picky chameleon?

[Kodos2150]

my little male chameleon has decided to stop eating.... when i first got him he was eating fine and then it slowly tapered off even though he is still really active. I took him to the vet and they said he is fine (i had two very experienced chameleon vets look at him) and they did a fecal and he had pinworms and coccidia which he has been treated for (the second dose of fenbendizole is due in about a week). The vets said he may be getting bored with his food (crickets, mealworms, waxworms, super worms, and recently silk worms) He decided to eat 4 silk worms when they finally came and now he won't touch them. He used to eat out of our hands but now he won't, just gives us the stink eye and goes and hides. My mom wants him to be a nice chameleon so she will get him out and he will crawl on her hissing up a storm (he's not very friendly, never has been) or we will get him out to put him in the sun on a fake tree we have in our bay window. I have had her stop messing with him but he still won't eat. how do i get him to eat again?

Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Veiled Chameleon

Handling - once a day before, but not anymore

Feeding - i put crickets, mealworms, wax worms, superworms, silk worms in every day but he doesn't touch them

Supplements - stick tongue farms minerall

Watering - mistking, mists 5 times a day from 45 seconds to 2 minutes

Fecal Description - normal if he actually eats

History - no previous illness, got him in January, he is probably about 5-6 months old now


Cage Info:

Cage Type - 36" x 22" x 42" screen

Lighting - Repti glo 5 UVB tube, 150w basking lamp

Temperature - basking spot 90, cage 75 to 80 during the day 65 to 70 at night

Humidity - 60% to 80%

Placement - front room, about 10 feet from the window

Location - Ohio, USA

 

[allencg101]

I had that problem with my little one he was fine till he got to a certain size, when he hit the growth spurt he is in now he really threw a fit when i tried to take him out. I looked into this and did some real good research in my opinion and i found that veiled chams just want to be left alone and should be. enjoy them from a far and mine seem to be happier that way but my big guy el grumpo i do have to handle once a week when the weather gets nice so i can take him outside to enjoy the sun when it comes out. what i do now is place a bio vine on a bamboo plant and the other end to his cage and he goes out on his own. my little guy i can just take his cage outside and not worry about it. but the eating he'll eat like el grumpo he is in one of his hissy fits he won't eat if i'm looking but when i turn my chair around or leave the room he goes to town.

 

[carol5208]

A basking temp of 90 is high for a baby or young chameleon. Lower that down about 7 or 8 degrees or so An adult would be ok. Secondly you should be using three supplements for dusting your feeders. You say Sticky Tongue Farms Minerall-there are two, one with d3 for indoor use and one without for outdoor use that contains no d3. You should be dusting with a calcium with no d3 at every feeding, and then using the one with d3 twice a month and a multi vitamin twice a month. Is you Minerall with or without d3? If with d3 how much have you been giving him of that. Also, what are you gutloading your feeders with? You are offering him a varietyof feeders so not sure why he has chose not to eat. Could you post a picture of him and your set up? Oh and by the way, as far as the sun through the window....he may be getting warmed up but he is not getting any benefits of UVB as it does not pass through glass. Did not know if you were putting him there for that benefit.

 

[kinyonga]

How old is the chameleon?
It might be the deworming treatment that is causing him not to eat.

 

[Stanly]

at around 5 months my guy stoped eating crickets, I swaped to super worms and for about 2 weeks he loved them, then he slowed down and nearly stoped on them.

so I got some hornworms, silkworms, and a few types of roaches. I'm not sure if it was the change or just time, but he's back to eating normal and back eating crickets. from what I've read it doesn't seem uncommon for them to go through some picky eating stages tho.

like carol said it might be the meds to.

 

[Kodos2150]

the Minerall has d3, he got it when he was eating about every other day in a light dusting. I went out today to try and get straight calcium and all my pet stores were out of calcium without d3
I gutload my feeders with flukers gutload cricket food and i give them some collard greens too.
I know that the UVB probably isn't going thru the window but he really seems to like the sunshine when he is out in it. Once it warms up im going to get a cage to take him outside in to get the full affect of the sun
My vet was guessing that my lil man was a late November/ early December 2010 baby, so we are guessing he is around 5-6 months old now, he was 82g when he went to the vet two weeks ago. I talked to the vets about the medicine making him feel goofy and they said that albon shouldn't but it may because of the type of drug that it is it could upset and skew the natural gut flora in him. She gave me some metronidazole because she said that from her experience with chameleons and other reptiles that metronidazole is the "magic reset button make everything better band-aid" for reptiles.

This little guy is actually my second chameleon. I had a male veiled before my new male veiled. Unfortunately, when i was going to school and living in my apt i wasn't around to mist him enough and the low humidity during the hours i was gone caused him to develop sinus abscesses which made his eyes swell and a whole slew of other problems. Long story short - two years and well over $5000 in vet bills he finally died :'( There was a silver lining to his death because i had my vet necropsy him and we found out he was much sicker than we thought. I am determined to learn from him and not make the same mistakes again!

 

[carol5208]

you can order the minerall without d3 on LLL Reptile online. You don't want to overload his system on the d3 He is getting it alread fromhis UVB light and then you said you were taking him outside also. I would order the other calcium and get the multi too. Also, your gutload needs some improving! Try some other greens such as, kale, mustard greens, romaine, carrots, oranges, apples, sweet peppers etc. What your feeders eat, your cham benefits from.

 

[Kodos2150]

with the kale, would all the oxalates in it get bound up by the feeders or would it not really matter since he will be getting calcium with every meal?

 

[Texas Ranger]

I like to think of feeders as "Pill Pockets". You feed them good things then your cham gets good things in little pill filled feeders. Gutloading is more important than some think. A healthy feeder is a healthy cham.

 

[Stanly]

with the kale, would all the oxalates in it get bound up by the feeders or would it not really matter since he will be getting calcium with every meal?

from what I've heard kale is good to gut load with just not all the time (or not the biggest part), try to go for the thing with high calciumhos and low oxalates (spelling?) but mix it up a good bit as diffrent veggies, fruits and grains have diffrent vitamins