Scary signs in juvenile chameleon!

[Chip]

• Feeding - What is the schedule? How are you gut-loading your feeders? It's important to look after your feeders well. It's important not to overfeed female veileds once they are sexually mature unless you are breeding her. Do you know that she can produce eggs even without mating and needs a laybin in her cage somshe won't die eggbound?
• Supplements - What brand vitamin products are you dusting your feeders with and what is the schedule? Does the calcium have D3 in it?
• Watering - How long to you mist? Do you see your chameleon drinking?
• Fecal Description - are the urates white or do they have yellow in them? Are the feces dry looking or moist?

Cage Info:

• Lighting - What brand UVB light are you using? What is your daily lighting schedule...on for how long, off for how long? All off at night?? I would replace the red light with a white regular household incandescent bulb of a wattage that makes the basking area about 80 to 85 F.
• Temperature - Without knowing the basking temperature or the temperature in the rest of the cage I can't tell if she has enough heat to digest her food or if she's constipated because she is too cold.
• Humidity - if she's drinking enough this isn't as important but it would still be good to know!
• Plants - it looks like you should have more greenery in her cage. Replacing the fake stuff with real well washed (both sides of the leaves) non toxic plants would not only help the humidity but would ensure that the chameleon doesn't end up accidentally ingesting the fake ones and becoming impacted.

There are a number of things that can be going on with her...I need more information.

• Feeding - We dont have a set schedule on feeding her, but I can say we feed her every two days. We are feeding our crickets a yellow gel that has calcium, polacrylamide copolymer, and potassium. We aren't breeding her, and she doesn't seem to be mature enough.
• Supplements - We are using ZOOMED, and it doesn't have vitamin D3.
• Watering - We mist for about one minute, twice a day. We don't see her drink off the mist, but we give her water through a syringe.
• Fecal Description - The most recent she has went was about 4 days ago, it was white and the poo was firm and black. They didn't seem too dry or too soupy, they were firm and wet.
• • Lighting - We are not using a UVB, I was incorrect, we have a red heatlamp, and a white spiral bulb. We have the red light on all day, and all night. The white one is on for daylight hours, and a few hours after. I am replacing the red bulb with a white houselight.
  • Temperature - She is about 4 inches from the heatlight now, I don't find that her being too cold is the issue.
  • Humidity - She drinks often, we don't have any way to measure it yet.

 

[Chip]

• Feeding - What is the schedule? How are you gut-loading your feeders? It's important to look after your feeders well. It's important not to overfeed female veileds once they are sexually mature unless you are breeding her. Do you know that she can produce eggs even without mating and needs a laybin in her cage somshe won't die eggbound?
• Supplements - What brand vitamin products are you dusting your feeders with and what is the schedule? Does the calcium have D3 in it?
• Watering - How long to you mist? Do you see your chameleon drinking?
• Fecal Description - are the urates white or do they have yellow in them? Are the feces dry looking or moist?

Cage Info:

• Lighting - What brand UVB light are you using? What is your daily lighting schedule...on for how long, off for how long? All off at night?? I would replace the red light with a white regular household incandescent bulb of a wattage that makes the basking area about 80 to 85 F.
• Temperature - Without knowing the basking temperature or the temperature in the rest of the cage I can't tell if she has enough heat to digest her food or if she's constipated because she is too cold.
• Humidity - if she's drinking enough this isn't as important but it would still be good to know!
• Plants - it looks like you should have more greenery in her cage. Replacing the fake stuff with real well washed (both sides of the leaves) non toxic plants would not only help the humidity but would ensure that the chameleon doesn't end up accidentally ingesting the fake ones and becoming impacted.

There are a number of things that can be going on with her...I need more information.

• Feeding - We dont have a set schedule on feeding her, but I can say we feed her every two days. We are feeding our crickets a yellow gel that has calcium, polacrylamide copolymer, and potassium. We aren't breeding her, and she doesn't seem to be mature enough.
• Supplements - We are using ZOOMED, and it doesn't have vitamin D3.
• Watering - We mist for about one minute, twice a day. We don't see her drink off the mist, but we give her water through a syringe.
• Fecal Description - The most recent she has went was about 4 days ago, it was white and the poo was firm and black. They didn't seem too dry or too soupy, they were firm and wet.
• • Lighting - We are not using a UVB, I was incorrect, we have a red heatlamp, and a white spiral bulb. We have the red light on all day, and all night. The white one is on for daylight hours, and a few hours after. I am replacing the red bulb with a white houselight.
  • Temperature - She is about 4 inches from the heatlight now, I don't find that her being too cold is the issue.
  • Humidity - She drinks often, we don't have any way to measure it yet.

