Female Veiled Sick?

Evie091

Member
Your Chameleon - Female, Yemen/ veiled Chameleon, slightly over 1 and a half years from what I estimate. She has been with me for around 16 months.
Handling - She comes out for handling 2-3 times a week on average and seems comfortable and calm.
Feeding - I am feeding her crickets, silkworms and calciworms, and rarely waxworms as a treat. I feed her 3 feeders every other day. I feed her in the morning but sometimes one of us will drop them and she just finds them throughout the day. I am giving Them a mix of kale, squash, carrots, cucumber, watercress etc for the crickets and calciworms and mulburry paste (not sure if that is the right name) for the silk worms food. I put arcadia insect fuel on the food and bug gel.
Supplements - I am using EarthPro A on most feedings and will alternate between calcium mg and revitalize d3 every week.
Watering - I mist her enclosure about 2 or 3 times a day. I sometimes see her drinking after misting but I dont see her drinking of the leaves much. She will drink from pipettes and water droplets from the misting bottle.
Fecal Description - Feces seems normal and so does urate but she has been going quite often the last few weeks. Typically she doesn't poop as much. I don't think she has been tested for parasites.
History - I don't really know any of her history from before I got her, but she has never layed eggs, she sheds every few months but not as often as I think she needs, no matter how much I mist her to encourage it.
Cage Info:


Cage Type - Mesh enclosure 61 x 61 x 122 cm (24" x 24" x 48")
Lighting - exo terra 75 w basking bulb controlled by a habistat dimming thermometer and arcadia prot5 uvb, 24W, 7% UVB. I turn her lights on around 7:45 am and turn them off around 7:45 pm.
Temperature - basking is at 27 and the rest of the enclosure is around 24-23 degrees.
Humidity - Humidity is usually from 40% to 60%. I use two digital hygrometers to measure it at different spots in the enclosure.
Plants - I have live plants including pothos, dracenea, schleffera, however I am currently replacing others as they died (whoops). There are also two small fake vine type plants in there, purely for cover purposes as the plants haven't grown in properly yet
Placement - The enclosure is in my bedroom, I use a fan in the summer to help cool but apart from that I don't often use it, there are no air vents and it isn't a high traffic area. The top of the enclosure is 194 cm from the floor.
Location - I live in the UK.

Current issue:
So my chameleon, Keigo, has been behaving strangely for a little while. She goes through periods of not being very active to being extremely active. Recently she has been more active and I noticed her doing a little bit of digging in the lay bin around 5 days ago. However the last 3 days she has barely moved, she stopped eating for a day or two though she has now restarted eating. Her tail seems thinner and her colours are dull, almost sandy compared to normal, she does have some small bruises from reckless falls in her enclosure however she doesn't seem to be in pain. Her tummy is very slightly lumpy however when I gently checked for eggs I felt nothing and she still acts like a pancake when she wants to, at which time I can't see anything egg shape beneath her skin. I am unsure if she is just getting ready for eggs and or shedding or what but I am worried.

I got her out today so she could sit in the sun, as she often does. while she was sunbathing I trimmed the plants to make sure she is getting enough UVB, turned the heat lamp down slightly, wet the sand in her lay bin, gave her two small silk worms with supplements and she drank a lot of water from a pipette I brought for her. I am reluctant to take her to the vets due to the stress that will cause her and it's unlikely I would be able to book a vet to come to my house very quickly. I don't know what to do to help my little lady and any advice would be appreciated. (Also sorry the post is so long)
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Hi. Your pretty girl looks gravid to my eyes. What are you using for a lay bin? What size is it and what substrate?
So I use what is essentially a large flower pot, 11inches tall and 13 inches diameter across the top. I will be getting a square one to better fit her enclosure but I haven't wanted to stress her by swapping it. I use play sand, I do check the like "ingredients" list for them to make sure it is safe and I just occasionally add some water and mix it up to make sure she can tunnel. I heard mixed reports about using dirt and what kind so I have avoided it for now.
 
How long has she had the yellow splotches?
I'm not sure exactly but she has had them for probably at least 6 months, they do change to be more of a dark orange usually, my phone camera makes them look slightly brighter than they are in person though! They have developed and gotten brighter as she has aged so far so I'm not entirely sure how long she has actually had them.
 
Thye get those splotches when they are sexually mature...so I was just trying to figure out when she became mature.
The color can vary.
 
