Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,

My boyfriend bought a baby female veiled chameleon about a month ago. We live in Florida and had kept her outside in a 1'x1'x2' mesh tank with a hibiscus plant inside of it. The temperature has been around 90 during the day and maybe 80 at night. I normally put an ice cube at the top of her cage to have a drip a couple times throughout the day as well as misting the contained area maybe five times each day. She had been eating fine on small crickets up until about a week ago. She quit eating much and also quit using her tongue. She'd creep up to ones that were injured and bite them. We always fed her in a small feeding container. It's actually maybe a 6"x6"x5" breeding box my mom won at F.I.R.E. in a raffle. We dusted the crickets in calcium powder before putting them in. Once she quit eating those much we tried to feed her collard greens, spinach and such. No luck. Tried mealworms....but low and behold, didn't work either and we found her at the bottom of her cage dead this morning.

Short of going to the vet once this started happening, we have no idea what we could've done. If any of you have any idea of what could've went wrong, please let us know. We do love chameleons and were quite devastated when our baby Aurora passed away.

I'm wondering if it was being outside or maybe if it was that we had to handle her to move her to the feeding container. I know that that can stress them out, but she actually seemed to really like having my boyfriend hold her. She was always bright green and looking around. She'd even fall asleep on his finger after she ate. Maybe that's not a good sign and I'm just completely ignorant despite my constant internet surfing about them.

But please. If you have any thoughts, we'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

(I was wondering if it was possibly me being around all the time as well. She didn't seem to like me very much. Always turned completely black and slid to the other side of his finger when he was near me and would play possum if put on any part of me)

Is it possible that the chameleon could have eaten an insect that had been in an area where there was insecticide sprayed? Or an insect that was toxic to her?

Not that I know of. I washed the plant well after we bought it and kept it in her tank, where I don't think any insects could get through. The screen is pretty tight.

It is really hard to say exactly what caused your chameleon to die and I am sorry for your loss.
I live in Florida as well and I have kept chameleons outside for many years here in central fl. (north of Orlando.
If you enjoy chameleons do not be discouraged by your chameleons death, try and learn what you can from it study up on them more and move forward.
The first thing I would wonder about is how small your chameleon was, if it was a hatchling or under about 3 inches that is a very tough stage to start with if you have never kept chameleons before, even keepers with lots of experience can have trouble with chameleons of this size if they are not careful. There is also the possibility that if it is a hatchling that there could have been congenital defects that would have caused it to die no matter what you did, for that reason alone I have always chosen myself to let any lizards ( chameleons or other wise.) to get some size on them before I sell them off to anyone particularly novices who are not all that experienced yet. I would suggest trying a bit larger chameleon for your next one.
Cage wise a screen or mesh cage is an excellent choice (for the most part should be the only choice.). Temperature wise it has been a little too warm for my taste to keep juvenile lizards of any type outside in fl. right now. I currently have a juvenile panther chameleon and several juvenile calotes that I moved inside a few weeks ago until temps subside a bit. You may not realize it but it is getting way hotter than 90f here right now (it's really been getting into the low 100's quite often.). An adult veiled in a large cage will do just fine in these temps with proper hydration and cover as will panthers but you should be keeping juvies inside right now until you have a better feel for keeping chams out doors. hope this helps and feel free to ask for more info if you need help.

I agree with everything Calparsoni wrote...the heat may have been too much for it. Also the fact that it may have been a weak baby to begin with, genetically. When temps. are extreme, you can still get them outside for a half hour or so in the early part of the day before it heats up, that way they still get natural light, which is the best. Hope you get another one and enjoy, because they are delightful and relatively easy to care for.