My jackson's is sick and I can't figure out why

internetburnett

New Member
Your Chameleon - Male Jackon's named Fern. Have had him since April 2017. He's about 2-3 years old.
Handling - Not often, only when necessary.
Feeding - Crickets, dubias, butter worms, and horned worms, wax worms, mealworms on occasion. I offer him food every day or every other day and feed him until he loses interest. Gut loading the feeders with veggies I feed my bearded dragon/tortoise so they are high in nutrients.
Supplements - I was dusting with Zoo Med Repti Calcium with D3 every other feed until I realized that he doesn't need D3 that often so I switched to the without D3 version for every feed and the D3 like once/twice a month.
Watering - Humidifier constantly running next to his enclosure with multiple manual mistings throughout the day. Once a day I'll spray him directly to give him a chance to drink. He doesn't drink every day but usually every other.
Fecal Description - As mentioned below, his pooping lately has been strange. He didn't poop for like 2 weeks and then finally had some diarrhea-like stools.
History - Haven't had any issues with him in the past. He was dewormed when I got him.
Cage Type - Screen enclosure with live plants. Size: 16"x20"x44"
Lighting - Evergreen Pet Supplies 100 Watt UVA UVB Mercury Vapor Bulb for basking and I was using a Exo Terra Reptile UVB 150 bulb til I read that coil bulbs are bad for chams so I switched to a Zoo Med Repti Sun 10.0 UVB linear bulb.
Temperature - Ambient temp is usually around 75º with a 85º basking spot (although it's hotter during the summer because my apartment doesn't have AC). Never gets below 65º-70º at night.
Humidity - 60%-80% humidity maintained by the use of a humidifier and misting.
Plants - Spineless yucca and a zanzibar gem.
Placement - Located in a spare bedroom that is usually vacant.
Location - Upstate New York.

Around July 16th I went to mist Fern in his enclosure and noticed he was on the ground of his enclosure which was unusual because he’s usually towards the top on the plants or screen. So I checked him out and noticed he wasn’t moving around very well and kept falling over. I also noticed he had a lump on his back. I took him to the only exotic vet in my area the next day. The vet wasn’t very helpful and was like “oh it could be this, this, or this” (but said he didn’t think it was MBD) and gave him a calcium and vitamin injection and gave me antibiotics to give him at home for a week and a half.

Gave him the antibiotics and moved him to a temporary enclosure so he couldn’t fall and get hurt. I noticed that during the week and a half Fern was in the temp enclosure, he was not pooping. So I stopped feeding him (he was eating and drinking like normal this whole time) and started giving him some pear baby food, as per some advice I found on here. He eventually had some diarrhea-like poops.

Anyway, after the antibiotics I took him back to the vet because he didn’t seem to be doing any better. He saw a different vet this time (at the same animal hospital) and she seemed to know even less than the first vet. She tested the lump on his back and said it came back as just bacterial cells so the antibiotics should’ve worked... but they didn’t. If anything he seems to be doing worse now and barely ever moves around/keeps falling over.

He has also started grabbing on to his front right leg with his back right leg. And I have noticed his back has been very curved and he doesn’t seem to ever straighten it out anymore. I’ve included pictures of what I’m talking about. His limbs appear to be normal/aren’t showing any signs of MBD breaks or curves. But he doesn’t seem well at all and I’m not sure what to do at this point because the vets in my area do not know a lot about chameleons and haven’t been helping. Apologies that this is so long! Just hoping someone here can maybe help out. Thanks!

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I think you are over supplementing him, what you described above is a supplement schedule for a veiled or panther, not a Jackson’s. I’ll let an experienced Jackson’s keeper confirm that.

And the whole grabbing his front foot with his back foot screams MBD. I don’t know of any other disorder with that as a symptom. I’d be curious to see what other Jackson’s keepers think.
 
my god.. you need to foudn another vet :/ thoses actual vet tortured your chameleon.. (injection and antibiotic for no obvious reason.. :/) My fist guess is parasite or temperature issue (its hot suring the summer dependant of your location and if your from new york (im from quebec) we alsmost got the same temperature and this year was extremely crazy (first time i actually got to buy an AC because my melleri were really suffering) also, when the temperature are too hot during the day you have to remove the humidifier (its too risky too add humidifier + heat at the same for respiratory problems).

