Strange behavior--getting stuck.

[torizazu]

Hey guys, sorry for posting another thread needing help/advice--but for the last few weeks since I have had him, one of my younger panther chams has been acting VERY oddly. He is still eating, pooping and roaming around but he does this odd thing where he will grab his front leg with his back leg and get stuck, tip over or fall from his branch because he can't get unstuck from this position until I physically remove his back leg from his arm. I had gotten this cham from a guy who had him WAY too hot (ceramic heat, basking spot and infrared on him ALL AT ONCE...terrible...) so I am wondering if he has some neurological damage going on. He also seems very weak and shaky and has a hard time with depth perception and grabbing his vines although I dust his insects daily with Repashy's cham dust and also drip him with water infused with calcium (w/o D3). Honestly, he acts like he is mentally retarded and I am really starting to wonder what those hot temps did to his tiny brain When I took him to the vet she said it does not look like he is suffering from MBD or a vitamin A deficiency and that he looks healthy overall, so I am really leaning towards neurological damage

It is very sad to watch him get stuck in these strange contorted positions when he grabs himself.





Your Chameleon - Panther, unsexed, roughly 3 months old
Handling - very rarely...maybe for a few minutes since I have had him and that was only to clean one of his vines.
Feeding - Crickets gut loaded with fluker's orange cubes, they are also dusted everyday with Repashy cham dust and they get calcium with d3 dusted twice a week. He also is offered waxworms to fatten him up and meal worms.
Supplements - Repashy cham dust daily and the repti-cal (pink and white tub) twice a week
Watering - I use an exoterra mister and mist by hand 4 to 5 times a day. I do not seem him drinking often
Fecal Description - Has not been tested yet, droppings are finally white in urates again because he was very dehydrated at first and they were orange. His actual turd is a solid greyish/brown looking poo, it landed in a puddle of water though so it got slimy and weird before I got it out to examine it.
History - see above

Cage Info:
Cage Type - Screen ZooMed cage, the smaller size (12x12x18ish?) He has plenty of room to roam around since he is still so little and has lots of fake (silk) plants and vines. There is no substrate on the bottom of his cage.
Lighting - 75w sun-glo by exoterra hung several inches above his cage for basking, and a compact fluorescent that is 5.0 UVB also.
Temperature - I have two digital therms on his cage, his basking spot is generally anywhere from 86.5 to 88.5, the ambient temp is around 78 or so and nighttime temps are 74ish.
Humidity - He is misted 4 to 5 times a day, I try to keep the humidity at about 60%, 40% is usually the lowest I ever see it.
Plants - Silk plants...
Placement - Cage is about 3 feet or so off the ground and placed in our office so he isn't bothered by traffic in the house.
Location - Kansas

 

[ataraxia]

just my observation and opinion.

Feeding - Crickets gut loaded with fluker's orange cubes, they are also dusted everyday with Repashy cham dust and they get calcium with d3 dusted twice a week. He also is offered waxworms to fatten him up and meal worms.im no vet but i bet his system is all out of whack. repashy should be given very sparingly. it contains d3 along with repcal pink label. repashy also contains proformed and preformed VitA
Supplements - Repashy cham dust daily and the repti-cal (pink and white tub) twice a week

Lighting - 75w sun-glo by exoterra hung several inches above his cage for basking, and a compact fluorescent that is 5.0 UVB also.personally would throw that uvb bulb out and get a 5.0 linear tube. 88.5* with a 75 w sun glo "SPOT LAMP", in a 18" high cage... how far is the lamp to his basking spot... i cant see these temps possible..
Temperature - I have two digital therms on his cage, his basking spot is generally anywhere from 86.5 to 88.5, the ambient temp is around 78 or so and nighttime temps are 74ish.
Humidity - He is misted 4 to 5 times a day, I try to keep the humidity at about 60%, 40% is usually the lowest I ever see it. Your mister and your spraying. does the cage have enough time to dry out between mistings? having a constant humidity isnt important. it should fluxuate. does your house have a dehumidifier and is it electric or gas heat? normal humidity in kansas is fine for the chameleon.
Location - Kansas

Rapashy Chameleon dust -Calcium Plus ICB is a unique blend of calcium, protein, fat, fiber, and vitamins. It is designed to be used as the exclusive supplementation for insectivorous species. It is formulated to "balance" the nutritional value of feeder insects, and in most cases, to be used with every feeding. It provides all essential nutrients in a one simple to use product. No need for separate vitaman and calcium products. It contains a proven level of Vitamin D-3, and a proven ratio of Vitamin D-3 to Calcium. It also contains preformed Vitamin A at a 10:1 ratio of Vitamin A/ Vitamin D-3 which is essential to proper nutrition.Calcium plus also contains Beta Carotene in addition to preformed Vitamin A and is the only Reptile supplement available that contains both.

i dont know much about your chams situation and have never personally delt with this sort of thing. im sure many experts on here will give some opinions.

