Should I be worried...

[tipposan]

Graceful chameleon doesn't seem to be eating. Stays still with mouth open a lot now - see below.

Feeding Crickets that are fed with lettuce, carrots and cucumbers. Cham get crickets dusted with Exo Terra Multivitamin once or twice a week.

Used to feed by tweezer one or two crickets and then left 3 more in tank daily. Recently when I did this it was as if it's tongue was not sticky enough to hold the cricket. It just hit the cricket and knocked in out of the tweezer. Now not even attempting to shoot tongue. Just sort of "yawns" and sits there. Have not been able to feed (from tweezer) for three days now. Not sure about the crickets left in the tank. I only notice that some die in tank and some are behind tank decorations.

Only change in habitat, other than some regular cleaning, is the introduction of a water drip which is plugged in for about an hour or two each day for moisture. Took to it immediately - see below. Mist environment about every three days. Last feces was about 2 weeks ago.

20141214_172831 by closhusan, on Flickr


DSC_0186 by closhusan, on Flickr


https://www.flickr.com/gp/15458234@N07/nRWa2A

Any suggestions would be helpful

 

[JamesBryan]

Could be dehydrated. They won't eat if they are.

Misting every three days is not enough, needs to be multiple times a day.

 

[tipposan]

I have the drip running for about an hour everyday. I just do the misting about 3 times a week for humidity control.

I have seen her drink from the drip the odd time.

This is new today. When she yawned, she flattened out her body and then it went back to normal.

Will mist some more to see if that helps.

Thanks for suggestion.

 

[MelissaB]

What are your temperatures and how are you measuring them?

Also, does she have labored breathing, bubbles coming out of her mouth, excess saliva, making clicking noises?

 

[leedragon]

lettuce, cucumbers doesnt have any nutrients how so ever, carrots should be giving in very small amounts, you water is too little you should be misting 2 a day, take off the newspaper from the bottom, gut load with dandelion, sunflower seeds, turnip greens, multivitamins just 2 or 1 time a month a and apple and papaya is good for gut loading too, spirulina should be there as well

amd muötivitamins 2 month

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

 

[tipposan]

thanks for the tip on the gut lading crickets. How do I get her to eat them?

Since introducing the drip, she doesn't seem to be drinking from the misting of the environment. Before the drip, I used to feed her with a syringe and tube. I will try that for a while too.

Thanks....

Wiling to try anything.

 

[zlew]

She is almost definitely dehydrated. Having water available only an hour a day is not nearly enough. Have the dripper running all day, it should be available whenever she wants, and mist at least three times a day for two minutes. I have a mistking setup that goes off every 2.5 hours for 4 minutes, and a chameleon drinking fountain.

Definitely read through this thoroughly:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/senegal/

 

[fluxlizard]

Get a fecal done by a veterinarian and get her deparisitized. This species is rarely captive bred and this individual is most likely an import. Because she/he is gaping, really a trip to the vet is in order as well in case she has a respiratory infection going on.

I think if there is one lesson we could draw from the forums the past couple of weeks, it is that you cannot take wc chameleons home and expect to do nothing more than set up and feed- they usually need additional veterinary care and expense to clean them of parasites and get them off to a good start.

I've bred this species before and disagree about an hour a day of water being the problem. When I bred mine I kept them in 2 setups- glass tanks and screen cages. In the tanks, a drip system that ran into a catch bowl for 20-30 minutes per day was plenty. For humidity I also lightly hand misted the tanks morning and evening. In wire cages, I used a mist system. For those, it really depends on ambient conditions and how fast evaporation occurs. I used to run misters for 20-30 minutes 2x per day in such cages for captive bred or well established wild caughts. A few hours for fresh imports. Current conditions in my lizard building are such that for my screen cages 10 minutes of mist 1x per day will keep water droplets on my leaves for several hours and humidity high all the time in the room even though my ventilation fan cuts on to the building a few times per day and sucks old air out and new air in. This would be plenty for dilepis - their water needs are not excessive. Of course, even in a glass tank, ambient environmental conditions will effect conditions in the tank. If the lizard behaves like it is thirsty and looks dehydrated (skin will appear pinched into tiny wrinkles along sides) then you would need to adjust duration or number of times water is available.

 

[tipposan]

Thanks

Thanks to everyone. Things seem to be back to normal.

She took two crickets from me this morning as that is all the time that I had to feed her.
No problems with the stickiness of the tongue.
She has been basking in her spot with mouth closed.

I increased the misting and the kept the drip running for the day (still turn it off at night cause she is sleeping anyway)

Haven't changed gut loading of crickets yet cause I have been sick but will be doing that by the weekend.

Thanks again for everyone's help

 

[tipposan]

Spoke too soon

Looks like I spoke too soon and got my hopes up.

Unfortunately, Pascal passed away a couple of days ago.