Hi yall,
9-month-old male Veiled has been opening his mouth slightly throughout the day. I've caught him doing this three or four times now, but he always closes it as soon as I approach, so I had to take this photo from super far away.
He's looking at a hornworm in this photo, but he actually has done this several times lately without any food present. His mouth hangs only slightly ajar.
He's super pissy, so when I reach in to take him out, he hisses and opens his mouth super wide. The inside of his mouth looks healthy and pink when he does this; I don't think this is mouth rot. Is it dehydration?
His enclosure is community-approved; I've made several posts here getting it up to snuff. But on hot days, sometimes the basking temp lingers around 89, which is a bit high, I think. I have taken to intermittently turning off his heat lamp for periods of time to cool it off on these hot days. My house is usually around 76 degrees and we do have AC so it's not sweltering in here.
His stools have gone back and forth lately between too wet and a bit dry, with slightly yellow / orange urates. I give him a hornworm every 3 or 4 days to supplement hydration but he refuses them about half the time because he gets enough vitamin-dusted crickets. He gets misted twice a day, and his enclosure stays in the 60% humidity range at night, and low 40s into the high 30s throughout the day.
9-month-old male Veiled has been opening his mouth slightly throughout the day. I've caught him doing this three or four times now, but he always closes it as soon as I approach, so I had to take this photo from super far away.
He's looking at a hornworm in this photo, but he actually has done this several times lately without any food present. His mouth hangs only slightly ajar.
He's super pissy, so when I reach in to take him out, he hisses and opens his mouth super wide. The inside of his mouth looks healthy and pink when he does this; I don't think this is mouth rot. Is it dehydration?
His enclosure is community-approved; I've made several posts here getting it up to snuff. But on hot days, sometimes the basking temp lingers around 89, which is a bit high, I think. I have taken to intermittently turning off his heat lamp for periods of time to cool it off on these hot days. My house is usually around 76 degrees and we do have AC so it's not sweltering in here.
His stools have gone back and forth lately between too wet and a bit dry, with slightly yellow / orange urates. I give him a hornworm every 3 or 4 days to supplement hydration but he refuses them about half the time because he gets enough vitamin-dusted crickets. He gets misted twice a day, and his enclosure stays in the 60% humidity range at night, and low 40s into the high 30s throughout the day.