 

[kinyonga]

This grabbing of its own legs is often associated with a calcium imbalance. It might be that the chameleon is getting too much D3 since you are using the pink Rep-Cal twice a week instead of twice a month and the Repashy also contains D3.

I dust the insects at most feedings with a phos.-free calcium powder (Rep-cal) and twice a month with a phos-free calcium/D3 and twice a month with Herptivite.

Can you post a picture of the chameleon please?

 

[torizazu]

CRAP! Sorry, I'm a dummy and pasted all of that info from one of my other posts about him--I currently am not using herpavite or repcal (pink tub) and only using the repashy since it was formulated for daily use and had talked to people who have had great luck with that product.

Everything else is correct though, and here are the other questions answered:
Originally Posted by torizazu
Feeding - Crickets gut loaded with fluker's orange cubes, they are also dusted everyday with Repashy cham dust and they get calcium with d3 dusted twice a week. He also is offered waxworms to fatten him up and meal worms.im no vet but i bet his system is all out of whack. repashy should be given very sparingly. it contains d3 along with repcal pink label. repashy also contains proformed and preformed VitA
Supplements - Repashy cham dust daily and the repti-cal (pink and white tub) twice a week

Lighting - It's not a spot lamp but just a day glo that is similar to what a regular light bulb would look like--no reflective material around the wide part of it...

Humidity - I just have the big exo-terra hand mister that sprays out a very fine mist. He is misted about 4x a day really and his cage dries out in between each time, I would like to spray him 3x instead but he always acts so weird I always just want to make sure he has enough to drink. We live on the 9th floor of an apt building and it gets SUPER dry and we do not have a humidifier so I always try to keep his humidity from not being like 10 percent which is what is is throughout the apt.

Hopefully that helps out with helping this little dude out

So... calcium and phosphorus imbalance basically? or just too much/not enough calcium? Should i take him to have some blood tests done? Is this something that can be fixed through his diet and dustings or does he need meds for this? I wonder why my vet said that wasn't abnormal It DEFINITELY is...

 

[torizazu]

Here is a pic of him in a non-tardy stance...

 

[ataraxia]

i would get him to a vet for some blood work. anyone on here recommend this product?

 

[torizazu]

I found a few more posts suggesting this weird behavior is caused by MBD... he has been doing this since I got him 3 or maybe even 4 weeks ago now, how long will it take to be corrected?

And if no one on here is familiar with/recommends the repashy, I'll throw it out and use the herpavite and reptical as suggested before. I just really don't want him to die from this as it is very weird and almost debilitating since I sometimes have to find him laying down on his side all stuck on himself in order to correct his position

He was so shaky at the vet though, I even asked about MBD specifically since I had doubts that the pet store and previous owner had been dusting his crickets... one person said it was a bad reaction to some metronidozole(spelling?) that he had given his cham, the only thing my guy has ever received as far as meds go is baytril to treat the beginning symptoms of an URI. That was a few weeks ago though and these weird leg grabbing behaviors are only worsening

I really appreciate all of your input, guys. Thanks a lot. I hope other people have had chams come out of this Its so sad...

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

It's not hopeless, your guy still looks pretty good, but the time to act is NOW before it gets any worse.

You said you are gutloading with orange cubes...are you giving the crickets anything else to eat? Calcium and other vitamins also need to come from the diet in more forms than just the dusting. This is very important to prevent/correct early MBD! You need to feed your crickets dark leafy greens like collard, mustard, turnip or dandelion greens all the time. The link in my signature has nutritional info on the commonly available fruits and veggies to guide you. Use veggies higher in calcium than phosphorus and avoid goitrogens and oxalates as they can interfere with calcium absorption. Anything that says "staple" can be used as much as you'd like, and you can throw in some of the others every so often for variety. You can do a search on gutloading for some more info.

You'll want both wet and dry gutloads for a complete diet. The wet componenet is fresh fruits and veggies. The dry component of gutload varies somewhat. Here is an excellent recipe for the dry gutload and sandra's blog has lots of gutloading goodies. I use as many of those ingredients as I can get easily and try to change up some of the outliers with each batch just because it can get expensive. Or Tiki Tiki Reptiles sells "cricket crack" which is premade and high quality.

Don't use dog or cat food because they are very high in animal proteins which can lead to growth and kidney problems in your cham.

