Giving your chameleon pills
- Thread starter Ksc306
- Start date
Olimpia
Biologist & Ecologist
What pill did you have to give him? That's really unusual to give them a solid pill.
Without knowing what it is, my initial suggestion is to crush it up into a powder, mix it with water, have your vet give you a plastic syringe (or get one at a pharmacy), and squirt far into his mouth.
Chameleons have their airways on the middle of their lower mandible, like where your tongue is. It's not down their throat like with us, so you can stick the syringe far back in the mouth and squirt gently and he should swallow it without problem.
Without knowing what it is, my initial suggestion is to crush it up into a powder, mix it with water, have your vet give you a plastic syringe (or get one at a pharmacy), and squirt far into his mouth.
Chameleons have their airways on the middle of their lower mandible, like where your tongue is. It's not down their throat like with us, so you can stick the syringe far back in the mouth and squirt gently and he should swallow it without problem.
What antibiotic is it? Pills and reptiles don't really mix.
Yes liquid is the way to go. You can try to crush the pill up and mix it with water in a syringe but the pills are pretty bitter tasting so your cham probably won't like it. A lot of vets that work with reptiles have compounded liquid baytril that is banana or strawberry flavored so reptiles might like the taste. I would ask if they do because that will make you and your cham's life easier. 
There is liquid baytril instead of the pill that you can take home.
If it's liquid then you can sometimes inject into the bugs they eat before feeding them so you don't have to open their mouth at all. I've waited until my chameleon is drinking and then squirt the medicine into their mouth while they're drinking so I don't have to pry their mouth open. If those don't work you can gently open their mouth using a guitar pick or credit card to gently pry their mouth open. You don't want to use too much force though because they have small teeth that can break and their jaw can be fragile if they're young or unhealthy.
jojothefirst
New Member
I'm in the process of giving my female veiled antibiotics and iv been given them to her sub cut at home. IV had to give her 2 other things via mouth and the way the vet showed me was to gently pull down on her chin to get her mouth slightly open and we have been given a tip normally used in a catheter to use as its so narrow.
