Sick veiled cham *URGENT*

[Hheaster1]

I'm buying the liquid calcium, anything else you recommend?

 

[BabyChamCham]

I’d suggest asking a vet for info on correct dosage and how often you use it instead of trying on your own. Just to make sure you’re doing the right thing

 

[ERKleRose]

Your Chameleon – Veiled chameleon, Male, 1.5 years old, he’s been in my care since he was about 2-3 months old.

Handling – Hardly ever, he is very aggressive and I hate to see him upset and stressed out when I try to handle him. He once even fell from his foliage while I was trying to get him out.

Feeding – He mainly lives off mealworms and we do crickets off and on, he doesn’t seem very interested in them they often die because he doesn’t eat them. I feed him 5 a day he doesn’t always eat them all, he’s just not a big eater it seems. I sometimes dust them with the calcium powder as well.

Supplements – N/A

Watering – I use a dripper and keep it on 24/7. I mist for about 1-2 minutes a day, I also have a humidifier and turn it on sometimes. I do see him drinking often, but not recently.

Fecal Description – No, he has never been tested for parasites but his bathroom schedule was normal until recently when he got lethargic and sick.

History – He’s never been nice, always hisses when I go near him. He has never acted weird like this until recently when he stopped crawling in his foliage and became very weak.


Cage Info:

Cage Type – screen cage, 24x24x48 inches

Lighting –Lights: Day white light (75W Brand-Zilla) and the 5.0 UVB (13Watt tropical, Brand-reptisun/zoo med). My daily lighting schedule is turning both lamps on in the mornings when I wake up around 6:30 a.m. and turning them off when it gets dark, if it feels chilly I leave the heat lamp on for a tad longer but not all night, unsure about how that would affect his sleeping schedule.

Temperature –His temperature is usually around 85+ during the day and 70 ish+ at night. I measure them by using a thermometer that came with the Reptibreeze cage I bought.

Humidity – I try not to make it too complicated by using the same misting schedule and humidifier timing.

Plants – I’m using fake plants and branches from the pet store.

Placement – His cage is in his room and I do have a fan in my room but its on the winter setting to push heat not cold air. His cage sits on a cabinet about 4 ft off the floor.

Location – West Virginia

Current Problem – He is very lethargic and weak; his tongue only sticks out about ¼ of an inch. He hasn’t shown interest in food for about 2 weeks and I’ve tried to hand feed him but he just gets upset. His eye got clogged up and I decided to take him to the vet to get the problem diagnosed. When I noticed the “scabbing” on the left eye later that night it swelled and got HUGE. I never noticed before and we went to the vet the next day, she did not seem helpful at all except for the fact that she cleaned his eye out. He has been “sick” for 3-4 weeks now and she said he’s just cold but the temperatures never changed in the room when it became winter. The other exotic vets are 2 hrs.+ away. Last night his left eye seemed unresponsive and grey/ foggy as if it were now blind in the left eye. I snuck food into him on that side so he ddint flip out when he saw me. He tried to eat and missed on the first 2-3 tries considering his tongue barley comes out. He finally got one and ate but struggled to swallow. I now am dripping water into his mouth with a syringe once or twice a day when he hisses at me.

I’d make the drive and go to a different vet that specializes in exotics and has lots of cham experience. I’d also recommend reading the veiled care sheet here in the resources tab. Take him off of mealworms. Use crickets, multiple types of roaches (red runner, orange headed, ivory headed, discoid, and dubia cannot climb or fly), silkworms, hornworms, butterworms, superworms, black soldier flies and larvae, blue bottle flies, mantids, stick insects, small helix aspersa, painted lady butterflies, and horn, silk, and waxworm moths, just to name a few. Make sure what you feed is appropriately sized. Every feeder must be properly gutloaded! Use either organic fresh fruits and veggies (there’s a gutload list here in the food and nutrition tab in resources) and/or a quality commercial gutload, like Cricket Crack, Pangea Gutload, or Repashy Bug Burger. Every feeder should be dusted before feeding with the proper supplements. There are many ways to supplement:
1-phosphorous free calcium without D3 every feeding (like Zoo Med ReptiCalcium without D3), phosphorous free calcium with D3 every two weeks (like Zoo Med ReptiCalcium with D3), and a multivitamin without D3 every two weeks (like Zoo Med Reptivite without D3)
2-phosphorous free calcium without D3 every feeding (like Zoo Med ReptiCalcium without D3) and a multivitamin with D3 every two weeks (like Zoo Med Reptivite with D3)
3-an all in one supplement every feeding (like Sticky Tongue Farms Minerall Indoor-gutload the feeders you’ll feed off the night before or a few hours before with the wet version of Sticky Tongue Farms Vitall if using Minerall)
4-Arcadia supplements using the Arcadia insectivore supplement schedule off of their website
Pro tip-add in some bee pollen dust every dusting for extra nutrients! Make sure to mist at least a couple of times a day for a minimum of two minutes long each time. Get a t5HO linear fixture and Zoo Med 10.0 linear uvb bulb to replace your compact coil uvb. Make your lighting schedule 12 hours of uvb and basking and 12 hours of complete darkness. His basking temp should be around 90-93*F. His temps at night can drop to 50*F without needing a nighttime heat source (which would be a low wattage ceramic heat emitter). What are his humidity levels? I’d get at least one live cham-safe plant since veileds eat them. Make sure to properly prepare it before putting it in the cage, though.