Chamfan82
New Member
Hey Cham lovers!
I am in need of some expert advice!
I have a friendly male Chameleon named Norman who is becoming very challenging for me due to poor health!
My experience
Problem
Norman, my 16 week old Veiled Chameleon seems to be really struggling to become the Handsome Cham I want him to grow up to be!
First issues:
I found a specialist reptile vet about an hours drive from me and took him to see them. We filled in the required form honestly with all the information on the set up etc. and the specialist again was baffled as to why he is deteriorating this way. To try and boost him up all they could do was offer a vitamin boost in the form of an injection which of course we agreed too! We were then recommended to crush up wax worms and meal worms into a smoothie with the vitamins and water and force feed him to keep it up.
2 days later:
My concern:
Norman has a bad eye that I want expert advice on, the specialist vet said this is likely due to the vitamin deficiency and will open up after time but I am not confident in this response. Whilst I have only had him a short while, I know this is not due to the vitamins and it is something else. He has no shed skin on the outside of the eye, he often tries rubbing his eye against the leaves in his home and can be seen bulging his eye out in attempts to clean it. I use a cotton swab/ Q tip to try and clean it with lukewarm water that has water conditioner in it and this used to work, he used to open his eye. Now when I do this, it remains closed permanently!
I need to know advice of other ways to clean the eye so it will open, if I can succeed with this then I am sure he will pick up and be better in no time as his aim will improve with full sight! Any suggestions would be great as I know I am so close to having him return to full health if I can fix this. I can say that; he doesn't have any eye infections/ conjunctivitis as this has already been eliminated, I think there is something inside his lid that needs to be cleaned out! He has a check up next week booked in, if we cannot get this sorted.
Please experts, come and help save my boy so I can get him to adulthood and show him off!
Thanks!!
I am in need of some expert advice!
I have a friendly male Chameleon named Norman who is becoming very challenging for me due to poor health!
My experience
- I have had a female Panther Chameleon that managed to live a full life without any issues. She passed away of old age.
- I also have an older female Veiled Chameleon, going through her teenage years and she is getting on just fine!
Problem
Norman, my 16 week old Veiled Chameleon seems to be really struggling to become the Handsome Cham I want him to grow up to be!
First issues:
- He only accepts water from a pipette, but refused this.
- He stopped eating causing vitamin deficiency.
- When he did eat, he didn't have the energy to use his tongue and therefore just poorly attempted to grab food with his mouth.
- He struggled to bite the food, I assumed due to lack of vitamins may have had soft jaw.
- Casque is less than a cm tall and is not straight
- Spent the entire day generally laying on the branches with both his eyes closed.
- No signs of dehydration.
- No signs of MBD - Too early to tell!
- One eye closed permanently, unless cleaned with water when it would then open.
I found a specialist reptile vet about an hours drive from me and took him to see them. We filled in the required form honestly with all the information on the set up etc. and the specialist again was baffled as to why he is deteriorating this way. To try and boost him up all they could do was offer a vitamin boost in the form of an injection which of course we agreed too! We were then recommended to crush up wax worms and meal worms into a smoothie with the vitamins and water and force feed him to keep it up.
2 days later:
- He is starting to drink more through pipette watering, forced to begin with but then voluntarily opens up.
- Force feeding the food he just takes it like a man, getting a good portion down his gullet!
- Moving around the cage a little more, mainly to move up and down from the UV light, but this is a vast improvement.
- Today he has started to try and get bugs on his own again (maybe he has had enough of being force fed). He reaches his tongue out to a very little half a cm but then attempts to use his jaw as he still doesn't have enough energy to release the tongue, but again this is a good sign of improvement.
My concern:
Norman has a bad eye that I want expert advice on, the specialist vet said this is likely due to the vitamin deficiency and will open up after time but I am not confident in this response. Whilst I have only had him a short while, I know this is not due to the vitamins and it is something else. He has no shed skin on the outside of the eye, he often tries rubbing his eye against the leaves in his home and can be seen bulging his eye out in attempts to clean it. I use a cotton swab/ Q tip to try and clean it with lukewarm water that has water conditioner in it and this used to work, he used to open his eye. Now when I do this, it remains closed permanently!
I need to know advice of other ways to clean the eye so it will open, if I can succeed with this then I am sure he will pick up and be better in no time as his aim will improve with full sight! Any suggestions would be great as I know I am so close to having him return to full health if I can fix this. I can say that; he doesn't have any eye infections/ conjunctivitis as this has already been eliminated, I think there is something inside his lid that needs to be cleaned out! He has a check up next week booked in, if we cannot get this sorted.
Please experts, come and help save my boy so I can get him to adulthood and show him off!
Thanks!!