Please help. Jaw broken baby.. attacked by another

happiness

New Member
I have 2 separate cages of babies.. one huge screen cage for my older bigger ones and a big bin for my young tiny ones.. I had the screen cage open as I was about to feed the bigger babies.. Then I heard a squeal.. I looked to see a bigger baby chomping on one of my youngest babies head. He managed to get into the babies bin which is right next to each other.. ( i have a 48" UVB hanging across the bin and cage, which I thought would be nice.....) I grabbed the bigger one as quick as possible. She let the baby go .. but the damage has been already done. :(:( The baby is still very active.. It looks like the jaw has been dislocated from the middle front... He keeps pushing against it with anything he's near.... Are there any vets open today that I can call?

I knew that chameleons will eat each other but I never thought my babies would eat each other..

Is this something that can be fixed? Is she/he too small? What are my options.
 

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The size of the animal and the location make this quite difficult to treat. Is it a fracture or dislocation and are the teeth damaged? The good news is young animals heal quickly. If you have an experienced reptile vet in the area I would go there. Its not an emergency and you can make an appointment and avoid the emergency fees. In the meantime the important thing is to make sure the young one is eating and drinking. If he is eating you may end up doing nothing other than monitoring. I would think being so small it would heal quickly and without much deformity. BTW what is the black on the top of his head? Good luck and keep us informed.
 
The size of the animal and the location make this quite difficult to treat. Is it a fracture or dislocation and are the teeth damaged? The good news is young animals heal quickly. If you have an experienced reptile vet in the area I would go there. Its not an emergency and you can make an appointment and avoid the emergency fees. In the meantime the important thing is to make sure the young one is eating and drinking. If he is eating you may end up doing nothing other than monitoring. I would think being so small it would heal quickly and without much deformity. BTW what is the black on the top of his head? Good luck and keep us informed.

Hey Joe! thank you so much for the quick reply. I'm not exactly sure whether it is fractured or dislocated. The teeth look fine. Right when it first happened, I could see all his little teeth in a row sticking out on the side. It looked to me like it was split in the center.. He kept trying to chew down on it, rolling his tongue, chomping down. The left side seemed to move quite a bit. The right side of the jaw looks like its going a little inward as well.. I could take a picture from under his chin if that would help or more pictures in general.

I would love to find an experienced reptile vet.. The last vet I went to for a check up on my adults didn't seem to have the best knowledge of them.. which was upsetting.

The black is most likely damage from the bigger baby biting on him. :( I'm guessing he was bit more than once before I heard the squeal. They were down in the center branches of a hibiscus I have for them.
 
I see you live in MD. Are you close to the DC area. In fairfax va there is one of the best if not the best reptile vet in the country. His name is Scott Stahl. He will give your little guy the best possible chance of recovery.
 
I see you live in MD. Are you close to the DC area. In fairfax va there is one of the best if not the best reptile vet in the country. His name is Scott Stahl. He will give your little guy the best possible chance of recovery.

It's about an hour away from me but a good vet is worth the drive. I think I'll give him a call tomorrow.
 
Scott Stahl is a well known reptile vet and does a lot of chameleon work. He would be highly recommended.
 
I just watched him drink. He is still very active thankfully. I'm hoping for the best for this little guy .. or girl!


.. I wish I had silkworms available for him.. I bought 1,000 of them and 90% of them died and i fed off the only few I had.
I'm worried about feeding him anything hard bodied with his jaw the way it is. The only other thing I have is roaches. Could I feed him wax worms? I don't think the local petstores carry phoenix worms. I'll order some small silkworms.
 
Stahl is out for the week and the next available appointment is the 27th I was told... Are the other vets in the fairfax location just as good? I told the lady at the desk that I would call her back.

On top of that... coastal silkworms is out of worms until next week.

... the timing couldn't be any worse.

Update on the baby.. I watched it try to eat a baby nymph dubia roaches. It chewed a few times and then it was tryin to get it out of his mouth. So I pulled it out. Then I had a "clean up crew" bug (they are furry, soft things) on a leaf, he was interested in it and tried to shoot his tongue but it didn't go far enough... after that try he wasn't interested in it. Plus the furries are super fast so its hard to keep him interested without frightening him with my hand being there..

What do I do. :(

Anyone in the area have silkworms they can sell me? :eek:

Update just now~~~
...
I put a white nymph roach (recently shed) up on a leaf and it luckily didn't move (I think i squeezed it too hard) and he caught it and began to chew (I was so nervous!) and chewed and chewed and swallowed it.

I said the center was split in the front but now im not too sure. It does seem like the right side of his jaw moves upward into a point at the front but may that's just looking like that because of missing teeth?

Can the jaw be relocated?? The bottom definitely goes to one side
 
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Scotts place has more veterinarians besides himself. Did you ask to see someone else.

Yes she said that I could see someone else, who would you suggest? Are they all good? I just want to make sure because the last vet I went to didn't know a lot about them.. but it wasn't an exotic vet.
 
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