advice i would love to hear it. Although i am kind of discouraged on keeping chams. I have more than 30 other herps and all of them have been doing fine. some are over six years old.

Sorry that that happaned this is sorta on topic but i havea question. Is it just turtles that can give your chams salmanella or just other reptiles? I am thinking about getting a cham but i needed to ask that question. Im very sorry for your loss and also sorry for posting things sortof "of topic"

You can technically get salmonella from any herp but is is less likely from some species than others. Turtles get blamed for a lot of salmonella, but think about how they are kept...mostly wet or damp or in water that is almost impossible to keep completely clean. Same problem with newts and frogs. Dry habitats are easier to clean and so tend to get cleaned more often by keepers. Getting salmonella from dry habitat herps is harder but possible. I also doubt the salmonella actually killed these chams all by itself...after all, most herps can carry the bacteria on their skins without getting sick. The salmonella could have been detected by the vet whether or not they were sick. Something else was probably the main cause...so sorry you lost them!

turtletel certainly is sad news and i am sorry to here of your loss. did your vet comment on HOW or WHERE the source of the salmanilia came or possibily come from? the turtles, if you do have turtles, seem like a good start. as lele has said i don't want to miminmize or trivialize your loss. if you do find out the source of the contamination please let us know. knoledge is golden and i'm sure anyone of us would like to avoid a loss like you've had.

dennis
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compasscreek backcountry adventures

The vet had checked all of my other animals and the all tested negative

I'm sad for you. Two months ago my 18 month old veiled died suddenly (my house had been fumigated and I blame the pesticides and/ or the stress of moving out during the fumigation). Last week my 10 mo old panther seemed droopy. I took him to the vet. She had been the reptile vet for the LA Zoo. Her comment was that these creatures have very tricky needs and even in the setting of the zoo where experts oversee all of their needs, survival can be iffy. My guy is on antibiotics and I hope I can pull him through. It does seem, though, that they do fine as long as all goes well but are much more suseptible to illness than we would want. I wish you the best for your remaining Cham's.