One or both eyes closed often??

MSP

New Member
Chameleon Info:

Your Chameleon - Arthur is a 6 1/2 month old Ambilobe Panther; we've had him for three months.

Handling - A lot more than you'd think. Whenever I mist him, he grabs my hand/wrist with his little mitts and rockets up my arm to the top of my head and just sits there. It's not really "handling", but he likes to be up high, apparently... and most probably, out of mister-range. :p The only time we have to "handle" him is to get him off our heads and back into his enclosure lol

Feeding - Large crickets, gutloaded with orange cricket cubes. He eats about 7 per day.

Supplements - Calcium powder without D3 every day, calcium with D3 and Reptivite twice a month.

Watering - We water by hand-misting onto the leaves. We mist twice a day for about a minute each time. He has a dripper that runs all day, every day while his lights are on.

Fecal Description - Dark brown and white (sometimes a bit of orange, but predominantly white), relatively solid.

Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites? No.


Cage Info:

Cage Type - Screen cage, 18 x 18 x 36

Lighting - 12 hours on, 12 hours off via timer; 5.0 coil UVB and a 60 watt incandescent bulb for heat.

Temperature - Cage floor is about 75 F, basking spot is about 82 (85 at the highest vine he can climb, but about 82 where he likes to sit). It drops to a constant 75 at night.

Humidity - Usually around 55-60%. I've never seen it drop below 40%.

Plants - All of our plants and vines are fake.

Placement - The cage is on our home office, where we like to sit in the evenings on our computers, but he's in the corner and it's not a high-activity area. His cage top is about 6 1/2 feet off the floor and not in any drafts that I know of.

Location - FL


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Hi everyone,

Arthur is doing seemingly well. His color is good, he's growing well, eating well... pooping regularly. :rolleyes:

Except for the fact that over the past several days, one or both of his eyes are closed almost all the time. He can open both of them... and does... when we come near the cage or open it to feed him; he just doesn't seem to want to otherwise. He doesn't seem to be "sleeping"... his tail isn't curled up or anything. When his eyes are open, they look normal... no discharge, discoloration, etc.. His eyes aren't sunken or swollen. He acts like he's cleaning them a lot, but I haven't been able to find a single piece of debris.

When his eyes are open, his behavior is relatively normal. He's eating a bit less as a result of not seeing his food, but we still will hear the occasional crunching that tells us he's gotten one. He'll still eat them off of my hand, but he seems to take a longer time to get his aim right than usual. I've only seen him drink from his dripper-spot once in the last week, and his urates are more orange-tinted than I'd like.

The closest reptile vet to us is over an hour and a half away. With the holidays and a full-time work schedule, it will be difficult to get him there. Because of this, I've browsed the forums as much as I can to try to get an inkling of what we're dealing with. I've taken my best guesses, and I'd like some other perspectives. I'm going to try two things:

1) I've ordered a t8 reptisun 5.0 and slimline fixture to replace our coil UVB bulb; apparently, some chameleons have very sensitive eyes that are bothered by coil bulbs.

2) I'm going to attempt to supplement him with more vitamin A. (I did up his reptivite a bit to try to compensate, but it doesn't seem to be helping). Any suggestions on how best to do this? I see conflicting information and a scary part about overdose. :(

Thanks in advance!!
 
Any ideas? Anyone? I was extra good and posted the caresheet, even!! :D

I think you are wise to try another lighting combination just in case. Also, test your humidity gauge. Sometimes they are not all that accurate (if its the round dial type...sometimes they get "stuck"). During our winters when we heat indoors it can dry out the cage more than you realize, especially as you don't have any live plants in the cage right now. Chams often close their eyes and rub them a lot if they are dry. Raise the humidity more often or for a longer period and see if that helps.

If you are gutloading and dusting correctly I doubt its a Vit. A deficiency. I'd only add a small occasional bit periodically to avoid overdose. There are much better insect gutloads than the orange cubes. Check out forum sponsors for some better ones. That may help.
 
I would gut load your crickets on a better variety of things rather than just orange cricket cubes. Its lacking key nutrients and vitamins such as Vitamin A.
 
Thank you for your replies. The new bulb has been in for a few days now, and while it seems to have helped (some... he's certainly opening his eyes more often), it's not such drastic improvement that I'm feeling entirely comfortable. I've been misting him four times a day rather than two-three, but he seems very dehydrated still. His urates are very orange and his eyes have become a little more sunken than they were. His dripper runs all day, and the leaves it hits are in easily-accessible locations. I've heard of the shower method, but a) we don't have anything to put in the shower for him to sit on, and b) knowing how he reacts to his mistings, I think he'd hate it and fall trying to escape the water. Recently, I've been putting him in lukewarm water in the mornings, hoping some of it will absorb through his vent. This has mixed reviews from Arthur... depends on the day. :rolleyes:

I will start gut-loading his crickets with a bigger variety of things. The cubes just make it very easy, as (let's face it) I don't necessarily eat a lot of the veggies we'd be feeding the crickets; it becomes wasteful after a while.
 
Thank you for your replies. The new bulb has been in for a few days now, and while it seems to have helped (some... he's certainly opening his eyes more often), it's not such drastic improvement that I'm feeling entirely comfortable. I've been misting him four times a day rather than two-three, but he seems very dehydrated still. His urates are very orange and his eyes have become a little more sunken than they were. His dripper runs all day, and the leaves it hits are in easily-accessible locations. I've heard of the shower method, but a) we don't have anything to put in the shower for him to sit on, and b) knowing how he reacts to his mistings, I think he'd hate it and fall trying to escape the water. Recently, I've been putting him in lukewarm water in the mornings, hoping some of it will absorb through his vent. This has mixed reviews from Arthur... depends on the day. :rolleyes:

I will start gut-loading his crickets with a bigger variety of things. The cubes just make it very easy, as (let's face it) I don't necessarily eat a lot of the veggies we'd be feeding the crickets; it becomes wasteful after a while.




Following up on this... I turned around and saw him drinking from his dripper-spot almost as soon as I had posted this... so if he's drinking... and getting misted... why dehydrated? I went outside, rinsed some of our bamboo, and put it in the shower... he's hanging on for dear life with his eyes shut tight as he is finely misted... is this the intended result? or should he be drinking? LOL
 
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