baby coughing after drinking?

clarkrw3

New Member
Chameleon Info:

Your Chameleon - Male Panther, 3mo, has been with us for 3 weeks. From Kammers
Handling - Have never handled him
Feeding - He gets crickets (which he isn't fond of) silk worms, hornworms, baby superworms, Raptiworms, FF, Dubia nimphs, I give him a couple by hand in the morning and then put some in his cup that he eats though out the day then I will sometime give him a treat when I get home about 2 hrs before lights out. The crickets and Dubia's are gut loaded with cricket crack and fruits and vegi's the superworms get oats and carrots and super chow and everything else just gets the chow they come with.
Supplements - Calc w/o everyday, calc with D3 twice a month and Vit twice a month
Watering - Mistking misting 8 times a day btw 45sec to 2.5 min each time I live in AZ so it dries out btw mistings and is totally dry by lights out Also run a dripper in the morning with about 32oz till it is out. I use a humidifier at night from midnight to 4am to keep the room nice and humid when it would normally drop to 35% at night without the humidifier. With it the humidity in the cage stays from 47% to 80% right after a mist.
Fecal Description - nice black dropings with white urate 2-3 per day
History - Has been a very good eater from day one had shed twice since May 21st when he got here. He is a big guy for 3mo. Drinks well but also licks branches often that are dry. Doesn't love crickets sometimes he will grab them chew a couple times and then spit them out. Everyday I have one or two half eaten crickets on the ground....I am switching him to Dubia's


Cage Info:

Cage Type - He is in a 16x15x20 LLL screen cage with drainage system right now I have two larger cages I can move him to when he gets a little bigger
Lighting - I have a UVB 5.0, and a aquarium grow light. His basking temps were too high with any type of basking light so am not using one right now
Temperature - his basking is 80.5-82.5deg with a ambient at 78deg night drops down into the mid 70's
Humidity - I mentioned the humidity with the watering above
Plants - Mini schefflera, Pathos, and a Anthurium. Bamboo and plastic vines as the "highways"
Placement - on a table in a dedicated room low traffic except for my kids that check on him from time to time during the day
Location - Tempe AZ


Current Problem - Not sure if this is a problem or not but it was strange so I wanted to check, if it is a problem I want to catch it early. I just came back from a 5 day trip and had someone watching him who has some chameleon experience. She said everything went great no problems but when I came home he was sleeping on the front screen in the middle of a shed with crickets (too large for him to eat) on each side of him and he was orange. I removed the crickets and he went back to his usual sleeping spot.
I have been back for a few days and this morning I put on his dripper which drips on a large Anthurium leaf. He immediately went to the leaf and started drinking after a few sec. He lifted his head up in the air and started to cough or choke he would blow up his neck pouch all the way (I have never seen him blow it up that fully like an adult that is really fired up) and expel opening his mouth. It was if he got the water down the wrong pipe he did this 10-15 times then left the spot and did not go back to drinking. He also had NO interest in taking a small dubia nimph this morning from me.

Would love to know if you have seen such behavior before and if it is anything to be concerned about.
thanks for the help.
 
the only thing i can think of is he my has resparated some water just keep and eye on him and watch for mouth breathing, when my guys are really young i do not use a dripper just misting

jmo
hoj
 
the only thing i can think of is he my has resparated some water just keep and eye on him and watch for mouth breathing, when my guys are really young i do not use a dripper just misting

jmo
hoj

I will for sure keep an eye on him...mouth breathing would indicate an URI right? Also I have used the dripper off and on since I got him and this is the very first time I have noticed him paying ANY attention to it, and this time it was almost immediate.
 
sounds pretty normal to me..my baby male panther has been learning to drink still..i dont use a dripper, i administer the water to him from an eyedropper..well he always tries to shoot his toungue at it and bite it rather than just lap it up..well for the first few weeks he kept shooting at it and trying to bite it..he would puff up and have to open his mouth to breath (female did things similar..but now drinks toally normal) ..but yesturday i showed him the drops, then slowly put it to his mouth..hes starting to drink normal now...

maybe this is kindof what yer cham is dooing??
 
To me it sounds like he was a bit dehydrated and was just drinking water too fast. As long as he goes back to normal within a day or two I wouldn't worry. Let us know how he does.
 
Thanks laurie. That's what it looked like but I just wanted to make sure. He was eating well this afternoon took a baby superworm and a dubia out of my fingers and ate a hornworm that was probably too big for him LOL. Funny how you pick out a feeder and think it's good and then when he has it in his mouth you think...hmmm that's BIG.
 
Back
Top Bottom