pantherbob
New Member
Hi everyone, this will be my first post here, unfortunately its about a problem I'm having with my chameleon scooter.
Scooter is an almost 2 year old male ambilobe panther chameleon. I've had him since he was 2 months old
I handle him everyday at least once. He was never good at catching food with his tongue so i put crickets in a cup for him and hold him near the cup so he can catch them.
I feed him crickets everyday except sunday with the breeder recommended supplements. He was eating super worms in addition to his crickets for about 2 months, but just recently doesn't seem to be interested in them. I feed the crickets fluckers gut load and also some carrots and lettuce, sometimes cucumber.
The supplements are Rep Cal phosphorous free Calcium with VIT.D, Rep Cal Herptivite, and Sticky tongue farms Miner all. I dust the crickets with these supplements one per day. Mon-thurs- Calcium, tues-fri- miner all, weds-sat herptivite
I have the little dripper witch I uses every day and I mist all his leaves once a day. Sometimes he will drink when I hold his mouth on a leaf with water dropping on it and sometimes he drinks on his own.
His fecal matter is fairly consistent, dark brownish, about an inch to an inch and a half. He has had a parasite test about 8 months ago from Dr. Greek in yorba linda ca, and he tested negative for parasites
His cage is all screen, about 2 1/2 feet long, 2 feet high, and about 1 1/2 feet across. I have the reptisun 5.0, a moon light for night time only and a heat lamp. His lights come on at 9am and go out at 8am. Lately I have not been using his night light, rather a sheet over the cage to keep drafts out and keep it dark.
the temperature ranges from about 65-70 degrees F at night to about 95 degrees F (at the hottest point), I use a zoomed temp gauge. I use a zoo med humidity gauge to monitor humidity, but to be honest I really never pay to close attention to the humidity, the temp is pretty consistent and his spray/water schedule is also consistent.
I use a live ficus in the enclosure, he as always had one, lately the leaves have been falling off more, so it is fairly slim, I'm thinking of switching to another, fuller, ficus.
The cage is located in the living room, but there really isn't anyone home until about 6pm. The cage is not near a fan or a window, basically just the center of the house. The top of the cage where he basks is at chest level, around 4 feet.
I live in orange county, in southern Ca.
Since I've had Scooter he has always been active, crawling around his cage and when I arrived home at about 6pm he would come to his door so I could let him out to walk around and to feed him. For about the last 3 months he has been slowly becoming more lethargic, he doesn't really crawl around his cage much. At about a year and a half I changed his repti sun 5.0. I wasn't aware it needed to be changed sooner.
He has been to Dr. Greek several times. He did not see any signs of MTB, or any other issue with him other then his left eye being closed most of the time, which he has done since he was about a year old. I've used different eye medications to cure it, but still it remains closed, but when having it examined nothing showed up, he just seems to like it closed. He was still very active with his one eye closed.
Now he is starting to close his other eye and is not very active, though some days when he is out of his cage he runs around like normal, but I can still see he is slower less adventurous then he used to be.
Also he used to eat around 5-8 crickets per day and now has slowed down to about 2 per day and some days doesn't seem to have interest in food at all.
On his last visit to Dr. Greek we had blood drawn and he said that he had some very very slight signs of possible dehydration or possible kidney damage. Today I am starting him on antibiotics to see if he gets any better.
I'm sorry for the long post, I'm just trying to be thorough. If you need me to answer any questions, post pictures, or anything please let me know, I'm just scared that something will happen to my friend.
Scooter is an almost 2 year old male ambilobe panther chameleon. I've had him since he was 2 months old
I handle him everyday at least once. He was never good at catching food with his tongue so i put crickets in a cup for him and hold him near the cup so he can catch them.
I feed him crickets everyday except sunday with the breeder recommended supplements. He was eating super worms in addition to his crickets for about 2 months, but just recently doesn't seem to be interested in them. I feed the crickets fluckers gut load and also some carrots and lettuce, sometimes cucumber.
The supplements are Rep Cal phosphorous free Calcium with VIT.D, Rep Cal Herptivite, and Sticky tongue farms Miner all. I dust the crickets with these supplements one per day. Mon-thurs- Calcium, tues-fri- miner all, weds-sat herptivite
I have the little dripper witch I uses every day and I mist all his leaves once a day. Sometimes he will drink when I hold his mouth on a leaf with water dropping on it and sometimes he drinks on his own.
His fecal matter is fairly consistent, dark brownish, about an inch to an inch and a half. He has had a parasite test about 8 months ago from Dr. Greek in yorba linda ca, and he tested negative for parasites
His cage is all screen, about 2 1/2 feet long, 2 feet high, and about 1 1/2 feet across. I have the reptisun 5.0, a moon light for night time only and a heat lamp. His lights come on at 9am and go out at 8am. Lately I have not been using his night light, rather a sheet over the cage to keep drafts out and keep it dark.
the temperature ranges from about 65-70 degrees F at night to about 95 degrees F (at the hottest point), I use a zoomed temp gauge. I use a zoo med humidity gauge to monitor humidity, but to be honest I really never pay to close attention to the humidity, the temp is pretty consistent and his spray/water schedule is also consistent.
I use a live ficus in the enclosure, he as always had one, lately the leaves have been falling off more, so it is fairly slim, I'm thinking of switching to another, fuller, ficus.
The cage is located in the living room, but there really isn't anyone home until about 6pm. The cage is not near a fan or a window, basically just the center of the house. The top of the cage where he basks is at chest level, around 4 feet.
I live in orange county, in southern Ca.
Since I've had Scooter he has always been active, crawling around his cage and when I arrived home at about 6pm he would come to his door so I could let him out to walk around and to feed him. For about the last 3 months he has been slowly becoming more lethargic, he doesn't really crawl around his cage much. At about a year and a half I changed his repti sun 5.0. I wasn't aware it needed to be changed sooner.
He has been to Dr. Greek several times. He did not see any signs of MTB, or any other issue with him other then his left eye being closed most of the time, which he has done since he was about a year old. I've used different eye medications to cure it, but still it remains closed, but when having it examined nothing showed up, he just seems to like it closed. He was still very active with his one eye closed.
Now he is starting to close his other eye and is not very active, though some days when he is out of his cage he runs around like normal, but I can still see he is slower less adventurous then he used to be.
Also he used to eat around 5-8 crickets per day and now has slowed down to about 2 per day and some days doesn't seem to have interest in food at all.
On his last visit to Dr. Greek we had blood drawn and he said that he had some very very slight signs of possible dehydration or possible kidney damage. Today I am starting him on antibiotics to see if he gets any better.
I'm sorry for the long post, I'm just trying to be thorough. If you need me to answer any questions, post pictures, or anything please let me know, I'm just scared that something will happen to my friend.