Eyes are closed.

[chameleonneeds]

Hey,

My female Veiled has been keeping her eyes closed for 2 days now but she does eat and drink does any 1 know why she is doing this I want to know and treat her before it turns into something very bad and critical.

 

[Tygerr]

The best way to get a meaningful answer is to try follow the guidelines in this sticky: How to ask for help

You need to provide us with all the details of your set-up, and any other symptoms shown by your cham.
Also, photographs would be very helpful (a picture speaks a thousand words).

 

[chameleonneeds]

Ok

The cage they are in now.

Cage: 3 tall,2 wide all roun(feet) screen cage
Lighting: 60 watt sun glo daylight spot 14 watt uvb tube.
Temperature: 19-22 C basking spot and 17 C night time. Lights on at 7 am and out at 8pm
Plants: Lots of fake plants thinking of getting small ficus.
Location: next to a desk.
I have 2 females housed togethere they dont fight get stressed and have not injured each other.

Since I put my male in the females cage I had to put the girls in his cage.

This cage is:
Cage: Glass 1 1/2 tall 1 1/2 wide 2 lengt(feet)
Lighting: 50 watt daylight spot and 14 watt uvb tube.
Temperature: 35 C (its glass) basking spot and 20 night time.
Plants: Fake plants all around sides.
Location: Window

This is the cage my male got sick in.
Could there have been something in the cage or because it is glass because my male started out by closing his eyes.

What can I do to get her to stop doing this?

 

[chameleonneeds]

Chameleon info:

Chameleon: Veiled female she is 1 yr 4 mnths.
Feeding: fresh carrots, crickets meal worms gut loading crickets tomatoes carrots water.
Meal worms: carrots vegetable skins.Carrots every few days crickets every day
meal worms a few times a week.
Supplements: crickets and meal worms get dusted with u-gro vit D3 enriched powder 3- 4 times a week.
Watering: I spray there cage 3 times a day they do drink sometimes every 3 days.
When they are outside I put a deli-cup with holes driping water 2 times a
day.they do drink off of the plants.
I drip a suringe next to them and they do drink sometimes.
The carrots I feed them have water in so they eat that and get water my
silkworms are hatching and eating lettuce so I should have more than a
thousand in 2 months to feed them so they can get water.
Fecal description: green with light black spots with dark green bars this is since eyes are
I put her back in her cage and since eyes were closed.
Havent found any of her droppings yet.(let you know tomorrow).
History: She nearl suffered from mbd but i treated her aswell when my
female had a noticeable case of mbd, shes fine now.
All but her eyes shes in good condition.
Current problem: Shes closing her eyes quite consistantly.

Pictures I will have to come tomorrow.

Pleas help and tell me whats wrong and how I can solve it if any one needs to know any other questions about her please ask.

 

[Tygerr]

Ok, your first problem is that you shouldn't be keeping two adult Veileds (regardless of gender) in a cage together.
Invariably one will end up dominating the other, either by being bigger or simply more active/aggressive than the other. Even if they don't actively fight, you can be sure that one of them is dominating the territory and the other is submitting. This will lead the inferior cham to dwindle from constant stress. It will eat less, drink less and generally suffer from poor health.
Closed eyes are a symptom of chameleon stress.

The new cage that you now have your females in is even worse. It isn't really big enough to even house one chameleon, and you have two in there!
You really need to get them into separate cages right away.

However, that may not be your only problem.

Your basking spot temps are also off. Chams need a range of about 26-32C. For adult females, about 29C should be good. 22C is too low and won't aid digestion, 35C is too hot and may dehydrate your cham.
A 14W flourescent tube isn't very long, and in a small cage it could be a bit crowded. Since you have two chams in there, they might not both be able to get sufficient UV exposure because one of them may always be hogging the best spot.
You could also turn their lights off a bit earlier. Try to mimic the actual daylight hours (in Jo'burg, a standard schedule would be about 6am - 6pm).