For the parasite, i know your baby got dewormed but sometime it took 2-3 treatments and sometime it can be something else than worms (again, it took me 2 year and 3 different treatments to clean my melleri out of every parasites.. they got about 2 differents parasites each)

what antibiotic he gave you? and, during the treatment, stop giving any other vitamins and provide more water (this can be hard on the kidney dependant of the medication) but personally.. i dont think he need antibiotic..

Your Chameleon - Male Jackon's named Fern. Have had him since April 2017. He's about 2-3 years old.
Handling - Not often, only when necessary.
Feeding - Crickets, dubias, butter worms, and horned worms, wax worms, mealworms on occasion. I offer him food every day or every other day and feed him until he loses interest. Gut loading the feeders with veggies I feed my bearded dragon/tortoise so they are high in nutrients.
Supplements - I was dusting with Zoo Med Repti Calcium with D3 every other feed until I realized that he doesn't need D3 that often so I switched to the without D3 version for every feed and the D3 like once/twice a month.
Watering - Humidifier constantly running next to his enclosure with multiple manual mistings throughout the day. Once a day I'll spray him directly to give him a chance to drink. He doesn't drink every day but usually every other.
Fecal Description - As mentioned below, his pooping lately has been strange. He didn't poop for like 2 weeks and then finally had some diarrhea-like stools.
History - Haven't had any issues with him in the past. He was dewormed when I got him.
Cage Type - Screen enclosure with live plants. Size: 16"x20"x44"
Lighting - Evergreen Pet Supplies 100 Watt UVA UVB Mercury Vapor Bulb for basking and I was using a Exo Terra Reptile UVB 150 bulb til I read that coil bulbs are bad for chams so I switched to a Zoo Med Repti Sun 10.0 UVB linear bulb.
Temperature - Ambient temp is usually around 75º with a 85º basking spot (although it's hotter during the summer because my apartment doesn't have AC). Never gets below 65º-70º at night.
Humidity - 60%-80% humidity maintained by the use of a humidifier and misting.
Plants - Spineless yucca and a zanzibar gem.
Placement - Located in a spare bedroom that is usually vacant.
Location - Upstate New York.

Around July 16th I went to mist Fern in his enclosure and noticed he was on the ground of his enclosure which was unusual because he’s usually towards the top on the plants or screen. So I checked him out and noticed he wasn’t moving around very well and kept falling over. I also noticed he had a lump on his back. I took him to the only exotic vet in my area the next day. The vet wasn’t very helpful and was like “oh it could be this, this, or this” (but said he didn’t think it was MBD) and gave him a calcium and vitamin injection and gave me antibiotics to give him at home for a week and a half.

Gave him the antibiotics and moved him to a temporary enclosure so he couldn’t fall and get hurt. I noticed that during the week and a half Fern was in the temp enclosure, he was not pooping. So I stopped feeding him (he was eating and drinking like normal this whole time) and started giving him some pear baby food, as per some advice I found on here. He eventually had some diarrhea-like poops.

Anyway, after the antibiotics I took him back to the vet because he didn’t seem to be doing any better. He saw a different vet this time (at the same animal hospital) and she seemed to know even less than the first vet. She tested the lump on his back and said it came back as just bacterial cells so the antibiotics should’ve worked... but they didn’t. If anything he seems to be doing worse now and barely ever moves around/keeps falling over.

He has also started grabbing on to his front right leg with his back right leg. And I have noticed his back has been very curved and he doesn’t seem to ever straighten it out anymore. I’ve included pictures of what I’m talking about. His limbs appear to be normal/aren’t showing any signs of MBD breaks or curves. But he doesn’t seem well at all and I’m not sure what to do at this point because the vets in my area do not know a lot about chameleons and haven’t been helping. Apologies that this is so long! Just hoping someone here can maybe help out. Thanks!

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