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All of them have completed sheds.  So far, so good.

So far so good.  I can hardly believe it myself.  I took the four questionable babies with me to the Pet Care Fair in Van Nuys and kept them in a net cage.  I'm going to bring them with me to the Reptile Super Show too at the end of this month.  Part of me is just afraid to have them out of sight.  But part of me wants to show everyone these amazing little creatures.   

Wow! I'll be waiting eagerly for the next update. Thanks for sharing Elisa!

I've got another chance at raising CH spinosus.  The mother is an adult female I purchased from Nick Mole.  She had a discolored spot on her mouth that just seemed like something was not right with her.  But I knew she was carrying at least 3 eggs.  So I was hoping she would lay on her own.  That didn't happen and she died.  The eggs were harvested and put in the incubator on May 29th, 2010.  So now we wait...

Also, I have one female that is 4 grams and ready to lay her eggs.  She has been bred a few times but I haven't had any eggs from her in months.  She ate a lot last week.  Her favorite seemed to be houseflies.  Today her colors were more stress patterns.  She is in a cage with a removable substrate bottom.  Tomorrow I will weigh her again and offer her mantis nymphs.

Is it possible that he had an infection at the time he was seen by the vet?

Chameleons like this one come in a few or more times each year.  In one case, two chameleons were kept in enclosures, side by side, with the exact same set up.  They didn't get natural sunshine and the person who had the chameleons was a college student who was keeping the chameleons in a dorm.  He said he was supplementing both chameleons but one of them was doing really bad.  He was force feeding it wax worms because it couldn't eat. 

When he brought the chameleon to me I was horrified but at the same time I had to control how I reacted.  It is important to take the opportunity to teach the person how to correctly care for the animal, especially in this case since he had another chameleon at home who he said was doing fine.  I can't dismiss the possibility that something was different about this particular chameleon but I feel that the problems started with lighting that was not identical.

This chameleon, with exposure to natural sunlight, made a drastic improvement, was eating and drinking independently, was climbing around and even climbing up onto low perches.  But then one day I found it dead in the morning.  Not a happy ending but I like to think this chameleon found a little comfort in the last months of its life.

Recently I adopted out a female veiled that was in similar condition to your Jack.  If you want help finding him a home after you rehabilitate him, let me know.  Then again, he may become part of your family.

Best wishes...

Hi everyone. This is a thread aimed at showing how neglect can lead to the suffering of our loved chameleons. Jack is supposed to be a 1.5 year old Veiled Chameleon that was given to us at the Orlando Repticon show on May 23. Jack is suffering from severe calcium deficiency (MBD as called by many) and was diagnosed with such at a Vet clinic close to me. The treatment they chose was oral calcium glubionate (correct), oral carnivore formula (ok, I guess) and oral Baytril (incorrect). Why would anyone prescribe baytril for a Ca deficiency issue is anyone's guess but it goes to show why so many people feel they can act as Veterinarians.
Jack is now with us receiving healthy daily doses of natural unfiltered sun as well as teice daily oral administration of Ca glubionate. He is also being offered 10-12 circkets daily dusted with herptivite and also dusted with Reptical as well as Repti-Calcium on alternate days.
He is showing a big improvement on his grip as well as his overall health but he still has a long way to go before we can deem him recovered. He will never be "normal" but if he can eat, drink and move around on his own, we will feel we made a difference.
To anyone reading this, please make sure that you are supplementing your chameleon properly and that you have a competent Veterinarian close by that can help you with any issues. There is no reason to subject our chameleons to conditions such as Jack's when they can be eaisly prevented.

Thanks for your time,
Ivan

Beginning on May 21st the CB eggs started hatching.  One was hatched out on May 21st,  two more hatched out on May 23rd.  But then on May 24th I saw the first egg begin to fail.

The egg started off as big and bright white with no obvious signs it might have issues, such as a darkened or blotchy egg.  In this case, every egg was big and bright white.  The first problem egg began to sweat which was normal for this clutch.  But hours later the egg stopped sweating and just looked soggy.  In the past, this has always been the indication that the baby inside was dead or trapped inside and would be dead soon.

Using dissecting scissors and precision tweezers, I snipped two long cuts from the tip of the egg to about 1/2 (slightly more) down the side.  The baby looked alive and showed some sign of life.  I set it back in the incubation delicup and within a few minutes the baby jumped out and was walking around inside.

But then the next day (May 25th) two and then three eggs were beginning to fail.  I carefully snipped the first one that had stopped sweating and was darkening.  At this point I needed to leave for a chameleon keeper meeting so I had two choices:  (1) leave the baby inside the egg for another four hours and risk it dying; or (2) take it out and see if there are any signs of life.  I decided to take it out.

The container with the two other failing eggs was set back inside the incubator until about 4 hours later.  No change.

