PPG- if youre worried about hydration, a good way to tell is to look at their eyes. do they look sunk in? to they look flat? do they look rounder and more buggy at times and less other times? thei eyes should be like little balls almost. if they look at all flat, its time to boost the humidity. they may also enjoy some humid showers. for your little ones, the sink would do nicely. put them in a house plant or let them hold on to a flower in a vase or something. turn the water on fairly warm, almost hot (remember the air will cool it to a good temp if you turn it on hot). let the water bounce off something and hit the cham. if you use a flower and vase, try to get a tall flower so they can get away if the water is too much for them or if they just arent in the mood... most chams love humidity showers, very good way to keep them hydrated as well. GOOD LUCK! and im sorry for your loss
btw, please check me on this. i read about giving humid showers to the bigger species, ive never needed to check into it for pygmys. anyway, the basic info is there, just check it before you do it.
rusty- picasso has truely had a hard life. before i got him, his previous owner had his basking temp around 62F, should be close to 100F! she misted... kind of, her idea of misting was more like spraying the cage until she got bored of doing so which was never enough. he was shedding HORRIBLY, very patchy. he was very very skinny, his UVB lights were just about as old as him, about a year. he only had one plant and one vine to climb on for his whole cage, which was a large cage so it was very very open... i think the only thing she actually did right was have an adequate size cage.
anyway, i bought him off craigslist cage, lights, lizard, feeder tank, everything for $350 i couldnt believe what a great deal i was getting. i had always wanted a cham, but never had the chance to have one because my dad would never let me and then my ex wouldnt let me either when we lived together... so when i kicked him out, there was nothing stopping me lol.
after i got picasso home, i noticed one eye was swollen. i took him to the vet... which basically did nothing for him so i took him elsewhere. nearly $1000 in vet visits, testing, medicines, fecal exams ect. later, his eye is still swollen and he is now out of all possible medicines that he can take. the vet says she can no longer help him. he has been on so many antibotics, which can really dehydrate a cham. he has been off all antibotics for 2 days now. i have a very hard time keeping him hydrated because of the antibiotics. i have to give him humid showers every day, he has no appetite from all the meds, which im hoping will come back along with the ability to stay hydrated. i have to force feed him by opening his mouth with a credit card and putting a feeder in one at a time.
to be honest, i dont remember all the meds he has been on. i kno there has been: vitamin A shot, vit C supp (which i wasnt convinced he needed bacuse i dust regularly), fortaz, baytril *latest med*.... gosh i dont remember the others lol, there were quite a few though. the vet thought he had a vitamin A defficientcy, an absess, a sinus infection, pnumonia i think was one, ummm oh debris caught in the eye... there was so much "well lets try this" going on i kinda just went along with it hoping we would stumble across the right cure... but no such luck. im going to try reptaid when i get the money for it... i honestly have like zero dollars to my name now that hes cost me so much, but when i come across some extra money, thats the first thing ill be trying.
anyway, thats picasso's story in a nut shell.
