Please help sick cham

strawberryfielity

New Member
first here is all of my info
* Your Chameleon - The species, sex, and age of your chameleon. How long has it been in your care? veiled chameleon. female. juvenile.
* Handling - How often do you handle your chameleon? once a day for about 5 minutes in the evening
* Feeding - What are you feeding your cham? so far just crickets thinking of adding meal worms.What amount? 10/day. she usually has 1 or 2 left over. What is the schedule? How are you gut-loading your feeders?flukes.
* Supplements - What brand and type of calcium and vitamin products are you dusting your feeders with and what is the schedule?zoo med reptivite and calcium powder every other week
* Watering - What kind of watering technique do you use? spray bottleHow often and how long to you mist? once a day Do you see your chameleon drinking?yes
* Fecal Description - Briefly note colors and consistency from recent droppings. white and brown Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites?
no

Cage Info:

* Cage Type - screen. It's by zoomed.16X16X20*
Lighting - What brand, model, and types of lighting are you using?
15w Uvb 10w heat/ both zoo med
What is your daily lighting schedule?
I leave the heat & uvb on during the day untill it gets dark and then I turn them off.
* Temperature - What temp range have you created (cage floor to basking spot)? Lowest overnight temp? How do you measure these temps?
During the day the enclosure is 85 degrees, at night 72-74 degrees. I have a digital thermometer.
* Humidity - What are your humidity levels? How are you creating and maintaining these levels? What do you use to measure humidity? Not sure of the humidity, I spray the enclosure three times a day.
* Plants - Are you using live plants? a small pythos plant, a wooden branch, and some fake vines.
* Placement - In the livingroom. At what height is the top of the cage relative to your room floor? It is well off the floor, on a countertop.
* Location - Where are you geographically located? america. georgia.


saturday i noticed my cham doing a weird leg movement streachy thing with her back leg and then seemed fine. yesterday my cham fell to the bottom of her cage and climbed back up to the top and seemed fine. just now I heard a big rustling sound from her cage and i went and looked and she was hanging onto her branch with one hand. i gently lowered her to the bottom of her house and took out all of the crickets so they wont bother her. she is laying on her side and she occasionally opens her mouth and sticks her toungue out but other than that she will not move. what should I do?
 
when you said your chameleon fell i immediately thought MBD. but look for any visible breaks, and if none are visible, look at her eyes and look for damage. she might have an eye injury making her have practically no depth perception
 
Im no expert but it sounds like you may want to go to the vet, as helpfull as this forum is, it is not a quick fix for an emergency situation, I hope her luck turns around for you, its sad when things happen
 
Your supplement schedule should be calcium without d3 every day and then the reptivite and calcium with d3 twice a month, I couldnt tell if thats what it is when I looked over your form
 
How long have you had it for?
What is your basking light? I seen 10 watt heat is that really the basking light?
Also make sure the whole cage is not 85f in case she wants to cool off a little.
 
doesnt look like anything is broken. both of her eyes are closed but dont look swollen. her toungue is out a little bit. I cannot take her to the vet until my husband gets home from work. is there kind of first aid i can do or anything?
 
2163yu.jpg
 

Attachments

  • 107_5834.jpg
    107_5834.jpg
    237 KB · Views: 272
when you said your chameleon fell i immediately thought MBD. but look for any visible breaks, and if none are visible, look at her eyes and look for damage. she might have an eye injury making her have practically no depth perception

Actually, chams have a complex lense in each eye permitting depth perception from each eye individually. They don't have to give themselves away by turning their head to focus totally on prey until right before they shoot.
 
Your cham looks like she's in REALLY bad shape in that picture, she needs to go to the vet asap!! I hope she gets better, and when she does you need to totally revise your gutloading, but we can worry about that later.
 

I'm sorry to tell you that your cham is in very critical condition and may be dying. From looking at your husbandry description I can see a couple of things that may have caused it:

If your lighting was all from incandescent (round screw in bulbs) the cham was not getting the proper amount of UVB and developed serious deficiencies as it was unable to metabolize calcium in its diet. They MUST have a combination of fluorescent UV lighting and heat bulbs.

The amount of calcium and vitamin dusting done wasn't enough. Calcium without vitamin D3 done several times a week, calcium with D3 every week, and vitamins once a month to 6 weeks.

You need to keep track of the humidity level in the cham's cage. Most cages in our homes end up being too dry for chams without multiple thorough misting each day. Without knowing the humidity levels from hour to hour your cham could have been very dehydrated and unable to eat or digest its food.

Sorry to tell you all this. A vet may be able to help with emergency fluids and injections of calcium, but this is also very stressful too and may be too late.
 
Sadly I have to agree with Carlton and Ferretinmyshoes...your chameleon is in a bad way and is likely going to die. Her only chance is to get to a good vet right away....no time to lose. Sorry to have to tell you this. :(
 
too late

Took Karma to morrow animal hospital as soon as my husband got home. They told me there was nothing they could do for her and she died a few moments laiter.
 
i am so sorry,all of us here dread ever having to go through what you are now experiencing,my heart aches for you and your loss..be strong...there is a heaven just for chams i believe.i feel like crying,this is just way too sad....
 
Back
Top Bottom