My Chameleon is sick

[Bujasem]

My chameleon stopped eating 4 days ago. And he has a weird colored bump under one of his eyes. Isn't as energetic as he used to be. He is a (Kuwait) desert chameleon, i do not know the exact type. He's been in my care for 4 months. Please tell me what I need to do I don't trust vets in my country at all.

 

[Bujasem]

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[jajeanpierre]

My chameleon stopped eating 4 days ago. And he has a weird colored bump under one of his eyes. Isn't as energetic as he used to be. He is a (Kuwait) desert chameleon, i do not know the exact type. He's been in my care for 4 months. Please tell me what I need to do I don't trust vets in my country at all.

Your chameleon looks very dehydrated. I would recommend you find a vet. I gather you are in Kuwait where there will be avian vets for all the falcons. An avian vet often has training in exotics--birds and reptiles have more in common than either have with mammals.

Your chameleon is probably a wild caught with all the problems wild caughts face.

Subcutaneous fluids would be the first think I thing your chameleon needs if you can find a vet who can do it safely. That's the quickest and most efficient way to rehydrate a dehydrated animal.

If you can't find a falcon vet, call a zoo and ask for their suggestions.

I don't know the salt content of your tap water, so I am hesitant to recommend a standard "shower" rehydration method. A lot of the Middle East water (I assume that's where you are) comes from desalination plants and they don't take all the salt out. Use bottled drinking water for misting.

You might have to mist for many, many minutes to get the chameleon to start drinking. Sometimes they drink by just sort of opening their mouths, almost like they are licking the air a bit, and getting water that way. It's not very efficient, especially for a dehydrated animal. You can set up a dripper as well. Just take a bottle of water, put a pin hole in it and set it on top of the cage and let it drip onto leaves and splash down the cage. The water movement often attracts them.

I lived in KSA for 11 years so understand some of the problems you are facing. Good luck.

 

[Bujasem]

Your chameleon looks very dehydrated. I would recommend you find a vet. I gather you are in Kuwait where there will be avian vets for all the falcons. An avian vet often has training in exotics--birds and reptiles have more in common than either have with mammals.

Your chameleon is probably a wild caught with all the problems wild caughts face.

Subcutaneous fluids would be the first think I thing your chameleon needs if you can find a vet who can do it safely. That's the quickest and most efficient way to rehydrate a dehydrated animal.

If you can't find a falcon vet, call a zoo and ask for their suggestions.

I don't know the salt content of your tap water, so I am hesitant to recommend a standard "shower" rehydration method. A lot of the Middle East water (I assume that's where you are) comes from desalination plants and they don't take all the salt out. Use bottled drinking water for misting.

You might have to mist for many, many minutes to get the chameleon to start drinking. Sometimes they drink by just sort of opening their mouths, almost like they are licking the air a bit, and getting water that way. It's not very efficient, especially for a dehydrated animal. You can set up a dripper as well. Just take a bottle of water, put a pin hole in it and set it on top of the cage and let it drip onto leaves and splash down the cage. The water movement often attracts them.

I lived in KSA for 11 years so understand some of the problems you are facing. Good luck.

Thank you so much I'll try calling the zoo. Because my friend took his chamelon to the vet for a similar bump problem on the leg. The vet injected it with an anti infection thing a 100 mgs. The chameleon was so playfull and used to eat non stop. But after that it completely stopped eating completely and even though we rubbed the cream the vet prescribed it just kept getting worse until the chameleon died.

That's why i went online, for now i'll keep using the bottled water suggestion. Thank you so much again. I just want my chameleon to be alright again. Should I change the worms? For smaller ones? Im putting some calcium nutrients on them as well.

 

[jajeanpierre]

Thank you so much I'll try calling the zoo. Because my friend took his chamelon to the vet for a similar bump problem on the leg. The vet injected it with an anti infection thing a 100 mgs. The chameleon was so playfull and used to eat non stop. But after that it completely stopped eating completely and even though we rubbed the cream the vet prescribed it just kept getting worse until the chameleon died.

That's why i went online, for now i'll keep using the bottled water suggestion. Thank you so much again. I just want my chameleon to be alright again. Should I change the worms? For smaller ones? Im putting some calcium nutrients on them as well.

Did the vet use Baytril (Enroflaxin)? That causes tissue damage when injected.

Chameleons aren't "playful." Did you mean active? Medicating chameleons is not easy and what you think happened to your friend's chameleon might not be what really happened.

Read up on the care sheets. Look under the Resource tab on this web site; I think that's where you'll find it. I'm not good at identifying, but I suspect your chameleon is closely related to a Veiled chamleon from the western side of the Arabian Peninsula, about 100 miles south of Jeddah and down into Yemen.

Good luck.

Mealworms are not a great souce of nutrition, but at the moment, that's the least of your worries.

 

[Bujasem]

I'll read up on it tonight. I did mean active, it just used to climb anyone to the top of their head.

I cant thank you enough, I just didn't know where to look for help.