post surgery care

[ahambergh]

hello all!

Im a new chameleon owner and i have a little veiled whos eggbound and is going to the vet tomorrow. I fear that it's progressed enough that she might need surgery. So i was hoping that everyone would be kind enough to share with me their best advice on caring for her after surgery, so that she may recover quickly and fully Thanks in advance!

 

[jannb]

Welcome to the forums. I am sorry to here that your female is having problems. What kind of laying bin do you have for her? Surgery is very serious and my advice would be to make sure you have a qualified vet. How is she now? Eating? Drinking? Active? Post a picture of her please. If you get her to the vet in time a vet can give oxytocin to induce egg laying before she becomes egg bound. Several injections of oxytocin over several days might be needed. If she does have surgery her care would depend on her condition after the surgery.

 

[Mijah139]

It would help to know what your husbandry is like currently to give advice in changing anything. Fill this form out for us and post your answers here

https://www.chameleonforums.com/how-ask-help-66/

 

[ahambergh]

Welcome to the forums. I am sorry to here that your female is having problems. What kind of laying bin do you have for her? Surgery is very serious and my advice would be to make sure you have a qualified vet. How is she now? Eating? Drinking? Active? Post a picture of her please. If you get her to the vet in time a vet can give oxytocin to induce egg laying before she becomes egg bound. Several injections of oxytocin over several days might be needed. If she does have surgery her care would depend on her condition after the surgery.

thank you for the feedback. I took her to the vet the following morning and he seemed to be convinced that i was over concerned. He took some x rays and said he thinks she might just be getting ready to lay. but she began digging around in the bottom of her cage about a month ago. which seems like a long time to produce eggs to me! :/ maybe since she's young and its her first batch, she's just taking a little while???

to answer your question, I have a laying bin in her terrarium which has probably 16" of sand/coconut fiber mix ( the kind of substrate they sell you for bedding..) its nice and moist, but she doesnt seem interested. lol she digs in the dirt at the bottom of her cage instead. so i put some extra bedding/sand mix in the bottom as well. so that both options will give her enough depth to lay if/when she decides shes ready.

as far as her demeanor, she seems restless. switching back and forth between digging in her cage, and resting in her trees. but she does still have a good appetite, and is drinking. additionally the vet sent me home with some concentrated calcium to give her orally. he said that her bones looked great and showed no signs of calcium deficiency. but seeing as the eggs absorb so much of the calcium she normally uses, i wanted something extra to make sure she was going to be as strong as possible for this process. (if she in fact isnt eggbound.)

I wasn't convinced that he knew enough about chameleons to give me the peace of mind he wanted me to have, so he gave me the number to an exotics specialist that i'll likely be getting in touch with this coming week.

what do u think? does it sound like I AM being paranoid... or should i be worried. I found her asleep at the bottom of her cage this morning. ( something i know they dont normally do.) but shes been up and about all day. so im really torn...

sorry for the long reply

 

[jannb]

Please post some pictures of her.

 

[ahambergh]

it's taken me this long just to figure out how to get the pictures off my phone and onto here, none of them are great angles, but the last one was about a month ago, and you might be able to see she was much less rotund. also, at one point in time, you could actually see a cpl of the eggs in her lower abdomen. that is no longer the case, almost as if the rest of her body is filling up with eggs as well so her torso looks more flush.