head tremors

[notinmydojo]

TL;DR my 2 year old chameleon (i've only had for 3 months) has had this thing lately where his head is shaking, almost as if he was cold or scared. It isn't happening all the time, and isn't happening to his legs. It's mostly when he's walking around, or when i have him hanging out on a plant outside of his cage. I'm just worried about my little guy (Mr. Zadir)

I attached photos of the lights/cricket stuff i use, as well as his cage/him (i couldn't capture the shaking very well on video)




Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Male veiled cham. 2 yrs old have had for almost 3 months now
Handling - about 2x per week i pull him out of his cage while he is on his tree. handling happens less often
Feeding - about 10 med/small crickets which are fed flukers high calcium dry feed/flukers blue jello water. a few hand fed and the rest put in his cage every morning
Supplements - rep-cal calcum (no phosphorus no d3) every day on crickets, and fluker's repta calcium with d3 phospherous free every other friday
Watering - i have a misting spray bottle. the mistings go from 1-2 minutes. once in morning, another at around 5pm, once at around noon if i can come home for lunch (maybe 2x per week) and another a little later at night around 7. he will scatter when it starts, but i usually see him drinking when i spray.
Fecal Description - little brown pellets, and a long white/orangish thing. not sure if he's been tested for parasites

chillin

• notinmydojo
• Jul 20, 2018

just hanging out in his spot

Mr. ZaDerp

• notinmydojo
• Jul 20, 2018

Derpin (I don't use the tupperware anymore)

Cage Info:
Cage Type - 2'x 2' x 5' homemade cage. mesh box with wood frame.
Lighting - lights are exo-terra. one daylight basking light 150w, (recently changed from the 75w for heating concerns) then the reptile uvb 150 (25w). these are both on from 8:30 am to 8:30 pm
Temperature - basking spot is consistently around 85-90f, and the lower spot hovers around 80f. measured with digital thermometer
Humidity - humidity is around 40-50% and i just use my misting schedule to keep it moist
Plants - one hibiscus tree inside
Placement - cage is near the entrance to apartment. wall on two of the meshed sides. it's kind of high traffic but it's just me and my girlfriend and we don't go in-out of the house much usually. the cage is 5' tall, but it's on a 2 foot tall end-table so the top is maybe 7' up.
Location - madison, WI

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[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

Do you have a female chameleon of a picture of a female chameleon he can see?

 

[CharlesYamaguchi]

He is lacking in nutrient. You need a supplement that has multivitamins in it. Your calcium supplement is the same as crushing egg shell onto the cricket and nothing more. There are other Vitamins, such as A E, that he needs. I highly suggest using Reptivite. I have used this brand here in America for going on beyond 2 years now and trust it well. He definitely needs the vitamin in it.

I would stop using this Flukers high calcium diet and the plastic blue crystals. He needs nutrient in supplement, yes but more importantly through the feeders. It is easy enough to do every day. Just go to the store and pickup green vegetables high in Vitamin A and E such as collard greens or dandelion greens. You rinse them and every day you throw into the cricket bin for them to eat along with maybe carrot. You can use the baby carrots. Not the dry ones. Those are nasty and should be soaked in water first. I like to use the Bolthouse farm brand as they are moist. I feed thousands of crickets every day and it only takes me a few minutes this way. I also sprinkle into the bin with the crickets some bee pollen that I blended together with alfalfa. This is an extra step you may not need to do and maybe just sprinkle in some bee pollen. The crickets will go nuts for it and you can assure this extra nutrient will all make it into your animal this way.

Your lighting as well. He is a veiled! They need bright bright uvb! a 25w exoterra, those are the more blue dull colored yes? is not adequate for a veiled in my opinion. Is this t5 or t8?

BUT What Matt has said is also a good point! Is he simply head bobbing at another animal or himself? haha Or is it really head shaking?

 

[notinmydojo]

no we don't have any other pets. Thanks for the tip on feeding the crickets vegetables! I usually eat broccoli, spinach, and lettuce, asparagus, I'll start throwing that into the cricket bins. what do you mean about the carrots? i'll probaby avoid the pollen because of allergies.

i looked up t5 and t8. sounds like bulb size standards? the bulb i'm using is a standard light socket and looks like a compact fluorescent spiral bulb, in a clamp bulb holder.

the shaking is more tremor like than bobbing. kind of like when you flex your neck muscles waay harder than you should and your head shakes. or when you have a shiver.

 

[Brodybreaux25]

no we don't have any other pets. Thanks for the tip on feeding the crickets vegetables! I usually eat broccoli, spinach, and lettuce, asparagus, I'll start throwing that into the cricket bins. what do you mean about the carrots? i'll probaby avoid the pollen because of allergies.

i looked up t5 and t8. sounds like bulb size standards? the bulb i'm using is a standard light socket and looks like a compact fluorescent spiral bulb, in a clamp bulb holder.

the shaking is more tremor like than bobbing. kind of like when you flex your neck muscles waay harder than you should and your head shakes. or when you have a shiver.

Every ingredient you listed above should NOT be used in a gutload. Some ingredients can actually hurt your Cham rather than help him. See link below for a quick and easy guide for gutloading.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/food/

And I know you said you were having a hard time catching the tremors on video but it would go a long way towards identifying the problem, keep trying!

And way to go for filling out the help form without us asking you to, that’s rare. Especially for someone who just became a member yesterday!

 

[CharlesYamaguchi]

Yes, what brody said about the correct vegetation is key. Some vegetables are MUCH better. You must pay attention to phosphorous levels in the feeding of the vegetables. Very key.

