Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recieved My flapneck chameleon last Friday and it was doing great it was fairly active and ate 2 crickets but now Its barly moving at all and never opens its eyes. My setup is a large wooden cage with a screen door and screen top with a mini dripper, a bunch of grape vines from the woods near my house, a variegated pothos, a regular pothos, and a couple other plants from lowes that I had for a month before the chameleon ever got here at the bottom of the tank there is a small homemade waterfall and some moss. for my lighting I have a regular light bulb and a an exo terra 6.0 tube light and for night I have an exo terra moonlight bulb, and the temperature for the main basking spot is about 85 degrees and the rest of the cage is about 80 degrees and I don't know what the humidity is but I mist the enclosure 3 times a day. and add in the humidity of the waterfall its probably pretty good. If you want to know anything else just ask. hope you can help.

Thanks DC

I'm not an expert, just a keeper but I'll offer my advice that saved my friends flapneck. go to a grocery store, buy pedialite (im not a good speller so pardon if its wrong) and a small millimeter oral syrange. try giving him a little pedialite. if you know how much he weighs in grams I could tell you how much to give him but not everyone has a postage scale at hand so if he's under 3 months give him 1mm, under 6 give him 1.5mm under a year 2mm. do twice in a day. he should perk up and start eating and becomming more active. if he does not he needs to see a vet a.s.a.p. vet visits are not expensive, and you should bring 2 fresh stool samples with you.
The pedialite will not cure whatever is ailing him but it will boost him till you can get him cured.
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Take him to a vet. No one here is able to diagnose your chameleon with out seeing it or running tests. If you have kids and they get sick do you take them to the doctor or do you ask your friends what's wrong with them??

Several things I see right off. You are probably overheating your cham. The cage needs to provide a gradient of temps from the warm basking area to a cooler area below. Many solid sided cages can't do this very well. Get rid of the night heat...most chams need a 10-15 degree drop in temp at night and NO LIGHTS! The waterfall will be a constant source of bacteria unless you clean it every day, and if you assume the cham will drink from it you have a very dehydrated cham too. Chams don't usually drink from waterfalls. You need to spray the foliage with hot water 2-3 times a day so the cham can lick leaves and benefit from the air humidity. You didn't mention what the air humidity in the cage is, how you are gutloading and dusting your feeders. If this is an import (most flapnecks are) it probably is suffering from shipping stress, major parasites, infections. Here are several really good info sites you can read up on to correct your caging problems and read more about nutrition too. www.adcham.com, www.geocities.com/ccicenter, www.calumma.com, www.chameleonjournals.com

Good luck!