Fake plants are not a good idea for Veileds. They are known to eat the vegetation in their cage (my Veileds often nibble on their plants). If they happen to bite into and swallow a fake plant, it could lead to impaction.

Glass cages generally don't provide enough ventilation. At the very least, one of the sides of the cage (usually the front in most set-ups) and the top should be screened to allow better airflow. Chameleons live in trees naturally, where airflow is quite good.
Also, since there is no ventilation, the glass cages tend to get too humid and dank, and this can lead to bacterial and fungal growth, and also airborne bacteria which could lead to upper respiratory infections.

Go read through all the sections (particularly habitat and lighting) on this site: The Chameleon's Dish. It will give you a much better idea of the type of set-up you need for your cham.

Also, since I know you'll probably bring this up, disregard everything the pet-shop/breeder told you about the chams when he/she sold them to you. Rather trust the information from reliable websites and the some of the more experienced keepers on this forum.

Good luck, you'll have a bit of work to do getting those set-ups right. It's worth it for your chams though.

 

[sweetmisery]

Wow, closing their eyes are common huh? I read A LOT in this forums since Im new to the hobby too, and I see a lot of these.

Is stress the number 1 reason?

 

[Tygerr]

Closed eyes is not common among chams - it is the most common indicator that something is wrong with the cham.
Chameleons should never close their eyes during the day (except for maybe a few seconds whilst they clean them during mistings). A healthy chameleon's eyes should always be open and alert - generally constantly moving around as they survey their territory.

And it is not always caused by stress. Their are many health problems that could cause a chameleon to close its eyes during the day. But closed eyes is usually one of the first symptoms to present when a chameleon is stressed.

 

[sweetmisery]

Ah yeah I meant common in terms of something is wrong. Its a common sign of sickness.

Well still got a lot to learn, and I try to learn them all! lol

 

[chameleonneeds]

The females are in the screen cage its probably double the size of the glass cage.
Ok so I will maybe get a stronger wattage basking lamp to get the heat higher since it is getting much colder here.
I trust the people from forums rather than the pet shops because firstly I was supose to have a male and female but got 2 females he told me it was male and female just wanting to get the money out out of me.(I was a newbie then I was pretty convinced my self that it was a male till som1 told me)

 

[chameleonneeds]

Hey I read nearly the hole site of the chameleon dish and if you go in Reptiles and stress it says under Signs of stress (and or illness) that eyes closed would that be from stress or illness?

 

[dodolah]

hi Chameleonneeds, another one that I need to address is your gutloading regiment.
I'm pretty sure that most will agree that you should not include tomatoes.

 

[chameleonneeds]

Hey I put up pics of her its on my profile.
Its the pic with the chams eyes that are closed.
I read that eye problems can be caused from not getting vit A so Im feeding her fresh carrots.
And will go look for something like vit a powder.
Does any1 else have any suggestions on what I should do to get her better or should I keep feeding her, her diet with crix carrots meal worms and water, and shell recover by herself?

 

[Tygerr]

Carrots don't contain Vitamin A, the contain Beta Carotene, which needs to be processed by the body into Vit. A. There is still a debate about whether chams can actually process beta carotene, so feeding her carrots might not help at all. Some insects might be able to convert beta carotene to Vit A, so using carrots as a gutload may be beneficial. I don't know if there have been any studies to confirm this though.

If she does indeed have a Vit. A deficiency, you would need preformed Vit. A to treat her (it usually comes in the liquid form Retinol). But I would suggest that you consult a vet to confirm the deficiency and to prescribe treatment, since it is very easy to overdose a cham on Vit. A. That would not help the situation at all.

 

[chameleonneeds]

Ok thanks for that.

This mornig she seemed actualy worse so I was worryed the hole day so when I got back I took her out and she opened her 1 eye for quite a while so then I put her on my crix box and let her see the crix so then she opened both eyes quite fine with out trouble so it seems like shes gotten a bit better.
Tomorrow Im going to maybe find some stuff for my chams like dis infectinse and some other stuff.
Ill still keep a very close wacth on her.

