Help

[Pantherfreak]

Hello cham world. I have been looking at getting a chameleon for a while doing a ton of research on what species I would want and so on.
So I was on craigslist looking for lighting and other components for a supper elaborate rain first enclosure I'm building (will post pics start to finish) I ran across a cham for sale right down the street from the house so I went to look at it. The poor thing had a nasty enclosure that is way to small they said it is 1 year old and that was the last batch of crickets they were going to buy so now I have a veiled cham not the panther I was getting ready for.
He has had no supplements all they have given it is crickets. To me he looks under weight color is super dull and his legs are vary skinny, tip of the tail looks like its going to fall off.

I have started the calcium and D and bottled water. I went and got a verity of bugs,
butter-worms
mealworms
waxworms
crickets
I also bought a spray for daily apply
Topical mist
Humidifying spray

So what should I do to put weight on him and get him back up to health?
He is eating and drinking just fine.

 

[thephotoprincess]

Poor guy ... he is thin and looks like he has some advanced MBD. (Notice the bent legs?) So far you are doing well - give him calcium and as much as will eat of the good variety you have and plenty of mistings.

He looks like he will improve quickly with good care. Good luck with him!

 

[Barb]

Poor thing. Good for you for rescuing. I can't help with anything else, just wanted to say you did good for him

 

[mcleodschams]

It's very good of you to take him in. It's a lot of work but the first thing I would do is take him to the vet and have them do an exray and check his bone density he may need a calcium shot or something to help with his deficiencies. He will be a handsome dude when he heals up follow the calcium every day d3 twice a month and a multivitamin twice a month also you may be able to increase a bit but not much. The vet should be able to help you out metcam has been proscribed for both mbd chams I've felt with for pain and inflammation. Good luck and keep us posted I'm glad to hear he is eating and drinking that's a great start.

 

[Pantherfreak]

Thank you

Thank you everybody for the help. Looks like a vet visit is in order.
His legs really look that bad? He has a lot of extra skin around his legs.
I appreciate all the help !
Do you think he will get brighter he is a year old?
Now I'm in a rush to get my enclosure finished can't wait to get my panther

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Thank you everybody for the help. Looks like a vet visit is in order.
His legs really look that bad?

His back leg is broken below the knee. Here is some more information on metabolic bone disease: https://www.chameleonforums.com/what-metabolic-bone-disease-mbd-looks-like-how-happens-how-fix-95071

I personally don't think the calcium spray is any good. He needs a more concentrated liquid calcium supplement (calcium Glubionate) initially and a powdered calcium without phosphorus or D3 for long term frequent supplementation. He is indeed very skinny on top of it. Poor guy. Glad he's in better hands now with you! He will probably improve his color when his health improves.

 

[ChameleonMom]

Bless you for taking this poor little guy on! He is beautiful! Have you named him yet? He does look like he has a particularly bad case of MBD but that's what happens when they don't get their supplements! A trip to the vet would probably be best to see if a shot of calcium is in order to get him on the road to a better life! You ROCK for taking him on and in my books, if I was handing out karma points, you'd be getting a Christmas stocking full! Good luck and I look forward to hearing more positive stories about your new guy!!

 

[Pantherfreak]

Thank's

Broken leg !!! Really ???
I really hope he doesn't have a broken leg.
I made a trip to the pet shop tonight i bought a bunch of stuff.
Fluker's liquid calcium(added it to the water dripper)
rep- cal herptivite (just dusted his crickets)
rep-cal calcium with vit.d (just dusted his crickets)
i also bought a bunch of good stuff to load my crickets with calcium.

What is the fattiest food for my guy?

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

That leg is definitely broken, no doubt about it unfortunately. With good calcium supplementation it will heal on its own in time. You don't want to jump to fatty foods yet. As much as it seems like that would be best and we always want to see them get back to good health asap, giving a fatty diet now can actually do more harm than good. While he has been lacking calories he has also been lacking nutrients, and that's far more important. So right now he needs high quality food for the next month or two to give his body the materials it needs to get back into good health. Then You can start trying to offer higher calorie foods if he's not picking up enough weight. I bet that if he just gets enough high quality food you'll see him return to good body condition without needing fatty foods. For my adult male veiled I feed him 10-12 crickets every other day with butter, horn or silkworms sprinkled in here and there. You could even feed this guy 5 days out of the week to help him get back on track faster. Good gutloading is critical at this stage so make sure the crickets are getting leafy greens like collards, mustards, turnip greens or dandelions as the staple as those are all high in calcium.

 

[danTHAman152000]

10 years ago I had a veiled chameleon and did not discover the vast knowledge of this forum at that time (if there even was a forum then). I did not know about the importance of supplements then. My boy had MBD then too... he had a weak grip, bowed legs, and hung around at the bottom of my 24x24x48 cage. I ended up giving him to a friend who had experience with chameleons.

Is it possible to reverse MBD in patients with this extensive damage? I hope the OP's cham gets healthy ASAP, but I also ask because of my own experience.

I'm glad to say that I have learned a lot since then and now my 2nd chameleon seems to be as healthy as ever.

I don't want to hijack the thread, but if chameleons in Yemen and Madagascar are eating primarily insects, how are they getting the calcium intake they need in captivity? Obviously bugs they eat are not coated in Ca so how do they obtain their basic Ca needs? I've read many a threads and have not came across this.

I hope the best for you and your cham!

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Is it possible to reverse MBD in patients with this extensive damage? I hope the OP's cham gets healthy ASAP, but I also ask because of my own experience.

While it seems surprising we can often get very good results with MBD chameleons returning to being able to walk and fucntion well! This particular chameleon is definitely affected, however I have seen far worse make really good recoveries. It can be a very time intensive process, and not all recover as well as others, but it can be done with lots of TLC, calcium and UVB if it's caught in time. Check this thread for some extreme MBD cases and their stories: What Metabolic Bone Disease (MBD) looks like, how it happens, and how to fix it

I don't want to hijack the thread, but if chameleons in Yemen and Madagascar are eating primarily insects, how are they getting the calcium intake they need in captivity? Obviously bugs they eat are not coated in Ca so how do they obtain their basic Ca needs? I've read many a threads and have not came across this.

This is a good question to ask because it highlights the differences between wild chameleons and our captive environments. While we try to replicate nature as much as possible we are still really not the same in many ways. We are limiting our captive chams to one or two types of feeders primarily that may not even be part of their natural diet and they are limited to only what we feed them, whereas in a jungle there are literally hundreds of types of bugs feeding on even more diverse plant life with a wide variety of nutrients and minerals. So what they would get naturally in the wild is incredible diversity in food and gutloading that we just can't replicate. We try to recreate their food source but are limited so supplementation is needed to replace what we can't recreate.