Desperately need advice

[SandraM]

I bought my son a chameleon in December. It recently stopped opening its eyes during the day. Yesterday, the vet said that it had an eye infection and gave me some drops to start putting in. He also suggested keeping the terrarium warmer and more humid, but this morning we woke up to find that the chameleon had fallen off his branch during the night and was lying in a small puddle of cool water that collected on the bottom when we turned up the misting frequency. I am worried that he may not make it. Does anyone have a suggestion for how to keep him on the branch by the heat lamp?

Veiled male, maybe 4 months old eating small crickets dusted with calcium powder (except he hasn't eaten recently because he can't see the crickets to get them). See his photo and terrarium photo attached. The crickets were eating Fluker's cricket quencher and eating zoo med cricket care food. There is a heat lamp, and a red night heat lamp that sit on top of the screen and a UVB light and regular light in the regular light fixture. The whole setup in in my son's bedroom on a table against the back wall. The terrarium is exo-terra.

 

[tameraivy]

Oh no.. I am sorry to hear about this. How is he holding up? What type of enclosure and lighting do you have for him? I don't see a photo, or attachment..

 

[SandraM]

 

[SandraM]

 

[happy]

SandraM,
Try to fill out the how to ask for help template.
He appears very dehydrated to me try posting a few more images.
i would pay special attention to the supplement section in the how to ask for help. Him not opening his eyes, usually indicates a vitamin deficiency, or lighting way to bright..

 

[fluxlizard]

From the looks of him this has been a gradual problem- he's emaciated and poor tone.

I think you need a better vet. See if you can find someone else in your area.

I don't think this is a simple eye infection.

 

[freddyf385]

Check this out for supplementaion. Closing of the eye is not good. You may want to give him vitamin a. And as far as enclosure goes make sure you have proper ventilation. Stagnant air can cause respiratory infection. Most keepers perfer screen cages for better ventilation. You can get vitamin a at your local gnc/vitamin shop. Look at the second thread to get more info. hope this helps a little best of luck with your little guy hopefully he gets better.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/65-supplements.html

https://www.chameleonforums.com/cham-keeps-closing-one-his-eyes-66576/

 

[Carlton]

I bought my son a chameleon in December. It recently stopped opening its eyes during the day. Yesterday, the vet said that it had an eye infection and gave me some drops to start putting in. He also suggested keeping the terrarium warmer and more humid, but this morning we woke up to find that the chameleon had fallen off his branch during the night and was lying in a small puddle of cool water that collected on the bottom when we turned up the misting frequency. I am worried that he may not make it. Does anyone have a suggestion for how to keep him on the branch by the heat lamp?

Veiled male, maybe 4 months old eating small crickets dusted with calcium powder (except he hasn't eaten recently because he can't see the crickets to get them). See his photo and terrarium photo attached. The crickets were eating Fluker's cricket quencher and eating zoo med cricket care food. There is a heat lamp, and a red night heat lamp that sit on top of the screen and a UVB light and regular light in the regular light fixture. The whole setup in in my son's bedroom on a table against the back wall. The terrarium is exo-terra.

Sick chams will keep their eyes closed for many reasons...only one of which could be an eye infection. An eye infection usually shows some sticky discharge on the eyelids. I don't see that in your pic. At the top of the health forum there's a sticky note titled "how to ask for help". Read it and fill out the questions and post them so we can get more details on your husbandry. There are many things that may be going wrong, but answering those question will help us help you more quickly.

First thing to do is get rid of the red night light. Chams have full color vision and the red light has been keeping him from sleeping, and has also probably overheated and dehydrated him every night. Chams need a drop in temp of at least 10 degrees at night. A constant warm temp will cause major problems.

This little guy probably also has some nutritional problems, but we need more information about how often you are using the dusts. The cricket foods you are using are not great, so this contributes to that problem. What is the BRAND of UV light? Many so-called full spectrum reptile lights don't produce the correct type of UVB they need.

I think the best thing here is to read the forum's basic chameleon care section that gives a lot of good detailed husbandry info. I think you'll see where you need to change what you are doing.

 

[SandraM]

Thanks

A big thanks to everyone who replied to my message. Since he can't see, I have been opening his mouth and having my son stick in a few crickets each day sprayed with water and one every other day smeared with vitamin A or dusted with reptivite. Still doing the eye drops and he does not appear any better or worse than last week. I am thinking maybe the vitamins take time. After about 3 crickets per day he stops letting me open his mouth. I decided to get some more chameleons too and this time getting ones that are already established in a working habitat and I am going to write down every detail of what their current owner does so I can mimic / replicate the exact conditions at my house for all of them. All of your posts were very helpful and while I feel bad that i didn't know details such as the brand of lights because I had thrown away the packaging, I now know what to pay attention to. Once again, THANKS to all of you!

 

[laurie]

I would reccomend against getting another chameleon, until you are able to sort out the care of this Cham. Seeing and trying to copy the way someone else keeps chams will not work, as you don't know all the details, like how the feeders are fed, what the room temp is at someone else's house, and the list goes on.

If you give us the information, we can help you, but without info, we can't help much.

Also use very, very little vit A, it is easy to overdose your Cham and kill him. I use one very small dot, on one cricket a month.

 

[OldChamKeeper]

You had a lot of nice folks speak up and offer solid advice.



Good picture. That animal has gradually wasted away, it's not an eye infection from what I can see.

 

[kinyonga]

any update on the chameleon?

 

[distortionz]

A big thanks to everyone who replied to my message. Since he can't see, I have been opening his mouth and having my son stick in a few crickets each day sprayed with water and one every other day smeared with vitamin A or dusted with reptivite. Still doing the eye drops and he does not appear any better or worse than last week. I am thinking maybe the vitamins take time. After about 3 crickets per day he stops letting me open his mouth. I decided to get some more chameleons too and this time getting ones that are already established in a working habitat and I am going to write down every detail of what their current owner does so I can mimic / replicate the exact conditions at my house for all of them. All of your posts were very helpful and while I feel bad that i didn't know details such as the brand of lights because I had thrown away the packaging, I now know what to pay attention to. Once again, THANKS to all of you!

Just making sure you know you can't house more chameleons in the same cage with this one.. right?

Hope he perks up.. . And I'd still like to see you fill out the how to ask for help questions

 

[SandraM]

Still the same

As an update to those who have provided advice, the little guy's condition is still the same. I did get the new chameleons (I had already agreed to get them before reading the advice to wait) and after seeing them I now realize how skinny our little guy is (I previously had only seen the small ones at our local pet store). All are in screen cages and we put a vaporizer in my son's room to help the humidity. The person I got them from spent an hour explaining the way they did the whole process which was very kind and helpful. They are sleeping now, but tomorrow I will post photos of the new setup and fill out the how to ask for help so that any further problems will be found BEFORE they become a crisis. Thanks again to everyone

 

[kinyonga]

I would recommend quarantining them from the sick one for at least a month in case what the sick one has is contagious. See the quarantine thread in this forum at the top of the general discussion forum.