weird poop or vomit!

I recently made a post about my new veiled chameleon Simon and how he was acting very stressed out! He is alone most of the day since I work 2 jobs and the only time I see him during the day is when I take a mid day break to go check on him and mist him. Today when I went to check on him he still looked stressed out so I decided that I wasn't going to attempt to touch him but I was going to be picking up his waste. He has been pooping normally since I got him (brown with white on it?) But today I not only found that, right next to a normal looking poop I found a bigger/rounder clump! For a second I just thought it was just a bigger waste matter but when I picked it up and looked at it more closely I realized that wasn't the case. I'M NOT SURE WHICH SIDE OF HIM THIS CAME OUT it could be waste or it could be regurgitation. When I pulled the clump apart ( I was curious) I realized that the clump was made out of non-digested crickets!!! This does not sound normal to me at all! Does anyone know what happened? ?? Now I'm really starting to worry about my little guy!

Thats super sad about what is happening to your chameleon. That looks more like regurgitation. I would take him to a reptile doctor as quick as you can to make sure that there is nothing major wrong with it.

What is your basking temp set at? Undigested food could be a sign of parasites, but not saying that is the case here. It is a possibility. If it continues, I would take some poop in and get a fecal test done.

carol5208 said:

What is your basking temp set at? Undigested food could be a sign of parasites, but not saying that is the case here. It is a possibility. If it continues, I would take some poop in and get a fecal test done.

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Around 85-90 he likes to go upside down on his cage to get very close to the bulb so that forced me to raise the dome about 3-4 inches more from the top of the cage. My thermometer is resting at the top since that's where he usually goes to bask upside down. I also made the very BIG mistake of having coconut substrate on his home. Could that be the issue that he accidentally ingested that?

It has been in my experience, that when a critter has over eaten they regurgitate, even sometimes when healthy. There are a lot of crickets in that clump. Seeing as you found the cricket clump next to a poop, maybe he gorged on food, went for a poop, and when passing his poop he pushed so hard he puked. Just a thought anyways. When was the last time you had a fecal done? Have you ever had a fecal done? Even captive bred and raised reptiles can get parasites(crickets can be very nasty for carrying parasites).

I'm assuming you have taken out the substrate now. I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility he ate some. Just keep an eye on how often he is pooping, make sure he isn't impacted.

LilBlue said:

It has been in my experience, that when a critter has over eaten they regurgitate, even sometimes when healthy. There are a lot of crickets in that clump. Seeing as you found the cricket clump next to a poop, maybe he gorged on food, went for a poop, and when passing his poop he pushed so hard he puked. Just a thought anyways. When was the last time you had a fecal done? Have you ever had a fecal done? Even captive bred and raised reptiles can get parasites(crickets can be very nasty for carrying parasites).

I'm assuming you have taken out the substrate now. I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility he ate some. Just keep an eye on how often he is pooping, make sure he isn't impacted.

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The more I analyze it the more over eating might be what happened. I know that it wasn't too long ago when he was fed MOSTLY small/medium crickets and a couple large ones. The morning of the day he got sick I decided to dust 10 large crickets (i didn't know what I was thinking) because I wasnt sure if I was going to make it on the afternoon to check on him and feed him. But since I did make it that's when I saw that clump. There were maybe 2 crickets left in his home. I did take the substrate from his cage last night, surprisingly Simon was in a game do mood and let me handle him. I wanted to put him down on the bed but he refused to let go of my hand so I had to do the cleaning with my left hand only. It wasn't pretty. I didn't find any more poop last night. I thought since his stomach might be pretty empty I should attempt to hand feed him (which he hasn't really let me do in a while) and to my surprise he took 2 crickets from me! I just got back from checking him today. No poop. A little on the bad mood side BUT NO HISSING OR BITING!!! That's a big thing! I missed him and he came up to drink directly from the misting bottle. He did refuse to eat from my hand today so i dusted only 3 large crickets (just in case his stomach is still upset) and left them inside. We'll see what tonight brings.

As far as I know he hasn't gone to the vet since he arrived at petsmart so any fecal is very unlikely. I'm going to see if petsmart will cover the cost (if there is any) since I'm still within my two weeks of purchasing him.