rapid change in cham overnight. Not improving

RescueMom

Avid Member
I try to search the threads before I post a question, but I can't find any similar to this issue that started last Tuesday.

My Panther Snogzilla is almost a year old and I've had him since he was 4 months old. He has NEVER wanted to be handled, but he stopped the aggressive threatening behavior a long time ago. He eats from my hand and will climb onto my hand to get a feeder but doesn't want anything more to do with being handled. He has been out of his enclosure via a vine or a branch that goes to a tree by the window (with additional uvb lighting) but only a few times. Last Monday he attempted to climb out onto the door of his cage to reach the tree, but it was a no-go 😢 I helped him to his tree, which he allowed in the extreme circumstance that it was 😲

Because he hardly ever gets out of his cage it's difficult to make any changes to his enclosure (plants were sparse, some branches to close together from him baby days and needed to be adjusted). I had managed to add a couple of plants a few days before. I've noticed that he doesn't like the leaves to touch him so if the vines are blocking his branches, even slightly, he won't walk on them.
While he was out of the cage last Monday I adjusted the branches and replaced a few small ones with thicker ones. I also put the grapevine branch in the bottom since it was bare and it took up the space nicely.

Tuesday he got up and went to a branch toward the back and stayed. His color was a really ugly light greenish grey with dark marks. He has been mostly this ugly, sick looking color for a week now. But that's not the strange part.

He will see something that he wants, like the branch that he used to climb out of the enclosure, and he'll get up and instantly all of his bright "happy" colors will come on, he'll walk a little toward what ever it is, but then he goes back to that slump position with the ugly grey colors. I've been trying to figure out what it is that's causing this really strange behavior. It's almost like he wants to feel good, and he tries, but he can't so he just lies back down. I'm paying attention to his "body language" hoping to figure out what it is that, but I'm at a loss 😓

His appetite is still good. He's been eating silkworms and large crickets and the occasional superworm or waxworm as a treat (also to coax him onto my hand or out of his enclosure).

Supplements are the same. Basking temps 86-88 ambient 75-77. humidity 50-70%. lights 8am-8pm. dripper & Climist mist system. Last poop was on the 5th and it was normal (no undigested feeders, large amount of mostly white to cream colored urate).

The first pictures are before last Monday so you can see his normal color, then Monday when he walked along the cage door, and him in his tree, then going back into his enclosure (you can see the grapevine wood in the bottom). In all those pictures, he has normal color, even if he was a bit stressed going back in.

The next picture is Tuesday, then Friday, now today, a week later.

I removed the grapevine wood from his cage on the weekend since it was the only new thing to his enclosure. I thought maybe he was scared of it, since he's more than a bit odd 🥴 It didn't make a difference though

I'm out of ideas

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Has he been holding his mouth open like in the picture?
Temps and humidity are sitting a little on the higher side.

Typically a cage change can make them take pause and try to figure out if they are still safe. So that is quite normal for some.
 
Has he been holding his mouth open like in the picture?
Temps and humidity are sitting a little on the higher side.

Typically a cage change can make them take pause and try to figure out if they are still safe. So that is quite normal for some.
He holds his mouth like that ever since his tongue injury, but only after he gets a feeder (not every time) . The vet said he probably just gotten used to doing something different with it, so it's his 'normal'.

I'll lower the temp, and watch the humidity.

I hope he'll snap out of it, but he's really starting to scare me
Thanks!
 
He holds his mouth like that ever since his tongue injury, but only after he gets a feeder (not every time) . The vet said he probably just gotten used to doing something different with it, so it's his 'normal'.

I'll lower the temp, and watch the humidity.

I hope he'll snap out of it, but he's really starting to scare me
Thanks!
K yeah try that with the temps. We like to do a range of 80-85 at basking. For a Panther a good daytime level is 50%.

But it very well could be just the change you made. Threw him into a stress reaction.
 
My 1 year old panther went through a similar phase where his colors went from bright and vibrant, to completely grey (more drastic than yours). It took a few weeks, but my solution seemed to be lots of natural sunlight and improved gutloading. Once those changes were made, his color came back over a couple weeks. May not be the problem here, just my experience.
 
What happened with the tongue?
He got bitten by a horn worm a while back. He couldn't shoot it out for a couple of weeks. Once the swelling went down he got full use back, thanks to a little county vet 🤗
She said he might hold his mouth differently after that, and he does. I've had him rechecked for respiratory just in case, and he was perfect 👌
 
K yeah try that with the temps. We like to do a range of 80-85 at basking. For a Panther a good daytime level is 50%.

But it very well could be just the change you made. Threw him into a stress reaction.
Thanks!
I'm in Florida and getting tempts lower in summer seems to be a real challenge, but I've raised the light higher now. Next step is turning it off 😲
 
Thanks!
I'm in Florida and getting tempts lower in summer seems to be a real challenge, but I've raised the light higher now. Next step is turning it off 😲
Is your ambient in the low 70's? You can drop the bulb wattage back for the basking bulb. This will reduce temp.
 
My 1 year old panther went through a similar phase where his colors went from bright and vibrant, to completely grey (more drastic than yours). It took a few weeks, but my solution seemed to be lots of natural sunlight and improved gutloading. Once those changes were made, his color came back over a couple weeks. May not be the problem here, just my experience.
I would love to get him outside, but he won't come out and I don't want to stress him anymore. He's so difficult.
I really hope he does what yours did. Thanks!
 
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