The light you mention is a compact fluorescent and DEFINITELY not adequate for a veiled. They often are the most correlated bulb with health problem in chameleons. Aside from no UVB bulb at all.

You need either linear t5 uvb bulb from Arcadia or ExoTerra Metal Halide bulb and fixture.

 

[CharlesYamaguchi]

Any update on the type of head shaking? Based on the information you provided about his care, he sounds to have the shakes from MBD. Possible. I can not be certain ofcourse as I am just on the internet and have not seen the animal first hand haha.

 

[Mawtyplant]

do you got a video of this? can be a lot of things, but i agree with the fact than you should gutload your feeders with vegetables / yolk (occasionally) he need Vit D3, A, E and k too and this might a cause of tremours

For the lightening, your bulb is not the best but still not a reason to develop mbd so early, in the futur maybe you want to get a t5ho (anyway the curly bulb are good for 4 month.. this will become more expensive in long term)

come back with a video, because i also think this can be a mating comportement.

Also, how is the poop and how do you get your temperatures? 75w sound a bit too cold for me to really reach 90 degres and the color of your chameleon look dark so maybe this is too cold? (try to invest in a temperature infrared gun (about 15$ and zillons hours of fun)

 

[notinmydojo]

i got a decent video of it happening:

Every ingredient you listed above should NOT be used in a gutload. Some ingredients can actually hurt your Cham rather than help him. See link below for a quick and easy guide for gutloading.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/food/
And way to go for filling out the help form without us asking you to, that’s rare. Especially for someone who just became a member yesterday!

hey that listing mentions dandelion leaves. I should be able to just go outside and pick some then right? as long as it's not an area that would have pesticides?
haha pretty much all the research I've been doing has pointed me to this forum so I've seen a bunch of the posts that start with the "hey fill out this form" "okay i didn't know we needed that" exchange.

You need either linear t5 uvb bulb from Arcadia or ExoTerra Metal Halide bulb and fixture.

Thanks for the suggestion on that! I'll definitely upgrade that soon.

Also, how is the poop and how do you get your temperatures? 75w sound a bit too cold for me to really reach 90 degres and the color of your chameleon look dark so maybe this is too cold? (try to invest in a temperature infrared gun (about 15$ and zillons hours of fun)

poop pellets seem normal, black/dark brown pellets. the urate is a little orange I think so i've been taking extra care with misting. as for the heat lamp, i was using the 75w previously, and the temps weren't reading high enough so I changed to 150 a week or so ago to see if it would help with the shaking. since then i've been getting consistent 90 degree readings. i use a digital thermometer which is a 4' cable with the screen/battery on one end and the sensor on the other end which i put level with his basking spot. this temp now always reads ~91 degrees

 

[notinmydojo]

its easiest to see the tremor in the video by the tip of his head or by edge of his cheek

 

[Brodybreaux25]

No offense, your chameleons skin looks like shit. Am I the only one that sees that? There is more than one issue going on here...

The tremors are very pronounced at the 6-7 second mark in the video.

And yes I feed my chams dandelion from my yard often. Got to be 100% on the pesticides though.

 

[Brodybreaux25]

No offense, your chameleons skin looks like shit. Am I the only one that sees that? There is more than one issue going on here...

The tremors are very pronounced at the 6-7 second mark in the video.

And yes I feed my chams dandelion from my yard often. Got to be 100% on the pesticides though.

The skin is prob a result of the lack of gutload and multivitamins

 

[Mawtyplant]

definitely something have wrong with him :/ got idea how the previous owner was with him?

i really suggest you to buy infrared gun temp.. 15$ and no need to buy another thermometer in your entire life..

at what distance are the uvb fron him? and how old are the uvb?

 

[CharlesYamaguchi]

If you can, take to vet for bloodwork to show calcium levels. Guarantee, they are low. He has had burns previously in his life based on the outline of his casque. The burned part turned black and fell off. This was probably due to him trying to get so close to heat.

What Mawty said, yes, get a temperature gun. They are good for reading points for basking but you still require a thermometer for reading ambient temperature of an area. I suggest one that is digital with a probe that can be placed in different area so you can test the over all cage.

You need to get vitamins and calcium into him immediately. Buy Flukers Liquid Calcium and Liquid Vitamin supplement and follow the direction on the bottles. In addition, get Reptivite with D3 for his Vitamin supplement and give biweekly.

If you can, get him out into some of that glorious sun

 

[Graves923]

Im gonna chime in and agree with everyone above. He seems to be lacking nutrients. Definitely avoid the Flukers crap from now on. Its full of fillers that have no nutritional value to the chameleon after the crickets have digested it. The water gel stuff is bad as well since the crickets tend to eat it or it sticks to the cricket. Your chameleon then ingests the gel.

Fresh veggies and greens will provide enough hydration for the feeders in my experience. You can also give the feeder bin a quick 2 second spray of water so there are some droplets they can drink from but its not necessary.

 

[notinmydojo]

I apologize for taking a while to reply. I've done the suggestions from you guys, except for the UVB light and the temp gun which i haven't purchased yet. I've started feeding my crickets alfalfa and carrots. I'm giving him 2 drops of liquid calcium and liquid vitamins every other day. @CharlesYamaguchi you said to give him reptivite with D3 biweekly. Did you mean twice per week, or once every other week?
Thank you all for your responses by the way, and I'm really hoping Mr. Zadir gets better soon here!

 

[Graves923]

D3 should be supplemented twice per month or once every other week