Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Got a Chuck we call him ROCKY from a dealer about a weeks ago. He was a lively one and hustled around. Now it's a week later and he's kind of lathargic. lays around, keeps his eyes shut. doesn't run on all fours like he did. Haven't seen him eat much I see some poop in the sand so I know he''s going.

I have a 20gal long with a basking light on one side that registers 110 on the rock and 100 surrounding the rock. on the other side of the tank it's 80 degrees. He lays off in about 90 degree land and sleeps

I offer him fresh chopped greens/mango/ baby bearded gragon pellets.
dealer suggested pin head crickets. He just shuts his eyes, Poor guy.

you guys have a fantastic forum and I read alot of links. Any info would be greatly appriciated. I'm afraid I'm losing time on him.

John

Unfortunately we see this with wild caught animals. Sometimes they just don't acclimate to captive conditions and sometimes it takes awhile. We also see this occasionally with cb individuals also but not as often. They seem to dislike change so don't keep moving his cage around if you are. Unfortunately with babies they do not have a lot of mass so they loose weight quickly and become dehydrated. If he is not eating well I would try misting him and his rocks daily, maybe even twice a day. He will probaly not like it but after you stop spraying he will probably come out of hiding and lick at the water. Try yellow flowers if available-dandelions are great. Just try to keep him hydrated and maybe he will come around. Tom

Can you take a picture of him "lying in state" so we can see what he looks like. Try a super worm. IS there any sign of fluid around the nose or is he opening his mouth slightly to breath? You don't say how long he is? I would call the seller back and see if he has any insights as well. If he's a wild caught he may be having a hard time aclimating. Another Idea is get a huge box say 2 ft wide or so by 4 ft long, and go to home depot and get some 1/4 wire and make a top for it, fill it with dirt and rocks and put him out in the sun make sure he has the ability to hide from the sun, and see what kind of response you get.....THe box you can get from the grocery store or some place like that, and the wire for the top is just a couple of bucks. The sun does wonders. I'd love to seea picture of him to see what kind of meat he has on his bones.........
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signature file edited. [phw 11/14/04]

I had a chuck that I was having trouble acclimating too. One thing I read on this forum during that period was to cover the sides of the tank with something opaque so that the chuck didn't feel so exposed. I think that this helped a lot in terms of making her feel comfortable eating. My wild caught Gracie's three favorite foods are: nasturium leaves and flowers, dandelion flowers, and wild raddish flowers.

My wc won't eat any insects. But I got a cb baby last fall that came in pretty thin. It turned out that he loved waxworms and mealworms and using generous amounts of these along with the veggies enabled him to get back to a good weight in 2 weeks.

Do you have a good UV light? They can do wonders. I love the T-rex mercury vapor bulbs. I was recently talking to one of my friends who takes care of her college's herp room. They've got an old chuck and she bought him one of the mercury vapor lamps. With that light, he shed his tail skin for the first time in at least 5 years, and went from a drab gray to vibrant black and yellow.

Also get lots of rocks, but make sure that they won't shift. My chucks really seem to like squeezing between two of them. I think that the tight squeeze makes them feel secure.

When you make the salad, leave the flowers whole and count how many you put in, this will let you know if your guy's eating. You should also fill the bowl with water and mist the salad. This keeps the salad moist and will help get him hydrated.

Also initially my wc would not eat anything if I sprinkled supplements on them. Now she'll eat things that I put the sandfire superfood's iguana dust on. It might be best to hold off supplements until you can get him eating.

If you can get him eating, they can recover really fast. Here's my cb baby when I got him at a skinny 14 grams, and two weeks later almost completely recovered at 26 grams.

One more thing, how big is your baby? My wc was about 9" head to tail when I got her in August '04. I thought she was a hatchling from the previous season making her a yearling. It turns out that wild chucks grow slowly and she was actually likey 3-4 years old. I think this is part of the reason adapting to a tank was so difficult for her. She didn't seem to settle in until I upgraded to a 100 gallon. If yours is in this size range, you might want to try a 60+ gallon tank if you can swing it, the bigger the better. Here's Gracie my wc the week I got her.

-Alice

Not that it matters much, but in the second pic the baby is just 20 grams (he made it to 26 the following week). And, Gracie was 2-3 not 3-4.

