Please help, baby veiled acting off

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Katy18

New Member
My new little male baby chameleon is acting odd. I got him yesterday from a breeders expo, and he seemed happy and energetic. But when I brought him home, and got him in his cage he became slow and drowsy looking. His eyes were closed, and if he was put on my hand would fall asleep almost instantly.

I put four crickets in his cage powdered with vitamin, and he didn't eat one until today. I have witnessed him drink, and he has pooped, but I haven't seen him eat. The crickets are babies, and small. He would crawl up into his leaves and sit with his eyes closed.

Today he was supposedly moving around with his eyes open, and when I checked on him, he had only three crickets left in his cage. After a little when I got home he stopped being active and sat up in his leaves again. When I mist him he fumbles blindly looking for the water, but no open eyes. Please help me, I don't know what is wrong with my baby Picasso.
 
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Try not to handle him too much since he is new. Give him time to adjust. You may want to take him to a vet if he doesn't get better after a few days.

Here is some recommended information to include when asking for help in the health clinic forum. By providing this information, you will receive more accurate and beneficial responses. It might not be necessary to answer all these questions, but the more you provide the better. Please remember that even the most knowledgeable person can only guess at what your problem may be. Only an experienced reptile veterinarian who can directly examine your animal can give a true diagnosis of your chameleon's health.


Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - The species, sex, and age of your chameleon. How long has it been in your care?
Handling - How often do you handle your chameleon?
Feeding - What are you feeding your cham? What amount? What is the schedule? How are you gut-loading your feeders?
Supplements - What brand and type of calcium and vitamin products are you dusting your feeders with and what is the schedule?
Watering - What kind of watering technique do you use? How often and how long to you mist? Do you see your chameleon drinking?
Fecal Description - Briefly note colors and consistency from recent droppings. Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites?
History - Any previous information about your cham that might be useful to others when trying to help you.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - Describe your cage (Glass, Screen, Combo?) What are the dimensions?
Lighting - What brand, model, and types of lighting are you using? What is your daily lighting schedule?
Temperature - What temp range have you created (cage floor to basking spot)? Lowest overnight temp? How do you measure these temps?
Humidity - What are your humidity levels? How are you creating and maintaining these levels? What do you use to measure humidity?
Plants - Are you using live plants? If so, what kind?
Placement - Where is your cage located? Is it near any fans, air vents, or high traffic areas? At what height is the top of the cage relative to your room floor?
Location - Where are you geographically located?

Current Problem - The current problem you are concerned about.


Pictures are helpful
 
Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Veiled, male, 1 month old, he has been in my care for two days
Handling - I have handled Picasso for about 20 minutes total, including show to friends, and placing in cage
Feeding - Small baby crickets, abut four of five, because he hasn't shown great interest and I am terrified of them. Yesterday I fed him in the afternoon, and same today. I am feeding the crickets potato slices, and will feed them carrots.
Supplements - Repashy superfood supervite with D3 and Repashy superfood Calcium Plus LoD with D3, and a sample of Repti Calcium without D3. The guy told me to dust with vitamin and calcium on opposing days, so yesterday was vitamin and today Repti Calcuim.
Watering - I use a hand pump sprayer with luke warm water. I mist when ever it looks dry, and until the leaves look wet. Yes I have seen him drink.
Fecal Description - Small sort of squishy with brown and a tad bit of white, no he has never been tested.
History - He came from a breeder at a reptile expo, and was happy active when I was holding him.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - Screen, 18x18x30
Lighting - Zoo med, tropical uvb and heat lighting kit, heat is 60w, uvb is 13w 5.0 uvb, I light from around 6am to when I go to bed at around 9:30- 10:00pm.
Temperature - In the basking spot around 80-85F, in cooler area, 70-75F. Around 60F. I have a thermometer probe thingy.
Humidity - I don't know but it feels dry, even after I mist for awhile.
Plants - No I am using fake plants
Placement - My cage is next to my bed, I have a ceiling fan, but it is rarely used. No traffic ever really, the cage is 61 inches off the ground from top to floor.
Location - Plattsmouth, Nebraska

Current Problem - Extremely tired looking eyes closed, barely eating, fumbling around. Was active earlier, but now not.
 
When I purchased my chameleon I experience similar behavior. Is your uvb a compact bulb or long tube bulb? Long tube is better for spreading uvb.

Supplements: you need to use calcium with D3 2x a month, vitamin 1-2x a month and calcium without D3 the remaining feelings. Try feeding him in the morning. Chameleons need to bask at elevated heats to digest their food and it can take longer than a few hours.

Do you have a set schedule for his lights?

What worked for me was fruit flies. If the crickets are close to the distance between his eyes or bigger in width then they are too big. Eating them may cause him pain and be a choking hazard.

Fruit flies can be expensive but if you can find D hydei culture or add them to some d matagaster cultures (may have spelt that wrong) and they will populate.
I used 4 culture in s rotation and made them last over a month.
 
Pharaoh2015 said:
When I purchased my chameleon I experience similar behavior. Is your uvb a compact bulb or long tube bulb? Long tube is better for spreading uvb.

