Chameleon w/Injured Tongue

[Andrew1283]

WARNING - The embedded video is very graphic and may disturb some viewers.


This 18 month old female Parsons (Cera) has been in my care for just a month, and has an injured tongue. She’s small for her age at only 74 grams but is in good health. All indications are that her tongue got caught on a branch while hunting grasshoppers.

She has a very LONG tongue. Cera was taken to an exotic vet yesterday and received pain medication and antibiotics.

Luckily, the tongue appears to be healthy and retracts fully into her mouth. She is also drinking well and is well hydrated.

It could be a strain but she’s been put on a food restriction for 2 days while it attempts to heal on its own, followed by feeding of soft bugs (silk worms) directly to her mouth and then cup feeding for the foreseeable.

I’m praying for this little one.

 

[MissSkittles]

Poor sweet girl. I’m hoping it heals up without any issue.

 

[Andrew1283]

It happened so fast. I noticed her tongue like that and then about 20 minutes later she collapsed like this on the branch. I immediately started packing for the vet. So scary. And no kidding, just two minutes later she was walking around fine, but I still took her to get evaluated.

She’s drinking fine and I see her tongue coming out a bit like normal to lap up water off the leaves by the dripper. Can’t wait to see her eat something tomorrow.


She looked like a little kid getting a flu shot

 

[Andrew1283]

Cera is drinking well today

 

[Action Jackson]

Glad you decided not to do surgery. Give her time, she may well make a full recovery. She really needs to put on weight.
I’d remove all food from her cage and hand feed for a while.

 

[Andrew1283]

Talking to you and Rick really helped with that decision. You and Rick have hearts of gold and are very much appreciated

 

[ehdee6]

Poor little girl! I hope she makes a smooth recovery. I don't think I could ever not use a feeding dish after seeing this. I don't even want to let the bsf go loose.

 

[Andrew1283]

Hoppers don’t stay in cups (or shooting galleries) unless you remove their back legs. This little girl was used to free range bugs for 18 months and did not want to use the cup. Ugh. Rick free ranges bugs but only uses smooth dowels with schefflera to avoid injuries. So if you have natural branches and free range bugs, injury is possible.

I don’t like cup feeding because I feel like they don’t get good tongue exercise. But I do sometimes hold my large male ambilobe and hold the cup far enough away that he has to really shoot to get a treat bugs. That’s my work around from now on.

 

[ehdee6]

I'm going to admit, I remove the hopper legs from my bigger crickets. I'd rather that than have them escape... I live in a small area and rather the bugs not escape and "bug" me.

I also try my best to take away the sharp edges of my branches. But this has me wondering if I've done a a good enough job.

With the bsf I also try to get them (the flies) to crawl around my hand at different distances and get the Cham to "high five" the bug off my hand.... It's probably more entertaining for me. But they go for it after a while.

 

[Andrew1283]

When I harvest new branches I take my razor blade and shave down any sharp nubs. I honestly didnt see the injury occur. I can only speculate what happened. We can’t bubble wrap them but when I free range grasshoppers I’ll just pull their back legs off and put them in a cup too

 

[ehdee6]

You're a good keeper, my friend. Sometimes happens to the best of us.

 

[kinyonga]

Is she able to eat without her tongue falling out and not retracting?