Help!! Unbalanced/wobbly chameleon!!

GanonPascal

New Member
Hello everyone.


I’m in need of some urgent help at the moment. I have a ten-month old female Jackson’s Chameleon, very sweet and social. She loves to sit at the very edge of her branch and watch everyone in the room, and if she can’t see you, she leans as far as possible to get a googly eye on you. She’s very silly, and I love her with my entire heart. She’s like my child and I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her.


The issue started last night at around 7pm. She started wobbling so hard when she tried to walk along her branches that she would almost fall, and she’s swing side to side to roughly she would just curl her tail up and close her eyes. It broke my heart.


This has never happened before, she has always seemed very healthy, has always had an amazing grip and balance, and had never fallen before. Yet all of a sudden, it had vanished completely in a matter of seconds.


Housing:

•Zoo Med Reptibreeze. 24 x 24 x 48

Foliage:

• A Small/medium ficus free, along with many other artificial plants (I know artificial plants aren’t beneficial to her at all, i promise I’ve been working on a very extravagant cage upgrade for her with lots of live plants)

Lighting:

•Zoo Med duel dome

•Reptisun 5.0 UVB

•Daylight Blue 60w bulb

•Ceramic lightless Heat emitter


No this is the part where I was careless. Shame on me completely, and I feel absolutely terrible about it.


I recently ran out of Calcium dust. (Zoo Med Repti Calcium without D3) and have been using my roommates’s calcium dust instead. For three straight weeks I have been giving my Chameleon Calcium dust with D3. For THREE STRAIGHT WEEKS. And over these past few weeks I have seen her decline in her normal stature completely. She used to eat EVERYTHING in front of her. She used to constantly run around and explore her cage and the safe parts of the house.


She still has quite an appetites, but no where near as large as it used to be.


So her normal feeding before my screw up was;


•Calcium dusted (without D3) gut-loaded crickets everyday.

•An occasionally super-worm as a treat.

•A hornworm if I could purchase one small enough for her.

•A few dusted Dubai’s when I could get my hands on then from the pet store.

•Sometimes some very thinly sliced apple, peach, and pear.

Hydration:

•She has a drip system she doesn’t use, because she’s afraid of it lol. So I manually mist her and give her “sip” many many MANY times a day.


She’s recently had a constipation issue so I’ve given her a drop of mineral oil to help that. (That was before the wobbling happened)


I’m really scared I might lose her over this mishap. I should’ve been more careful. I should’ve read the label. I just expected since both my roommate and I own Chameleon’s, that we had the same supplements.


Apparently, they also didn’t realize it was a D3 supplement either. Sigh.


Any advice on how I can fix this? Will my baby girl be okay if I can turn this around?
 
Wobbling like you are describing is a symptom of MBD. You mentioned giving Calcium with D3 for 3 straight weeks. This is most likely causing all the issues. Vitamin D3 can build up in the chameleons system if too much is given and the chameleon cannot use it all.

Jacksons chameleons are known as a montane species so they need a specific supplement schedule.

- Plain calcium no D3 used 2 times per week
- Calcium with D3 once per month
- Multi-vitamin once per month.

Do not give D3 for a while and increase misting a bit so the chameleon can expel the excess D3 and calcium via dropping.

Also, being that this is a montane species they need a higher humidity level throughout the day. Ill link a caresheet for you to read through and reference.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/jacksons/
 
Back
Top Bottom