We noticed a couple changes in Rexy around July, I think. Bumps along his ribcage, only eating a few crickets every so often instead of his normal voracious 10+ a day, sleeping more, drinking more. Then he started acting really weak, nails started falling out, climbing the cage became compromised, and he fell a couple times. After the last time he fell, his back right leg was at an odd angle and he wasn't using it. We finally googled all the symptoms and learned he had a metabolic disorder caused by calcium deficiency. This type of deficiency happens due to neglect over a long period of time. And by neglect, I don't mean we weren't feeding Rexy calcium-dusted crickets, and weren't turning on his UV lights every day, because we were (chameleons won't absorb calcium without UV light). But 1. The UV lights need to be changed every 4-6 months, and we bought everything used, so we should have changed the UV light right from the beginning. So the UV light was old. And 2. Rexy, turned out, was really Roxy. We intentionally bought a male chameleon from the breeder because we did not want to deal with a female laying egg clutches--they will lay clutches whether or not they are fertilized eggs, and it's incredibly taxing on the female's body. Well, the breeder didn't gender identify well enough, I guess, because two months after Rexy/Roxy started exhibiting these symptoms, we woke up to a cage full of eggs. We realized the lights were only part of the equation. The other part was her body had been sucking all the calcium it had to create this clutch of eggs. We got a bucket of dirt for her, started giving her calcium drops, and we were really hoping to nurse her back to health, but after laying 50+ eggs, and refusing food or water for three days, poor Rexy was done. David buried her out on West Mountain.
No comments:
Post a Comment