these are the foods, we also have a panther chameleon. she just recovered from a respiratory infection. why doesnt she have any of these symptoms? trust me our uv bulbs are less then 6 months, they burn out long before then. ive had this cham for about nine months and had no less hen 3 different bulbs.
i got him from a breeder at a pet store.
now if he did break anything, wouldnt he be in incredible amounts of pain, he seems to be moving pretty ok.unfortunetly mr. fred wont be able to make it to a vet till tommorow.
Tomorrow is fine, better late than never. to briefly address some of your points--
--panther chams and veiled chams are completely different species, not just a different breed like a dog or cat. they have very different requirements in many aspects of their lives, temperature for one. they live 2,500 miles apart in very different environments; let's say desert for veileds and jungle for panthers. right there i'm sure that you can appreciate that those 2 habitats are very, very different from each other. and if you currently have both lizards in the same types of environment, eating the same types of food, right there is proof that something is wrong, because it MUST be different.
--i'll bet several other people on this board are wondering as i am if your panther had the respiratory infection due to improper nutrition and perhaps other things; we don't have a care sheet for that one. but when 90-95% of pet reptilian diseases are due to incorrect
husbandry (very important term here; please look it up if you are not 100% sure what that means), both of these situations raise a lot of red flags. chameleons tend to have very strict requirements for how they live; break those rules and they almost invariably will become ill in one fashion or another. and while one might get a respiratory infection, another might have difficulties maintaining proper calcium levels in every single cell in their body because there has been too much vitamin D3 supplementation here.
--as to incredible amounts of pain, the answer is typically no, hardly any at times. currently another forum member has a chameleon with a broken back, but it's not screaming in agony, it's trying to just survive. and for a wild animal one of the surest ways NOT to survive is to show that you are in pain or disabled; i can promise you that would be noticed very, very quickly by the first predator that comes around. so not only do they sense pain completely differently than we do, they tend to not to exhibit it as much. and a couple of ribs possibly broken where the bone meets the cartilage isn't usually excrucitating even in human medicine. in either case, it's just a possibility based on your history and a photograph.
i know that i speak for many when i say that i'm happy that he's going to see a veterinarian; many do not. however, as a veterinarian who has a lot or reptile experience, it concerns me that you have apparently been to this vet in the past and they did not have you change the dusting powder or frequency, which is unfortunately inappropriate and possibly quite damaging. perhaps they did and it was missed, but dealing with a vet who has reptile--->lizard--->chameleon experience will generally give you information that some other vets have never even heard of, and some of those other vets have given advice that is just plain wrong for the species. and this amazing forum has a wealth of information and good people on it; it's always a fantastic place to come, learn, and ask.
please let us know how the visit turns out! and if they recommend an xray to look at his bone health in general, i cannot urge you strongly enough to do it.
dr. o-
poor thing