 

[chamlover]

It sounds like you care about her very much. With chams they can go downhill very fast and she has already been displaying her discomfort for several days now. Spend the extra money and please call the vet. Waiting and trying this and waiting for someone to answer your questions is taking valuable time away. As for the vitamin A issue, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! Kidding about the home part, but serious about not trying it yourself unless you do major research. 1 drop, yup, 1 drop of A too much will kill her. If you go into the FAQ part of the forum, i believe Brad Ramsey has great info on that, but for now and for her i would call the vet first and do your research later. Good luck and keep us informed. Also, if you have some Terramycin available you could try using that to see if that helps ,but don't wait 3 days to order it if you don't have any.

Debby

 

[stevereecy]

Also, since I know you'll probably bring this up, disregard everything the pet-shop/breeder told you about the chams when he/she sold them to you. Rather trust the information from reliable websites and the some of the more experienced keepers on this forum.

Huh? Don't trust what the breeder says and instead rely on websites? There's a heck of a lot of misinformation on websites. I can see the part about taking what the shop worker tells you with a grain of salt, but you oughta trust the breeders.

 

[Tygerr]

Huh? Don't trust what the breeder says and instead rely on websites? There's a heck of a lot of misinformation on websites. I can see the part about taking what the shop worker tells you with a grain of salt, but you oughta trust the breeders.

Yes, perhaps I should have qualified that a bit more.
The reason I even mentioned this is because I know that Chameleonneeds is from South Africa, and unfortunately I also know a bit about a some South African 'breeders'. See, a lot of cham 'breeders' in South Africa (especially the ones displaying at a lot of the reptile shows here) are either just petshops with their own Veiled breeding projects on the side, or petshops that obtain lots of hatchlings from people with 'backyard' (for lack of a better term for inexperienced hobbyists) breeding projects. Either way, the pet stores seldom have little more motive than to maximise turnover of these small creatures.

That's why I keep coming across people who obtain Veileds that are only between 4-6 weeks old. That's why I keep finding keepers who were sold two or more chams to start off with because "sure you can keep more than one in a cage, as long as they're both female/as long as they're a mating pair/etc". A common strategy by these pet stores nowadays is to sell 'starter packages' - complete with infra-red bulbs for basking, compact flourescent bulbs for UV, a tiny glass cage, and bark chips to cover the floor... Again, it's all just to maximise turnover.

But I take your point. There ARE some good breeders out there. There are even some good petstores. My comments are certainly not directed at those breeders (especially ones of the calibre of some of the breeders who contribute to this forum).
But until you have recommendations/experience that shows them to be reputable, you have to be wary of what people tell you. Sadly in the reptile industry (I guess with most industries), a lot of people are just out to make a buck.

And as for websites - you're right: there are a lot of useless ones out there. But there have also been quite a lot of good websites recommended by the members on these forums and on the Link Directory of this site (that's why I used the word 'reliable' in my original post)

Sorry if it sounds a bit like I'm ranting - I just want you to understand exactly where my comments were coming from.

 

[kinyonga]

Let me see if I have this right...you started off with a male and female in the same cage? Your male died and had been keeping his eyes shut before he died? Now your female is keeping her eyes shut too??

 

[Tygerr]

Actually Kinyonga, he started off with two females in the same cage, and a younger male that he obtained later in a smaller separate cage.
The male died recently, and now one of the females is shutting her eyes.

Chameleonneeds: have you managed to get those females into two separate cages yet? How is the ill cham doing today? What are you planning to get the disinfectants for?

 

[isamu]

How is your female today?
If she is getting worse, take her to a vet, please.

Where in jhb are you? I have a good vet located in Edenvale that is not too expensive.

Let me know if I can pm you the number?

What are you planning to get the disinfectants for?