open mouth

[bigfink909]

Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - veiled, female , been in my care for about two months or so
Handling - every day, once or twice a day at least
Feeding - we are feeding it crickets that are dusted with calcium and d3, about 9-12 a day, she usually eats nine+
Supplements - answered above
Watering - we use a exo-tera misting bottle and mist three or so times a day for a few min untill the folliage is thouroghly dripping
Fecal Description - dark brown with a white end thing
History - Any previous information about your cham that might be useful to others when trying to help you.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - screen, unsure of the dimensions
Lighting - exo-terra solar glo 125 w. lights on at six am and off at six pm
Temperature - right by the light its 89 degrees or so and the floor is about 70 ?
Humidity - 45-55%
Plants - fake
Placement - on small table (about three feet above the ground), our apartment is really low traffic
Location - we are in eastern washington

Dorey had a respiratory infection a couple weeks ago and we were giving her Batryll for it. She has since become healthy and no longer showing any RI symptoms. But today she has been sitting under her basking light with her mouth open. Shes not sneezing like she was when she had the RI. Does anyone have any thought or opinions why she is doing this? i hope to god its not another RI, the damn vet charged me an arm and a leg for info i had already found online.

 

[carol5208]

How old is your Veild? Your basking temp at 89 sounds high. She may just being trying to thermoregulate. I would bump that down about 5 degrees or more especially if she is young. Move her basking branch down or the light higher up to adjust the temp. Is the solar glow a combo uvb/uva?

 

[carol5208]

Also on the supplements, do you have a multivitamin, and how often you are supplementing with the calcium with d3 and the plain calcium?

 

[bigfink909]

she is about four or five months.

 

[Stormy16]

I notice my little chameleon doing that the other day to he had his mouth open for maybe like 15 minutes under his basking light. But hasn't done it in awhile. I know they have sensory organs in their mouth that I guess he'll them smell. Maybe she was just smelling?

 

[carol5208]

I notice my little chameleon doing that the other day to he had his mouth open for maybe like 15 minutes under his basking light. But hasn't done it in awhile. I know they have sensory organs in their mouth that I guess he'll them smell. Maybe she was just smelling?

most likely he was just trying to cool himself down. What is your basking temperature?

 

[carol5208]

she is about four or five months.

basking temp needs to come down to about 80-82 degrees . 89 is probably too hot for her. Try lowering that and see if that doesn't help. As far as the RI, does she have any excess mucous in her mouth or do you hear any kind of popping, or wheezing when she is breathing?

 

[bigfink909]

i believe her light is full spectum, its an exotera professional series mercury vapor if that helps. we don't have a multivitamin, the breeders we got her from are fully confident that if we gut load the crickets she will be getting enough vitamins. And we have just been dusting with calcium w/ d3 only because the breeders said that would suffice (as in we don't need to provide just calcium).

 

[bigfink909]

no sounds or popping or wheezing. when she did for sure have an RI she did make a wheezing noise and she is no longer making that noise. I also forgot to mention that before when she had an RI she was fairly inactive and just basked a lot. She is really active now.

 

[bigfink909]

im going to put a pic of the lighting "situation" and maybe you could suggest ways of lowering the temp.

 

[carol5208]

I have heard those mercury bulbs are supposed to be very good. Most of use the Reptisun 5.0 tube lights and housebulbs for basking and that combination works very well. As I stated in another post, I would move the light up or your branch down. I have to totally disagree(as with others on the forum here) about the calcium with d3. They are already producing d3 from the uvb so you are going to end up over supplementing with that. Just get yourself a plain calcium and dust your feeders with that and do the d3 a couple of times a month. Also, yes what you said about the gutloading is true but it doesn't hurt to have a little reassurance on the vitamin thing, so most of us do that a couple of times a month as well.

 

[bigfink909]

here are some pics of her lighting situation

 

[kinyonga]

Does she have an appropriate place in her cage to dig to show you when she's ready to lay eggs. (They can lay eggs without having been mated.)

 

[bigfink909]

i would put up a picture of her with her mouth open but she is fairly camera shy

 

[bigfink909]

i havent provided a laying bin yet, can the open mouth issue be related to her needing to lay eggs?

 

[carol5208]

Is that the only light you have in the cage? It is sooo dark in there! That is why I like the tube lights. They are long and light up the whole cage. I would get a dome light on the other side and just put like a 20 watt in there to atleast brighten up the cage. If you put a 40 watt she mind end up basking under there all the time and never going under the uvb then. That is one draw back to that light, it is so concentrated but then again if the basking temp is correct then will get both uva/uvb at the same time. Me personally I like having the two seperate lights, but that is just my opinion.

 

[kinyonga]

Only if she should have laid them already and hasn't had a place to dig to lay them I would think.

 

[carol5208]

Only if she should have laid them already and hasn't had a place to dig to lay them I would think.

Lynda, she said her cham is 4-5 months old. That is kinda young no for egg laying? I know I did see one person on here with a 5 month old that had eggs though.

 

[bigfink909]

Lynda, she said her cham is 4-5 months old. That is kinda young no for egg laying? I know I did see one person on here with a 5 month old that had eggs though.

lol im not a she, im a he

 

[bigfink909]

and i do only have one light. our apartment is usually lighter i just have some lights off. i adjusted her branches so the basking area is now at 84 degrees. hopefully it helps and while she was out we got some pics of her
ps: she only has her mouth open in these pics because she is hissing at us and pissed of because we are taking her picture