Bad aim and poor extension of tongue?

[ggazonas]

I have been keeping chameleons on and off for 10 years and I have never had one with bad aim or any other tongue problems. I bought a male veil chameleon over a year ago from a reputable source. He has alwyas been healthy and still is minus his tongue problems. He is a hearty eater and even takes food from my hands and I have also seen him nibble on the live plants it is viv. Just a bit of background on the husbandry. He is in a screen enclosure that is 18X18X36. (He is moving soon to a 24X24X48)I have a live ficus tree in his enclosure with plenty of grape vine and various branches for him to move around the enclosure. He has gotten fond of his hoem and when I try to take him out he hisses and lunges out at my hand. Anyways I feed him a varied diet of silkworms, phoenix worms, wax worms and crickets. The crickets being the staple currently but I am working on making it 50/50 between the crickets and silworms. I dust with rep cal 2X a week and herptivite once. I feed him every other to every 2 days. He has a basking light and a uvb light. His enclosure gets misted 3 x a day for about 20-30 seconds each time ( he is on the same system I have fro my dart frogs)and I supply him water through a drip container.

Anyways I would like to know if there is anything I can do to help improve this condition. I have read and been told it could be a vit deficiency and have not really been able to find any relevant info on helping the problem. At the moment it has hindered his ability to eat but that is partially becuase I place his food items in a cup and he eats as many as he can before they crawl out.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you

 

[sandrachameleon]

Is this a sudden change, or has the problem got gradually worse over time?

Nutritional deficiencies (insufficient calcium or vitamins) are typically a slow, chronic loss of tongue function. The chameleon tongue's aim may become misguided, or the tongue's reach gradually decreases until the chameleon can project it just a little or not at all.
Missing the insects is often a sign of a deficiency in B vitamins (and sometimes vitamin A deficiency, or an inbalance between Calcium and vits).
A good supplement or improved gutload containing these vitamins usually helps within a couple weeks if vitamin deficiency is the reason and the case is not too far gone.

I dust with calcium at pretty much every feeding, certainly EVERY time I offer crickets (due to their poor cal : phos ratio). I also gutload with a variety of fresh veg and fruit etc

Other possibilities are mouth or tongue infection or abscesses, damage to the tongue itself (hit something sharp or cricket leg spines), parasites, eyesight issues...

A vet visit may help pin-point the problem.

There are a couple threads related to tongue issues already - try a search
https://www.chameleonforums.com/tongue-retraction-problems-thoughts-14556/
https://www.chameleonforums.com/tongue-misses-21906/

 

[ggazonas]

It happened slowly over a period of time, but I beleive that he may have already had a deficiency and didn't realize the symtoms immediatly. It had gotten to the point where he was only able to extend it a little bit. I then started to feed and dust the crickets more often and I saw improvemnet over a few weeks. However recently I changed the way I have been feeding him. I have been feeding more but less often. I suppose I should feed more often and less but dust more often.

Also are there any other supplememnts to help this problem?

okay thanks for the help and the links, I think I know what I need to do now

 

[sandrachameleon]

In my opinion, calcium is the most important supplement.

If you are providing UVB lighting, a D3 supplement isnt needed very often. I use a calcium with D3 powder every other week or so. If providing real sunlight (not through glass/plastic) you probably dont need to add D3 to diet at all.

If you are gutloading well, a vitamin supplement is also not needed very often, IMO. That said, I think I gutload well but still use a vitamin supplement (beta carotene source of Vitamin A, not preformed A) once about every other week. I never directly provide preformed vitamin A, but others certainly do, in moderation.

Gutloading information: https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/75-feeder-nutrition.html
Lots of supplement discussion: https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/65-supplements.html
Specific supplement info related to Veileds: http://raisingkittytheveiledchameleon.blogspot.com/2007/12/supplements.html

 

[ggazonas]

What is the vit A supplement you use?