Shooting Short

mrvoodoo

New Member
Shooting Short - Tongue Not Sticking

Cage Info:

* Cage Type - Screen, wood frame, foam rock board, aluminum window mesh for sides with plastic chicken screen for climbing, top of cage is hardwire cloth. 20x28x48
* Lighting - reptisun 5.0 18" with a 40 watt incandescent for heat
* Temperature - Measuring with accurite - approx 67-70 at bottom 75-83 at basking spot. Lowest overnight that I've seen was 63 at bottom
* Humidity - 65-85% - using mistking for 5 minutes every four hours from 7am to 7pm
* Plants - live plants - pothos and draceanis (sp?)
* Location - cage height from floor is about 7 feet


Chameleon Info:

* Your Chameleon - male jackson xanth approx 11 months
* Handling - a couple times a week
* Feeding - silk worms and crickets primarily. Crickets are dusted twice a week, but primary staple is silk worms. I did give him some superworms this past weekend and he didn't seem to like them very well. Today he's not really wanting the silk worms only crickets. gutload with rzilla gutload cricket drink w/calcium.
* Supplements - herpcare cricket dust
* Watering - A dripper onto a leaf - mostly he gets his moisture during misting
* Fecal Description - solid black with white urate
* History - no problems that I know of.


* Current Problem -

We've been feeding him silkworms mostly with some crickets to change up his diet and add variety. This past week we tried to add more variety with superworms, but he seemed to have trouble eating one and didn't seem to care for them after that. This was about 4 days ago. Today I noticed he had some silk worms left from yesterday so I added a couple and watched him and he didn't seem to want to eat any at all. I tried to hand feed him a cricket and it took him 3 shots to get him. The first two shots were about an inch short (at about 5-6 inches away where he normally gets them) then he got it on the third shot. I put another cricket in his cup and went to finish cooking silkworm chow - came back and the cricket was out of the cup climbing the wall -- curiously... I saw Dex hunt him - miss him short twice and when he got him on the third try the cricket went flying over his head as his tongue retracted.

edit: tried again - he nailed the cricket 3 times but didn't stick :(
 
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that happened with my cham, and i gave him more calcium,and fed him from a cup up close. i also gave him much more water, and hes all better after about 2 weeks of doing that.
 
any particular recommendations for supplements to help solve this? I was under the impression that silkies didn't need extra supplementation.
 
sorry for double post ---

update - I didn't see him eat yesterday, he was being shy about it - but I got to watch him hit a cricket this morning. He nailed it dead on in one shot and didn't release
 
some rep-cal, ultrafine pwdr w/o d3. get it off the internet unless you like paying 15dollars at petco.
 
Keep an eye on him for a while still, if he is missing short it could be eye related may have something up with his depth perception.
 
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