My Veiled Chameleon, Reggie.

ConnieCulmer

New Member
So, about 2-3 months ago my boyfriend and I bought a Veiled Chameleon. We called him Reginald and absolutely love him! He's about 4-5 months old and is so, so adorable. (We don't actually know if he is male yet we just thought Reggie was a cool name).

Recently he became very ill, he started closing his eyes during the day and looked very lethargic. There was a point where we thought he would die because he could hardly hang on to his branches when we turned his lights off. After excessively panicking, desperately scouring these forums for answers and solutions, we found out what the problems could have been. Gosh there were a few. These forums definitely saved his life!

The pet shop we purchased him from had sold us the wrong bulbs (spiral bulbs UVB 150, UVB 2.0 and 100w basking bulb) which, personally, I think is the main reason he was so ill. The pet shop had also sold us orchid bark for the bottom of his viv which can carry parasites and also could choke him to death if he was to accidentally ingest it... Not good! They sold us a waterfall for him to drink from which isn't very hygienic for him and lastly, they had given us Arkvits and we were told to dust his feeders with the supplement every day, the Arkvits contained too much Vitamin A and should only be fed to him once every couple of weeks. We were also told absolutely nothing about misting his cage and keeping it humid for him. It could have been any of these factors that made him so ill but we weren't taking any chances, so we took him to the vets.

After changing the bulbs to a linear UVB 5.0 and a 60w red light basking bulb, he started to improve! He was still displaying symptoms of illness but he didn't seem as tired and weak anymore. We replaced the Arkvits with Zolcal-D which the vet recommended to us, we still feed him the Arkvits but not as often as we were. We now feed him a mixture of gut-loaded locusts and crickets, and Reggie loves to eat spinach and apple that we spray with water to keep him hydrated. The vet gave him a shot of antibiotics which was hard to watch but for the best and he is well on his way to recovery.

I admit, we should have done our research. I would tell anybody thinking bout buying a Cham to do their research first, but when we went to the pet shop to buy him we had no idea we were going to be taking him home. We're really bad with impulse buying...

I will be posting pictures of his viv layout, his lighting and of the Chameleon himself and would appreciate if anybody could tell us if there is anything else we need to know/do to keep him happy so he can live a long fulfilled life! Thanks!

You have an awesome community here. :)
 

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