Head Shaking

MyHomeZoo

MyHomeZoo

Member
Hi,
I am new on here and I have a 2 1/2 month old Veiled Chameleon. His nick name is Larry, short for Lawrence of Arabia. I have him housed in a 20 gal long standing on end with a heat lamp with a basking spot of 85 degrees and a uvb light. I am misting him 2 x a day, the whole tank just drips, I am in the process of getting things together to make a humidifier for him. He is eating up to 10 crickets/roaches a day dusted with calcium powder. I am holding him everyday and he is actually quite friendly. I had a veiled years ago that was beyond crabby and HATED to be held. Here is Larry's problem... He falls asleep on me (not the problem) and sometimes when he does his little head will start to shake. It does it in starts and stops. A little shake and then he is still and a minute will go by and he does it again. His eyes never open when this happens. Is he ok? Is this normal? Please Help!!
 
Mmm,Larry definitely have a very odd behavior, I can understand if he start "yawning"after his cozy nap with you,but shaking the head is more like being in a bad bad dream n he repeat it again once more,....
Now let me ask u something @MyHomeZoo , have u ever see him shake in that 20gal long after he awake n the light is on???
By the way that 20gal long needs to replace as soon you can find him a taller screen cage,this just my friendly suggestion:)
 
Is he falling asleep on your hand during the day or are you holding him at night when he should be sleeping? He should not be sleeping in the day at all incase you were unaware of that. He might be closing his eyes because he is scared. so actually him closing his eyes could be a potential problem. Ideally he should not be housed in a fish tank if that is what you mean by a 20 gallon long standing on end. Terrariums are sufficient because they are vented at the bottom with a strip. I am not sure what is going on with the head shaking. I would say though, no it is not normal. Also, if you are standing the tank on end how are the lights set up? Do you have a light strip at the top? UVB rays cannot pass through glass, so if you have it passing through the glass he is getting no UVB rays, and that is very bad.
 
alphakenc said:
Mmm,Larry definitely have a very odd behavior, I can understand if he start "yawning"after his cozy nap with you,but shaking the head is more like being in a bad bad dream n he repeat it again once more,....
Now let me ask u something @MyHomeZoo , have u ever see him shake in that 20gal long after he awake n the light is on???
By the way that 20gal long needs to replace as soon you can find him a taller screen cage,this just my friendly suggestion:)
Click to expand...


Hi Alphakenc,
No I have never seen him right after his lights come on. My husband is going to build him a screened cage as soon as it gets a bit warmer here in Michigan. I had planned on getting a small computer fan to put in the bottom of his cage for the time being, to get the air to move around.

Carol5208,
He only falls asleep on my in the evenings. I have his lights coming on at 6:50 am and going off at 9 pm. He usually falls asleep sometime in the evening when I am holding him. I have had him since the 21st of January. I saw him doing this last night for the first time ever, and he did the head shaking thing 4 times. Maybe about 6-7 shakes total each time. I have a screen lid on the front of the tank, it is a very snug fit. When he walks on it, it doesn't move. I have a curly fluorescent exo terra 26 watt UVB and a 75 watt heat lamp. The UVB is attached to a tall cast iron candle holder and both lights shine through the screen. The plants are Jasmine and Bamboo. The info that I found on the bamboo was 50% safe and 50% unsure.
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He was on my clothes too. Arms, back and neck, most of my clothing is cotton, rayon and polyester. I don't have anything that is fuzzy. LOL I am going through menopause so I don't even wear sweaters anymore. Just t-shirts, long sleeves and tank tops. Does this help?

I just checked him and he was sleeping on a leaf upside down. That can't be good can it? I moved him to a branch and put him upright.
 
Well the reason I ask is sometimes when the veiled cham have something attached in their head small like a piece. thread,they will try to shake it of,I seen them happen,they can even use their cute feet to try brush them off...as far as the relocation on the branch,it will be ok to show your motherly love to make sure ur babychamy sleep right at night:)
 
Thanks!! :D He doesn't have any threads on him anywhere. It just really scared me when he started with the head shaking because is was almost like a tremor or something. It just didn't look right. Thank you for your help!!
 
LOL Thanks! I am constantly surprised how sweet and calm he is. I can't wait to see what he looks like as an adult. He is so adorable!! :p
 
His lights should be moved to be overhead of him. It's best that way so they can thermoregulate and have shady spots to cool down and go into the warmer spots to warm up when so desired. (y)
 
The caging you have is not going to work in the long run. The lights need to be overhead for a lot of reasons, one being as the above person mentioned, to create different temperature gradients in his enclosure. Anytime you have the animal's environment outside of ideal, you are stressing them whether you recognize the stress or not. A Reptibreeze is a pretty inexpensive cage and if it's not what you want permanently, you can use it as an outdoor cage.

