So about a week and a half ago my one and a half year old veiled female fell from about 3 feet high to the bottom of her enclosure. Immediately I rushed to see what was the matter and noticed her grip (and bite) strength was not where it should be. Of course the first thing one jumps to is MBD so I checked her casque and sure enough.. it was flexible. I also checked to see if her jaw was flexible but luckily, although she didnt have alot of muscle strength in her jaw to clamp down on me hard enough to break skin (like she usually does), her jaw bones however were still rigid and not bending. I began to mix her calcium supplement (along with a dash of vitamin supplement) with some water and spoon feed her that solution. When she would hiss at me i would lightly touch her lips with the spoon and when she would close her mouth with a drop of the solution she would instinctively start to drink it, and when she would take the drinking stance, i would hold the spoon up against her mouth and she would continue to drink from the spoon as if it were a leaf. I started trying to figure out what was wrong with her, and I honestly didnt think she should be calcium deficient as we were giving her calcium supplements pretty regularly. Also she looked as if she were bloated. I thought that perhaps she could be full of eggs, but then threw that idea out because she had recently laid 2 months prior to this, and before that the time between laying was just over 4 months. So, I continued to supplement the liquid calcium solution along with powdered superworms. I also changed out the uvb lights which I had changed 3 months prior, but thought perhaps they were a bad batch. I also did a cleaning of her cage and decided as a "just in case" I put in her egg laying bin. Then a thought crossed my mind, perhaps parasites were sapping away her nourishment. So I did a little research on parasites and one of the first pictures I ran into was that of a bloated female chameleon. I checked the cricket bin and decided to just throw them all out and order a fresh batch. While cleaning the bin I noticed what I would describe as pinworm like creatures hiding in a dark corner of the bin. However these creatures could be cricket larvae as the crickets I keep are loud and sexually mature. It was also possible that they were gnat larvae, as the cricket bin and the cham cage tend to attract gnats. After throwing out what was left of the crickets I decided to examine the chams fecal matter and I did notice the same type of worm like creatures. So, gnat/cricket larvae or not I took her to the vet to get a de-wormer. At the vet they took x-rays, and boom.... eggs. She was already full again only after 2 months. Some theories are that perhaps she was "too healthy" and so her body was ready to lay eggs again but because I didn't up her calcium intake, not expecting eggs so soon, her body took some of the calcium for the eggs from some of her non-vital bone structure (i.e. casque). The vet gave me panacur just in case she also had a parasite problem, and told me to continue administering my liquid calcium solution. Now that we knew of at least one problem and fixing possibly another, we could get her back to strength to dig. The vet told me to return in 3 days if she didnt begin digging and they would administer oxytocin to induce. I decided that in my own little head, my little Coco was very capable of laying on her own, she just needed the strength to do it. So I gave her the 3 day panacure treatment as well as paid extra attention to her appetitie and continued her liquid supplementation. On the fourth day of this, the day after her last panacure dose, she began to dig. She dug for a little while in the morning and then went back to basking. I figured that perhaps I was right, that she was still just a little too weak to dig. Just in case though, I took out her bin, rewashed the sand, and made sure that it was wet enough to make a hole without it collapsing. On the fifth day she tried again and stopped at around noon and went back to basking. On the sixth day, we removed ourselves from the room completely and even kept the dog out to ensure she wouldnt be disturbed, and alas on day 7 she was finished laying and back to basking as usual, with a nicely covered up hole completed. I then inspected her casque, and it was rigid again. Unfortunately it did become rigid again with a small curve at the base of it, but at least it serves as a reminder to expect the unexpected. I've since stopped the liquid calcium supplements, but still giving her powdered superworms for the extra calcium for a few more days before going back to her regular cricket diet.
So moral of the story is, nothing is normal in cham world.
P.S. Coco can make me bleed again.
So moral of the story is, nothing is normal in cham world.
P.S. Coco can make me bleed again.