To remove the neonate from the egg (Baby #4), I used a lot of cotton swabs to absorb the yolk.  Removing every bit of yolk and with a pipette and RO water, I cleaned off the baby.  A couple of times I saw the tail coil slightly and the feet grasped.  Then there was movement in the eyes.  

The baby was still attached to a fairly large yolk.  Placing the baby on a damp paper towel the yolk was positioned so it wouldn't trap the feet or cause the baby to stick to the surface it was laying on.  At this point, the baby was beginning to squirm and wake up.  Then suddenly it bolted up and started walking sporadically.  So he was placed into a baby net cage.

The egg shell was very rubbery and slightly thicker than the eggs that were hatched out normally.  

I went to my meeting and was gone from 7:00 until 10:00 p.m. that night.  I went right to the incubator and checked the two other "bad" eggs and they looked much worse.  They were shrinking and the babies had not pipped the egg.  So I repeated the steps from earlier.

This time the babies were almost motionless.  I was pretty sure they wouldn't survive and there was nothing I felt that I could do.  But still I made my attempts to "save" them.

Thinking about all of this now, I'm still in disbelief that I pulled it off.  But I think I just might have really saved these two babies.    The next steps took a period of two hours.  I removed the babies (Baby #5 and Baby #6) with their fairly large yolks from the eggs.  Then I carefully cleaned their bodies of any yolk, blotting their faces in hopes of removing anything blocking their nostrils.  They did not begin to breath until almost two hours later.  Touching them with the cotton swabs very gently, I was looking for signs by testing their feet and tail.  Their eyes began moving slightly and they started to show signs that I was irritating them.  Every few minutes I'd try again to make sure they were alive.

It was really interesting how the first one (Baby #5) started breathing.  It was trying hard to suck air into the lung but nothing was happening.  Using an LED lit magnifying glass I was able to see moisture at the nostrils so I blotted them both carefully.  It had stopped trying to breathe.  Minutes passed.  My next move was very risky.  I tried to coax the baby to open its mouth.  Once I noticed the first sign that the tongue was being moved, I stopped.  The baby then made a swallowing motion and then tried again to breathe.  But no luck.  I wondered if maybe I had just killed the baby by making it aspirate fluid.  I left Baby#5 alone and began working on the Baby#6.

The color on the Baby#6 was good.  Better than Baby#5 which was changing from dark brown to gray then dark brown.  It took about 10 minutes to get Baby#6 to begin breathing.  But once the lungs fully inflated and deflated about two times, the baby quickly got up and eagerly started reaching upward in an instinctive climbing motion.  Immediately I placed the baby in a net cage beneath an ultrasonic humidifier and went back to work on the first Baby#5.  

Baby#5 was just sitting there showing no signs of life.  I touched it several times lightly with a cotton swab and using the magnifying glass watched for signs of breathing or moisture in the nostrils.  I tried opening the mouth again.  This time it began swallowing.  the eyes began to move slightly.  The gular was not as swollen now and with a few more touches with the cotton swab along the baby's tail, it twitched and began breathing finally.  The first breaths were very labored.  I put the baby inside the net cage with the two others that I helped out of the eggs.  The ultrasonic humidifier was left on while I went to bed.

A note about their colors:  When they began breathing air, they turned a very dark green with a very thin white pinstripe down their sides and then a speckled pattern of light hues covered their bodies.  Within seconds they turned olive green revealing the typical patterns of T. cristatus and the scales on the edge of their casques turned turquoise blue.

This morning (May 26th, 2010) I went right out to the workshop to check the little babies.  Two were laying on the bottom of the net cage.  I thought they were dead.  But their color showed signs of life.  I picked them up.  Their bodies were rigid.  I touched the babies and examined them thinking something was very odd about this if they were indeed dead.  Suddenly their eyes opened and they started looking around.  What a relief!  But how odd that they were laying there.  I put them back down and they coiled up tightly, eyes still open.  Almost as if they were in "egg mode."  The first of those three babies was perched on a branch as expected.  Within about 10 minutes of seeing morning sunlight, the two "Eggy" babies started to climb around the net cage in a more normal manner.

There are three more eggs to hatch out so I will be watching them very carefully and report their progress or demise.
 

I apologize for the quality of this image.  I took the photo through a net cage.

No worries!  I appreciate you checking periodically.  I'm going to start posting more regularly to the forums now that things are getting settled down around here.

I hope you're doing well.

Hi Elisa. I'm sorry I didn't see this until now. Please send me emails when you have something posted like this so that I can try and post something if needed. I apologize for not seeing this earlier.

Ivan

There is a thick marine layer lingering over us so I took readings inside the greenhouse, then outside at 11:45 a.m.  Inside was only 17 and outside was 85.  Time to wash those panels!