myboykarma
New Member
I guess I’m just looking for opinions…
My boy is a veiled chameleon. He’s about 8 1/2 years old now - we don’t know exactly how old he was when we rescued him in September 2017, but he was about two inches long from nose to butt (not including tail) so I was assuming 1-2 months old at that point. He’s always been a happy healthy little guy.
He was doing great throughout summer 2025, then I noticed he was getting a little slow. It seemed like he couldn’t quite chase his food as well as he used to. I got one of those “shooting galleries” and he took to it immediately, and that seemed to solve the problem. I kept track of how much he was eating and it was a normal amount (about 3-5 bugs every two days) and he stayed at a good weight. Never left a bug behind.
Then early January his eating patterns changed. Stopped eating crickets entirely. He was still eating roaches and BSF larvae with occasional hornworm treats, and he was definitely still excited for all of those, so I just swapped in more roaches and BSFL in place of the crickets and didn’t think about it too much.
Then I saw him a few times hanging by his back legs or tail. Then he started lingering at the bottom a lot. Then his appetite declined (2-3 bugs) even as I offered whatever yummies I could get him to eat. His colors got lighter. This all happened over the course of about a month. I put soft towels down in the bottom of his cage and added some horizontal branches close to the bottom.
What worries me now though is that he is sleeping on and off during the day for about the last week, and a few times he’s grabbed his own legs. The only thing I can find these symptoms for is MBD. His appetite has also declined even more now - he’ll only eat one bug a day.
He has always had an Arcadia T5 6%, which I changed every six months. I also took him out in the natural sunshine whenever I could (usually 1-2 times a week). He has been given calcium without D3 every feeding his whole life, and Reptivite multi with D3 every other week. I’m worried now that I messed up and this wasn’t enough for him in his twilight months.
Has anyone seen an elderly chameleon grab their legs or sleep in the day? Is it possible this is just part of him nearing death, or is it MBD and he just also happens to be old? At first I thought this was just the natural end but now I am devastated that maybe I did something wrong and caused this.
My boy is a veiled chameleon. He’s about 8 1/2 years old now - we don’t know exactly how old he was when we rescued him in September 2017, but he was about two inches long from nose to butt (not including tail) so I was assuming 1-2 months old at that point. He’s always been a happy healthy little guy.
He was doing great throughout summer 2025, then I noticed he was getting a little slow. It seemed like he couldn’t quite chase his food as well as he used to. I got one of those “shooting galleries” and he took to it immediately, and that seemed to solve the problem. I kept track of how much he was eating and it was a normal amount (about 3-5 bugs every two days) and he stayed at a good weight. Never left a bug behind.
Then early January his eating patterns changed. Stopped eating crickets entirely. He was still eating roaches and BSF larvae with occasional hornworm treats, and he was definitely still excited for all of those, so I just swapped in more roaches and BSFL in place of the crickets and didn’t think about it too much.
Then I saw him a few times hanging by his back legs or tail. Then he started lingering at the bottom a lot. Then his appetite declined (2-3 bugs) even as I offered whatever yummies I could get him to eat. His colors got lighter. This all happened over the course of about a month. I put soft towels down in the bottom of his cage and added some horizontal branches close to the bottom.
What worries me now though is that he is sleeping on and off during the day for about the last week, and a few times he’s grabbed his own legs. The only thing I can find these symptoms for is MBD. His appetite has also declined even more now - he’ll only eat one bug a day.
He has always had an Arcadia T5 6%, which I changed every six months. I also took him out in the natural sunshine whenever I could (usually 1-2 times a week). He has been given calcium without D3 every feeding his whole life, and Reptivite multi with D3 every other week. I’m worried now that I messed up and this wasn’t enough for him in his twilight months.
Has anyone seen an elderly chameleon grab their legs or sleep in the day? Is it possible this is just part of him nearing death, or is it MBD and he just also happens to be old? At first I thought this was just the natural end but now I am devastated that maybe I did something wrong and caused this.