Thye get those splotches when they are sexually mature...so I was just trying to figure out when she became mature.
The color can vary.
Ahhhh, that makes more sense to me as someone who kind of watched them appear over time :)
 
One more thing...you said..."she sheds every few months but not as often as I think she needs, no matter how much I mist her to encourage it"...they are dry shredders and the misting won't likely help her she'd better or quicker.
 
One more thing...you said..."she sheds every few months but not as often as I think she needs, no matter how much I mist her to encourage it"...they are dry shredders and the misting won't likely help her she'd better or quicker.
Ohhhh, I didn't know, thank you! Apologies for the misinformation, I'll adjust my misting during her sheds to what I do normally, thank you again!
 
When she was diggin in the laybin...was she diggin a hole or just digging around? Did she see you watching her digging? Did you move her while she was digging? Have you handled her in the few days after the digging?
 
She looked to be digging around, and she did see me as I always check where she is when I walk in my room, which is when I accidentally saw her, had I known she was going to be digging I would have stayed out of my room but she had never dug before so it was really unexpected. I didn't move her while she was digging, just walked out when I realised. She has been in her lay bin multiple times the two days after she was first in there, which I only know from the sound of her digging. (I was laid facing away from her and from where I was the lay bin is not visible). Again from glaces of the lay bin I got at night after she was asleep it seemed to be more dips than holes being dug. I have handled her twice, very briefly to offer her water as she didn't seem to want to move and drink and I also wanted to make sure she hadn't hurt anything by falling in her enclosure, which I was worried might be the cause for the lack of movement.
 
What do you mean she has started laying eggs recently? Has she dug a hole and laid them all at the same time in it? Or is she dropping an egg here and another egg there...not in a hole?
 
What do you mean she has started laying eggs recently? Has she dug a hole and laid them all at the same time in it? Or is she dropping an egg here and another egg there...not in a hole?
No, she hasn't dug a hole and she has been laying them over the span of a week now all over her enclosure including whilst sleeping vertically. I know this is not healthy behaviour for her but honestly I am unsure of what to do for her that wouldn't cause more stress. I tried to dig a hole for her after a few days but she just didn't want anything to do with her lay bin. She does seem nearly done with laying them, I can see far less in her stomach. I believe she has layed around 20 eggs at this point, she doesn't seem to struggle much laying them although it does look uncomfortable. From her behaviour it feels more like she just doesn't understand what she is meant to be doing or what's happening however that may just be my perception of it.
 
It's not good that she is dropping them all over the place. Sounds like she's eggbound. I don't know if it would be too late for a shot of oxytocin or not. I'm not a vet no can only speak from what I have learned.

If she's eggbound she will need surgery to spay her.

It could be that she doesn't like the lay site. What substrate are you using? How deep is it? Is it moist enough to hold a tunnel?
 
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Whilst I am also concerned she could be eggbound I feel doing anything to disturb her currently may cause her more problems so I'm trying to avoid it.
I put the measurements of the lay bin and such in an earlier message and yes it is moist enough to hold a tunnel.
 
Whilst I am also concerned she could be eggbound I feel doing anything to disturb her currently may cause her more problems so I'm trying to avoid it.
I put the measurements of the lay bin and such in an earlier message and yes it is moist enough to hold a tunnel
It's not good that she is dropping them all over the place. Sounds like she's eggbound. I don't know if it would be too late for a shot of oxytocin or not. I'm not a vet no can only speak from what I have learned.

If she's eggbound she will need surgery to spay her.

It could be that she doesn't lik the lay site. What substrate are you using? How deep is it? Is it moist enough to hold a tunnel?
 
Just some information that might help...
If a chameleon is eggbound, she cannot lay her eggs...it could be due to a deformity of the eggs...the eggs could be too large for her to lay...something could be blocking them from being laid....or she could be past the point of laying them because the hormones are off at this point, etc, etc. I'm not a vet so I can't tell you for sure.
One of the issues with eggbinding is, that if we don't deal with it soon enough because we aren't sure that she is eggbound, that by the time we do decide it's the issue, she's too week to have the surgery done so she will die.

If she is eggbound, she needs a good chameleon vet to do the surgery.
 
Hi - my cham had similar issues to the ones described. She laid around 30 eggs before I even knew she was gravid and did so without the lay bin (about 2 weeks ago). Because she kept scratching at the bottom of her cage recently (now 2 weeks later), I made her a lay bin (the photo has green child's play sand, so please note that isn't some condition.) After 2 full days, she didn't lay any eggs and was just kind of sitting / moving around in the sand, so I took it out to see what she would do. How long does this process take? She still isn't really eating and seems more lethargic than normal although she went back up to the top of the cage. Does she look like she is gravid?
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