My Jacksons Chameleons horns are growing crooked

JacksonAction

New Member
Hi fellow Chameleon lovers!
My Jacksonii's horns are crooked and the two top horns look like they may cross in the future. Note* I bought my Jacksonii from a pet store and not from a breeder. Also I am a first time Chameleon care taker, I've attached pictures of my husbandry. I have my humidity at at about 50-70% all day and 90-100% at night. i gut load my feeders and dust with calcium with out vitamin D and bee pollen. I'm misting with a mist king 4 times a day and fogging with a cool ultra sonic humidifier at night. I run a small fan all day for circulation. I have a heat lamp with a 75w heat bulb at a 90 degrees basking on top with temperature gradients as you gert lower in the cage, leds for the plants and a T5 for the UVB.
I've had my Jackson from about 4 months now and i just had my first shed, he eats well and seems very comfortable in his cage. no issues but i do see the horns starting to cross. What are my options?? Do I leave it be?? Also the front center horn has a deformity, does anyone know what can cause this? Its looked like that since i got him from the pet store.
 

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I've seen this in a lot of Jackson's to some degree. I don't know if it will actually cause any problems.
There is a thread here somewhere on how someone was able to make braces to straighten the horns. I'll see if I can find it.
 
@JacksJill do you believe this has to do with the differencea between the Kenyan and Hawaiian Jackson's? Meaning their environments being different. Or do you believe this to be a genetic possible inbreeding issue within the Hawaiian lines?
 
These are a couple of better pictures to show the deformities of the horn. I’m more concern about the left horn crossing the center horn, or if the horns do cross to a point where one horn is pushing against the other and if that would be painful for him. I am new to chameleons and am very worried
 

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I suspect a couple of causes but it is pure guess work on my part. My avatar's mother was a Kenyan import of the medium sized species and you can see his rostral horn curves up. I got him from a keeper on here who took great care of her chameleons. It did grow straighter as he got older. He came from a state with higher humidity and moved to one where daytime humidity was a struggle. I'm hoping as we better manage our humidity levels, low daytime very high night, that we see less malformations of the horns. As for the Hawaiian xanths they have inbreeding and a humid environment working against them.
The OP rostral horn looks like it may have been injured at some point. I don't think the horns touching or growing against each other will hurt but I don't know that for sure. If you look at Jackson's pictures you will see all sorts of horn defects on otherwise thriving animals.
 
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