Supplements: you need to use calcium with D3 2x a month, vitamin 1-2x a month and calcium without D3 the remaining feelings. Try feeding him in the morning. Chameleons need to bask at elevated heats to digest their food and it can take longer than a few hours.

Do you have a set schedule for his lights?

What worked for me was fruit flies. If the crickets are close to the distance between his eyes or bigger in width then they are too big. Eating them may cause him pain and be a choking hazard.

Fruit flies can be expensive but if you can find D hydei culture or add them to some d matagaster cultures (may have spelt that wrong) and they will populate.
I used 4 culture in s rotation and made them last over a month.
Click to expand...

I have a compact bulb because it is a dual light thingy. I will try tomorrow morning to wake him and feed, without d3 then. I haven't got a set schedule yet, but I am open to options of what a good on would be.

Wouldn't fruit flies fly through the holes? The ones that get in my house during the summer are tiny, but I don't know how big the ones you are thinking of are. Almost all of the crickets are the size of his little head, but they were the smallest in the store.

Could you explain the fruit fly breeding stuff more? That sounds like a good idea.
 
Where do you buy the crickets?

If it's a regular store like pet smart or petco they don't have pinheads that I know of. You can try ordering from ghanns cricket farm. They are a site sponser but they may be expensive.

Now some sites like Josh's frogs sell fly cultures. If you have a reptibreeze cage flies shouldn't be able to get out. So a fly culture is good as long as you have flys & larva present. Larva are like the flies before they get wings. Now the life cycle of a fly is quick. Larva of d matagaster become flies in a few weeks and d hydei take a little longer.

So these cultures are at petco usually and are about 10 dollars a piece with flies included. They are great but will become used up prematurely since your little guy will eat a lot as he is growing quick. So what I started doing for mine was buying two cultures, then I bought another two and labeled them. I would use one culture each day knocking only a portion of the flies into a sandwich lunchbox container (just a tiny piece of tough-aware). And shake them with the supplement of the day to get them covered. Placed them in a shallow cup that I secured to my chams cage on the inside with a stick or vine going into the cup for your guy to go to and for the flies to crawl out (flight less flies will jump and walk a lot).
If you want you can use banana or fruit to keep the flies closer to one area.
This method allowed queenie my veiled chameleon to learn to hunt while she was growing in her medium reptibreeze cage. Now she off the flies and onto the crickets and dubia roaches. She lives in an adult sized enclosure and free range hunts in her cage as I just place the crickets in one spot and she will go for them.
 

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I bought my crickets from Petco, when I googled pinheads, they looked generally the same. I will look more into that.

I certainly will do some more research on the fruit flies, so thank you for ideas. Your little cham is a beauty, fingers crossed my Picasso will become strong amd hamsome. I really hope he will, I have a nervous wreck that I am doing everything wrong. So i hope this site can help me calm my nerves.
 
Everyone here loves to help abs will try to. Just try and get him some food that's smaller than the distance between the eyes and allow him time to adjust to his environment. Babies this young are more work to care for but you got this
 
I put the crickets in a smaller cage with him in there. They crawled on his head and all around him. His eyes stayed open but he made no attempt to eat even a tiny tiny one.
 
How big are they compared to his head?
And he may not eat for a few days while he adjusts. Mine are 1 cricket then stopped for 2 weeks. Plus if he ate one and is trying to pass it. If it was too big he may be in pain
 
Cut back on the light time a bit. 12 hours is a good amount of time. I set my lights on a timer to go on at 7:00 AM and off at 7:00 PM.
 
They are about the size of his head. I bought the smallest size there was. I am going to try fruit flies. He pooped once, and it looked healthy, did that mean he ate? Now he is moving throughout the day and slowing down in the later afternoon. When I misted him throughly he kept his eyes closed but fumbled around. He almost fell off of a branch, so I had to put him on my hand to put him in a safer spot. When he sat on my finger he layed his head down and curled his tail around my finger. When I offered him a better branch to hold he didn't bother until I nudged it under his chin and misted the air above him with luke warm water. Water has seemed to be a motivator for him, he will shift or crawl a few inches when I spray.
 
May be out of line, but took few days before my chameleon to get adjusted to her cage. During this time eating etc. was irregular, but after a day or two she was fine and eating healthy. I have the same setup cage and all. I also feed her 10-14 small pinheads a day.
 
Okay, I set a lighting schedule: 6:40am-6:40pm. He woke up this morning with warm water misted into his cage. He crawled around then when offered small plastic tubware box with crickets he ate one. He wasn't intrested in a second but he kept his eyes open.
 
Katy18 said:
Okay, I set a lighting schedule: 6:40am-6:40pm. He woke up this morning with warm water misted into his cage. He crawled around then when offered small plastic tubware box with crickets he ate one. He wasn't intrested in a second but he kept his eyes open.
Click to expand...

Progress is always good.
How long do you allow him to eat?
I usually leave the crickets in the cage for a few min and I close the door to the cage then my Cham has a feeding frenzy. He may not eat much with you around is what I'm hunting at. Mine did the same thing until she got bigger
 
Okay, I will try, I leave the crickets in all day but in a small cup. Then leave a few out of the cup for him to hunt.
 
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