female veiled cham unwell?

[evildude]

can anyone please help me?i have a female veiled called betty she is about a year old and has just started laying eggs about a week ago,she has gone down hill rapidly she does not seem to be eating much or drinking ,her eyes have sunken in to her head dont know what that means and she is dragging her back right leg around dont know if it is broken (does laying eggs effect there legs?)please if you have any ideas what is wrong and what to do with my girly please let me know thank you ben..

 

[Julirs]

Did you provide her with the proper egg laying bucket? Has she been laying over a period of time? Sounds like she is eggbound and dehydrated...

 

[evildude]

she has a sand bucket and she has been dig holes and staying in them for about 3 hours ,what do i do if she is eggbound and how do i give her water
please help me qiuck

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

SHowering is one of the best ways to hydrate a cham. Some wildcaught chams were brought in country earlier this year gravid. They were showered for 2 hours, and then laid their eggs. I would strongly recommend showering her for 1 hour or more and see if that helps. It worked for us when we had a female panther who was overdue and reluctant to lay her eggs. You're not going to be able to get her a vet today, anyway. There are steps a vet can take to "induce", but I do not have first hand knowledge of that. But that would have to wait until tomorrow, anyway.'

Place her in her plant, in the shower, and "bounce" the water off the wall of the shower so it rebounds onto her and the plant, to soften the impact. Make the water temp what would be comfortably warm to you, test it on your wrist, but not hot. Keep the bathroom dark so the shower will be restful for her.

While she is in the shower, have someone run to the store and get some pedialyte (it is in the baby food section- it is what they give to sick babies, and it is what is recommended to help a badly dehydrated cham). The pedialyte will help restore nutrients and rehydrate. SOme people give it strait, some mix half and half with water. Dribble the pedialyte into her mouth with a needleless syringe.


After that I would suggest placing her back in her egg laying chamber and give her complete privacy and quiet.

Tomorrow get her to a vet, unless her symptoms cleared up over night. Her symptoms sound very serious, life threatening.

 

[Dave Weldon]

...has just started laying eggs about a week ago
...her eyes have sunken in to her head
...she is dragging her back right leg around dont know if it is broken

(EDIT: I didn't see the other posts until after I finished this... Got stuck with an interruption for an hour ...)

Howdy Ben,

With these symptoms, you may not have much time. If you have a good exotic vet, now is the time to get her there.

You said: "...started a week ago." Did she finish or is she still passing eggs? Still digging?

A chameleon with sunken eyes is a sign of severe distress.

I have visited chameleon keepers whose females have had rear leg(s) paralysis. Some survive and others didn't. One chameleon had a large intestinal impaction and another was egg bound. If yours is pooping then you are back to the egg binding issue. Ideally she should have deposited all of her eggs in one session and be done with it. If she didn't do that then she may still be carrying eggs. Insufficient calcium uptake is one possibility for the situation. An experienced chameleon vet will likely know if she is strong enough to handle drug induced egg laying...

 

[Julirs]

Make sure she has her privacy. If she sees you AT ALL she will most likely abandon laying eggs.

 

[evildude]

thank you for your quick replys i just hope i can save her as the vets are closed until tuesday now what are best things i can do .should i empty her sand bucket and but fresh or should i just leave her alone i really dont want her to die many thanks ben

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

I can't think of a reason to give her fresh sand. I would just shower her, pedialyte her, put her in there (in her egg laying container), and leave her alone. You may wish to ask Dave Weldon what the best way would be to get some calcium into her right away, especially since the vet is not avail until Tuesday. You could PM Dave.

 

[Kat77]

Good luck Ben. Did you try the shower? Keep us posted.

 

[evildude]

thank you

thank you every body for all your quick replays but i am sad to say betty is no longer wit us we retured to find her dead in the shower. thanks again ben

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

I am SO sorry. I really wish things had turned out differently. You must be crushed. Sometimes it seems the gravid females go down hill so quickly there's very little you can do.

 

[chamlover]

I am so sorry to hear that. We just lost our gravid female panther too. Are you up to doing a necropsy? We did shortly after she passed to remove the rest of the eggs and to find out what went wrong. We found her insides all twisted. This was the second time she had a problem. No we didn't mate her again, it was her second clutch, and all her eggs are good so far. It has only been a couple of weeks. Are the eggs she laid still good? Next time you have a gravid female that doesn't lay all her eggs immediately the first time, i would bring her to the vets. As long as she is gravid alot of them will not drink or eat and continue to go down hill quickly. I hope her eggs will be good.

Good luck,

Debby