Feel free to ask more questions.

 

[torizazu]

Thank you! That is a wonderful suggestion-- The only other gut load I have started using is Nature Zone total cricket bites. I put a link below so everyone can see if it is decent or not. The breeder I got my BB ambilobe from said its the best for gutloading and she used it all the time--the cham I got from her is AMAZING and not anything like this little dummy in terms of having health issues... poor little tardy baby!

http://www.petmountain.com/product/...2-504509/nature-zone-cricket-total-bites.html

I just bought a fresh spring mix for my veiled cham, I'll toss some of those veggies in with this crickets in addition to the two gutloads (minus the spinach of course!). I have used apples and carrots in the past, too.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Thank you! That is a wonderful suggestion-- The only other gut load I have started using is Nature Zone total cricket bites. I put a link below so everyone can see if it is decent or not. The breeder I got my BB ambilobe from said its the best for gutloading and she used it all the time--the cham I got from her is AMAZING and not anything like this little dummy in terms of having health issues... poor little tardy baby!

http://www.petmountain.com/product/...2-504509/nature-zone-cricket-total-bites.html

I just bought a fresh spring mix for my veiled cham, I'll toss some of those veggies in with this crickets in addition to the two gutloads (minus the spinach of course!). I have used apples and carrots in the past, too.

I don't know about that "gutload" - pretty much anything that can be cubed in an unnatural neon green color and has a long shelf life can't have too much in the way of fresh vitamins and nutrients in it imo. It probably contains all those good things it says in tiny quantities (or else it would be too expensive to make profit off of) so the crickets would have to eat an entire cube each to actually get the benefit from it. Much easier and reliable to feed fresh stuff so you know exactly what they're getting!

 

[torizazu]

Agreed! I will just to both since I bought a huge tub of it :/

So there is a chance he will pull out of this if I gut load more efficiently and use more calcium? Should it be calcium with or without D3 though?

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

I dust the insects at most feedings with a phos.-free calcium powder (Rep-cal) and twice a month with a phos-free calcium/D3 and twice a month with a Herptivite multivitamin.

That's what is recommended the most by the experts. Use calcium by itself without phosphorus or D3 with every feeding. Those cubes aren't necessarily bad for crickets so there's nothing wrong with using them for hydration as long as you are also using good fruits and veggies.

I would definitely start with the good gutloading and a better dusting schedule and see how he does for a little bit. If it's a mild imbalance then better nutrition and using a UVB 5.0 bulb that's less than 6 months old may be enough to pull him back together. But if he gets any worse you should take him to the vet to evaluate his calcium levels and maybe get calcium injections. First step is getting his diet and UVB on track!

 

[torizazu]

Sounds like a plan--How long should I give him to improve? His UVB is currently a 5.0 and it's only about a month and a half old, so he should be good in that department since it is on for 12 hours daily. So, new schedule:

calcium w/o d3 or phosphorus every day and then add herpavite a few times a week plus calcium with d3 twice a month?

 

[kinyonga]

If the chameleon does have MBD it needs to be corrected and then the supplements done in the way described to keep things in balance.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

If the chameleon does have MBD it needs to be corrected and then the supplements done in the way described to keep things in balance.

Do you think he should go ahead and take him in for possible injections/treatments now? I don't have experience with a case of MBD personally, especially one manifesting in this way. I know some mild cases can be warded off by good husbandry and nutrition, is this case too risky for that?

 

[kinyonga]

If you take it to a vet the vet can run some tests to tell for sure that it is MBD and if it is he/she can give it injections of calcium until the blood levels are high enough...and then give it an injection of calcitonin to bring the calcium back into the bones quickly. If its mild you might get away with just giving it some liquid calcium gluconate or sandoz for a while in addition to the regular supplementing suggested.

 

[torizazu]

So... I talked to my vet again today and she suspects this problem is caused by a lack of phosphorus in his diet which she says inhibits his calcium absorption. She suggested I administer "carnivore emergency" which has calcium and phosphorus and other vitamins and calories for a few days, then dust his crickets with a 2:1 calcium phosphorus powder. I asker her about the calcium injections but she said since he only weighs 18 grams it is very difficult to administer and could be fatal Guess we will see where this goes...

Thoughts?

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Wait...she thinks there is a lack of phosphorus? Since phosphorus inhibits calcium absorption it is usually a problem with too much phosphorus which is interfering adequate calcium levels and causing MBD...

kingyonga, thoughts on this suggestion?

 

[kinyonga]

Did the vet run any tests to determine the phos. and calcium levels?

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

If she doesn't even want to give an injection I doubt she drew blood.