dNot eating and closing eyes during the day. Help Please

The Scrill

New Member
Hi everyone,

Info:

Chameleon: ~9month old female panther chameleon (blue bar anilobe)
Have had her for over 5 months and this is the first timethis problem has arised

Handling: Handle her every other day or so for only around 10 mins. She is super tame though and will always just climb up on my hand when presented. Such a good girl.

Feeding: Gutloaded crickets and mealworms placed in cage late morning. Feed her as much as she wants to eat really. Gutload with carrots, collard greens, oranges, plums.

Supplements: Starting just using reptivite twice a month and just bought a thing of pure calcium that has no phosphorous or no D3. A couple weeks ago she seemed shakey so I thought it was onset of MBD so I started heavily dusting her crickets and worms everyday. Which I think might be why she is ill now.

Watering: I have always used a squirt bottle, but now I got new nozzles for my misting system and will set that up in the next couple days.

Fecal Description: Just had her at my parents house and on the ride home the other day (couple days ago) she had a very dry looking poop. The Urea part was the biggest aspect, but the feces part looked very crumbly and dry, which makes me think that she had too much calcium in her gut.

History: She had the calcium problem which seems to actually be fixed because of my dusting her crickets a lot. Shes not shakey anymore.

Cage Info:

Cage type: 36''x18''x18'' Sceen

Lighting: One 100w basking bulb, one Reptisun 5.0 UVB Tube light

Temperature: 75-95, night temps around mid 70's. Have the crappy temp gauge but seems accurate, for sure has a good range of temps in her cage.

Humidity: 40-80% recently, however last week I was real busy and it was hard to keep up on the humidity. Especially with how hots its been so got down to 20% some of the time.

Plants: This is also a suspicion of mine for why she is ill. I just took her umbrella plant out of her cage a couple days ago, because the leaves were rotting off and the plants health was not good and it seemed like it made my cham sick, even though she never ate it. Right now she has in her old healthy ficus.

Placement: In living room right next to window and sliding door. Mild traffic area, but she is really tame and isn't distracted by me and my girlfriend moseying around. Located on a coffee table too.

Location: Corvallis, OR. Pacific North West



Current Problem: So this last couple weeks my Scrill hasn't been the same. She hasn't been eating or if she does its very little and she doesnt do it when I put her crickets in the morning like she normally does. I'm usually at home and I havn't seen her at all eating. But the big thing I've noticed thats really unusual is that she has her eyes closed during the day. Its not like they're always closed, but it for sure seems like she closes them even without napping. I've picked her up a few times before and her eyes will still close when I hold her. It's both her eyes too. She moves around fine and doesn't seem sick besides the lack of eating and the closed eyes. When her eyes are open they seem not as open and alert as they normally are. I've made her a laying bin, but it is not currently in the cage because the crickets take refuge in and around the back and it makes the cage really cramped. I took it out because shes not restless and trying to dig around. She is pink and is probably mature now, but as far as what I've read on laying behavior she doesn't seem to show that. My other guess was I had a dying umbrella plant in there in which the leaves would get droopy and start turning brown then rotted off the plant. I've recently have removed the plant and put back in her healthy ficus. My main thinking is that was she was really shakey a few weeks ago, so I got a big thing of non phosphorous and D3 calcium and have been heavily coating her worms and crickets. It kind of explains the crumbly poop she had before. She's not shakey before as she was before I started regularly giving her calcium so I think it helped in that regards, but I'm not so sure if I overdid it. Please let me know if you have any thoughts on the lack of eating and eyes closed behavior. I'm really stumped and want to get my scrill being her old self again.

Thanks,

Patrick
 
I'm sorry to hear your Cham isn't doing to good. I can't really tell you why her eyes are closed during the day, hopefully someone else can. But I can help you with her not eating. The main thing that stuck out to me was that she has very little variety in her diet, and probably went on a hunger strike. Try feeding her super worms, calci worms, dubia roaches, slik worms, horn worms, there is a bunch of different stuff you can feed her. And you could probably gut load a little better to, and change up what you gut load to so I'll the crickets don't taste the same every time :) hope this helps
 
I tried to feed her a wax worm the other day and she wasnt interested. I can usually hand feed her in the morning and 99% of the time she is interested and she hasnt been eating out of my hand for over a week now.
 
Wax worms aren't too healthy anynway, do you have a feeder cup? Maybe she is being picky and doesnt want to eat out of your hand. Mine usually does but sometimes she just sits and stares at me:confused: so I put it in the cup and next time I check on her it would be gone. I ordered mine some dubia for way cheaper than what I thought it would be, I advent gotten them yet but from what ive heard and read chams love them!
I tried to feed her a wax worm the other day and she wasnt interested. I can usually hand feed her in the morning and 99% of the time she is interested and she hasnt been eating out of my hand for over a week now.
 
Hi, it seems you are on the right track as far as correcting your husbandry. One other thing i would add to your husbandry is placing a lay bin within the cage.

Id suggest you taking your chameleon to a vet that is familiar with chameleons. It is not a good sign your chameleons eyes are closed when you are holding her.

Things i would do for her personally.
1. Take her to a vet.
2. EXTRA long showers atleast three times a day.
3. Lay bin asap
4. Natural sunlight as much as possible.
 
if shes dehydrated and being stubborn about drinking water feed her silk or horn worms
 
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