 

[Chip]

• Feeding - We dont have a set schedule on feeding her, but I can say we feed her every two days. We are feeding our crickets a yellow gel that has calcium, polacrylamide copolymer, and potassium. We aren't breeding her, and she doesn't seem to be mature enough.

• Supplements - We are using ZOOMED, and it doesn't have vitamin D3.

• Watering - We mist for about one minute, twice a day. We don't see her drink off the mist, but we give her water through a syringe.

• Fecal Description - The most recent she has went was about 4 days ago, it was white and the poo was firm and black. They didn't seem too dry or too soupy, they were firm and wet.

• • Lighting - We are not using a UVB, I was incorrect, we have a red heatlamp, and a white spiral bulb. We have the red light on all day, and all night. The white one is on for daylight hours, and a few hours after. I am replacing the red bulb with a white houselight.
  • Temperature - She is about 4 inches from the heatlight now, I don't find that her being too cold is the issue.
  • Humidity - She drinks often, we don't have any way to measure it yet.

 

[kinyonga]

You said..." she began getting very tired and wouldn't want to move at all. She closes her eyes for more than 90% of the day and the 10% she has them open. While her eyes are closed, she still moves, flailing her hands out looking for anything to hold onto. Her grip still feels strong and healthy, so I don't think she is lacking nutrition"... There are a number of things that could be contributing to this behavior in a chameleon.... if a chameleon. Is cold it might want to sleep during the day. If it's sick it might behave this way. If it's got a blockage or lacks proper nutrition and hydration it might behave this way...etc. this is why I'm asking the questions....so I can try to figure out what's going on.

You said..."she isn't eating anything,its been maybe 4 days since she ate, she has plenty of crickets in her cage, but she won't eat. While they crawl on her, she flinches, so I know she can feel them. I took her out to try and hand feed her, but she would ignore the food"...were her eyes open or shut?? I would not be leaving insects in her cage when she is defenseless like this or you may find out they will chew on her.

You said..., "She hasn't been very protective of her territory recently, just letting me pick her up as I please, which is really odd, since she hates when I'm in there"...this is because she has something wrong with her too...hasn't got the strength or desire to try to protect herself.

You said..."She hasn't went poo in a few days, and I'm thinking she may even be constipated, if that is common is chameleons"...if nothing's going in her mouth then nothing's going to come out the other end. As for being constipated ...if she's too cold she can't digest the food properly so she can become constipated. If she's overfed constantly she can become constipated. If she is not hydrated properly she can become constipated. Etc.

You said... "she would occasionally make a quick vibration , almost like a phone going off, it wasn't audible until I got like an inch from her"...that's part of the way they communicate.

Back to the questions again...

• Feeding - your gutloading/feeding needs improvement. Those orange cubes aren't much good IMHO. It's important to look after your feeders well. I use dandelion greens, kale, endive, escarole, squash, carrots, zucchini, sweet potato, sweet red pepper, etc and a SMALL amount of berries, melon, apple, pears, etc.
• Supplements - how often and how heavily do you dust the crickets? It's recommended that you dust the insects just before you feed them to her at almost every feeding. It's also recommended that you dust the insects with a phosphorus-free calcium/D3 powder twice a month lightly and with a vitamin powder twice a month.
• Watering - your misting isn't long enough...chameleons are slow to start to drink and need a longer time than that to get them started. You should be running a dripper for quite a while every day too. It can be a deli cup with a tiny hole in it so it drips at the rate of one drip per second. I think you said she's not drinking much from a syringe.

Cage Info:

• Lighting - a UVB light is needed somshe can produce D3 or she will end up with MBD.direct sunlight that does not pass through glass or plastic is fine too for that. All lights should be off at night. Lights should be on for 12 hours and off for 12 hours.
• Temperature - as I said ...without knowing the basking temperature or the temperature in the rest of the cage I can't tell if she has enough heat to digest her food or if she's constipated because she is too cold. You need a thermometer.
• Plants - it looks like you should have more greenery in her cage.

 

[WyattN.]

I know what the problem is you have only fake plants, vieleds eat plants, get one quick I recommend pothos. And I mean quick! For your poo problem use pumpkin it helps them poop...apparently.

 

[CJ's Exotics]

I know what the problem is you have only fake plants, vieleds eat plants, get one quick I recommend pothos. And I mean quick! For your poo problem use pumpkin it helps them poop...apparently.

That is most likely not the only problem. There are many things that need improvement, and the OP will most likely have to take her to the vet in the end, changing the plants or not.

 

[kinyonga]

@WyattN said. "I know what the problem is you have only fake plants, vieleds eat plants, get one quick I recommend pothos. And I mean quick! For your poo problem use pumpkin it helps them poop...apparently"...if a chameleon isn't eating it won't be pooping so giving it pumpkin or anything else isn't the solution. How will adding a live plant solve the problem of it not eating??

IMHO @WyattN. Are you trolling??