Initially when I was trying to get my chuck eating I was spending almost $10 a week on veggies. It's really cost effective not to mention convienient to set up a little garden you can harvest.

Here are some pages listing edible ornamentals and other plants that you could try, if using store bought plants make sure you wash them good to remove any pesticide residue, light colored flowers seem to be more attractive to chucks than the darker ones:

http://ourgardengang.tripod.com/edibleflowers.htm
http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/edib....html#resources
http://www.beautifuldragons.com/

-Alice

Thanks for the info. BTW Gracie's beautiful.

Can't post a pic because I don;t have a web site but the baby looks a lot like your first pic, same size and about the same weight. I'm going to try some of the suggestions you all gave me. I live in NYC and it's a bit cold, I'm kind of stuck with the food I have at the moment. Can't really leave him outside

Today he's running around trying to climb the glass. I think that's a good sign. One thing I noticed was that I had the Basking light on 27/7 . I swiched him to a night cycle light in for 14 hrs and off for 10. That may have helped. Hasn't eaten yet, I''ll keep you posted.

From your last message 2 things. One is already done. Do not keep the lights on 24/7 this stresses them. Also is he housed in an all glass aquarium? In my opinion these are useless for keeping chucks. Being open on all four sides gives them a very insecure feeling. If it is all glass cover the back and 2 sides with paper or something so the chuck does not feel like it is out in the open. Also notice if he is tail standing at the sides of the cage. This will give them a permanent indentation in his back. If he is try to put decor at the base of the walls to keep him from doing so. Keep us posted. Tom

It might actually help even more to just go ahead and cover all four sides. This is what I did and just left a little bit off the top left corner so I could peak in. This way they can feel comfortable sneaking down to their food dish. This will also prevent them from seeing people and pets (cats and dogs) which could be preceived as predators. Now that Gracie's eating and doing well, I've been taking off about an inch or so from the front every week or so.

I guess it's probably still pretty cold in New York. In order to get flowers, you could try some ornamentals like chrysanthemums (try to get yellow), my chucks weren't big on them, but I've read about other chucks that have liked them. You could also get some nasturtium seed, they grow pretty fast and the leaves are one of my chucks' favorite greens. My chucks will also eat light colored pansies (they won't eat the dark red or purple ones). At least in CA, pansies are among the first flowers to start showing up in green houses.

You can also look for flowers at grocery stores. Some stores with fancy produce sections will carry edible flowers with the fresh herbs. I even remember seeing nasturium flowers in my local Albertson's last year. You can also try mint (even catnip) and cilantro. How much a chuck likes these seems to depend on their individual taste, Gracie's not big on mint but the wc chuck I took care of back in college found it irresistable and my little cb chuck seems to like it a lot too.

-Alice

I coated 4 waxs worms with herptivite and he ate them. It was odd because he's really only interested in food when I hold him. I'll try the flowers today. Can''t believe they eat flowers. I covered a majority of the outside of the cage w/paper and I'll try the rest as well. Yesterday he also drank a ton of water. Quick question when I rub the top of hes head and neck he arches it up sort of like he likes it. Is that something that you noticed?

Can' t tell you guys enough how much your advice ment. Thanks your great people. :
p

That's great that he's eating and drinking! If he seems to like to eat from your hand, go for it. My wc, Gracie, won't even consider eating from my hand. Once he gets used to eating worms from your hand you can try feeding him things like grated squash, yam, sweet potato etc, if you wiggle the shreds a bit so they look like a worm he might go for it. I do this lot with my little guy to get him to try new things. He's so used to getting treats this way now that sometimes he'll try to nibble my finger when I'm messing around in the cage. Wax worms are high in fat, so they should help him put on weight fast, you can try mealworms too. You could also kind of cut / mush chunks of bannana so that they look like worms and hand feed them. Until my baby got his weight up I gave him as many worms as he'd eat in addition to his veggies, usually 4-8. By the third week he's just about doubled in weight and I cut back on the worms and worked in more veggies.

Another thing you might want to consider getting is a postage scale, you can get them pretty cheap at places like Office Depot. This way, you can track his weight. If he's eating from your hand and letting you rub his head, a weekly weigh in shouldn't stress him too much.

-Alice