RIP Halle

[Jungle Jen]

Sadly, we had to help our female panther chameleon pass on today. We rescued her from a horrible pet store along with a male only a few weeks ago. They were both emaciated, and horribly malnourished. We set them up in the proper enclosure and were giving them lots of good food and supplements. Our male seems to be getting better and slowly gaining weight. Suprisingly our female seemed to be doing great and had gained double the weight of our male, until a couple of days ago. She lost her appetite and was not using her hind legs. We had set up a hospital cage and were treating her but today we lost the battle. She was biting at her hind end, seemed to be in pain, and just lay on her side. After a breif conversation with a friend it was decided the kindest thing was to let her go.
Being a veterinary technician myself, I decided to perform an autopsy to hopefully get some answers. Our hunches on what was wrong were definately right, among other health matters, the first being hypocalcemia and hind end paralysis. She had severe calcium deficiency, and there were 2-3 eggs just above the cloacal opening, but they were so squishy she couldnt push them out. We had tried an enema as I could feel something there along with gentle manipulation but neither of those worked. Above the blocked eggs were a few bunches of fecal matter which could not work their way out either. Her intestines had become hemorrhagic and necrotic and *IF* there was a chance of survival they would have to have been removed. She had a total of approximately 20 or more eggs semi-formed inside of her body, and many more eggs waiting to form. She also had something affecting her liver causing her to become jaundice. Our poor little girl fought hard and at least had a happy place to live for her last two weeks. I just wish these pet stores would learn how to properly care for the animals they sell. Pat of me is furious with the pet store, and the other part of me is mourning the loss of our little pink panther Halle.

RIP baby girl, we tried our best and you fought a good fight.