What you describe is not something I've ever seen. Do you only see this when you have him out and are handling him? Does this happen when he is walking--you know, that jerky walk they do when they are stalking something?

"Going to sleep" on you is abnormal unless you are handling him at night. If this is happening during the day--closing his eyes when being handled--then he might be ill or he might be so stressed and overwhelmed by your handling that he shuts down and closes his eyes. Handling a chameleon is very stressful and stress leads to a very poorly functioning immune system. Since you are seeing something amiss, I would strongly recommend you stop handling him for quite some time to let him get used to his new home. I can't emphasize enough--stress is a leading contributor to illness in chameleons. While stress does not usually cause death directly, it compromises the immune system such that the stressed animal cannot launch and effective immune response to the many pathogens challenging him.

I have never seen a chameleon shake from fear the way mammals do, and I've handled some pretty frightened adult wild-caught chameleons. That's not to say it isn't possible, only that I've never seen it.

I have no idea what is going on with his tremors. If he were an older male, I might suspect he is doing a breeding display for some reason, but from your description that doesn't fit at all, plus the closed eyes at the same time doesn't fit either.

Tremors, as far as I know,all have a neurological origin. I can't imagine any vet could even diagnose the cause of a neurological problem in a chameleon.

On the off chance it is perhaps caused by a toxic agent, go through his things and think about possible poisons either in his environment or in his food/water supply. I don't recognize the plants you have in his cage, so I suggest you positively identify them and make sure they are safe. Do a Google search for each plant's Latin name with toxic in the search bar and look through several lists. Don't rely on any one list of toxic plants. If that comes up negative, I would be inclined to wash every plant in a bucket of soapy water. Just make up a solution of water and hand dish washing liquid--about the same concentration as if you were washing dishes--turn the plants upside down ans swish them around. Do that quite a few times and then rinse. Cover the dirt with big rocks.

Make sure you are feeding him with feeders that have not been poisoned with something as well.
 
The tank I have him in is very temporary. He will be going into a screened cage soon. I never handle him more than once or twice a day usually in the afternoon and evening. When I hold him during the day he does the leaf walk. He walks sits and walks, his color is almost always bright green. When he get on my black pants or the couch is when he normally changes color. In the evening if I hold him it is usually around 7 - 8 before his lights go out. I am in Michigan and it gets dark here at 5:30 pm. He will walk for a bit and then squinch down on my hand and close his eyes. He only does this in the evenings when it is dark outside. He NEVER does this during the day. The plants I listed above, again they are Jasmine and Bamboo, the Bamboo I have had living in a jar of rocks and plain water for five years. I never fertalize my house plants so I know this one is safe. The Jasmine I got recently. I will wash them today just to be on the safe side. I had a Veiled about 20 years ago, I do remember their requirements. I also did quite a bit of research before I got my baby. I know that his tank is nowhere near ideal and I don't intend to have in here for much longer. I do have a small fan at the bottom of the cage for air movement so that he doesn't run into any respiratory problems. I was told that if I wanted him tame to hold him everyday. This made some sense considering my last veiled though beautiful was one of the crabbiest old men I ever met. I had two sticks that I had to use if I needed to move him. Maneuver him with one onto the other. I didn't want to have another Cham that was hard to catch if for some reason I needed to. I also wanted to make cage cleanings easier for both of us. I realize that you are trying to help, but had you used caps you couldn't have yelled louder. In all honesty though I thank you for the advice, I am taking it to heart.
 
You said your chameleon only falls asleep on you in the evening? When you tame it out of the cage its likely cooler which would mimic night time with cooler temperatures so he feels like sleeping.

When. He does this shaking are you touching him? Moving at all?
They sometimes do this when something annoys them....and it's more often when a cricket is bugging them.
 
MyHomeZoo said:
I realize that you are trying to help, but had you used caps you couldn't have yelled louder. In all honesty though I thank you for the advice, I am taking it to heart.
Click to expand...

Are you talking to me? That is a very strange comment to anything that has been written by anyone here trying to help you figure out what is going on. Very strange.
 
When he falls asleep on me I do not touch him. I set my hand in my lap and try to stay as still as possible. When ever a cricket crawls on him he puffs himself up, I have never seen him shake to get one off. LOL It's like he is saying How dare you crawl on me!

Can I upload a video, a short one? I will try ot get a video of him doing this. If he is agreeable to coming out of his home tonight.
 
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