Tongue not sticking to feeders while shooting

[javsto]

After I woke up this mornnig and turn on my chams basking lamp and after several minutes of warming up, my vieled attempted to shoot for a superworm four times with zero success. By success I mean that he shot for them but while his tongue did make contact it didnt seem to stick to the super and he gave up after the fourth attempt. I misted his cage for five minutes all over including directly on him and I did see him lick a couple of the leaves before he tried to shoot for his snack. Is there something wrong with his tongue or is that something normal?

 

[Pilotman800]

Can you fill out the how to ask for help form? It's located in the how to ask for help thread. I can't copy and paste it becaus I'm on my phone. It sounds like a deficiency of some sort.

 

[lumbasammler]

Hello,
that´s pretty normal after drinking.
I had the same thing with my dilepis. Simply wait 15 min or so after giving him water and everything should be okay.
Just try this and you´ll know.

 

[KarmaChameleon1337]

Where did you hear that? I've never heard of a chameleon's tongue not being sticky just because it had just drinken water.

 

[lumbasammler]

I didn´t only hear that (from a person with a huge experience in keeping chameleons),
i also made this experience myself.
I used to always give my guy water before feeding, because he would accept it better this way.
After drinking, his tongue would sometimes not stick to the feeders as it usually did so i asked for help in a german chameleon-forum.
I got the tip to wait a couple minutes before feeding him and everything was good again.

 

[chameleoman]

Get him to a vet my cham has that and his first syptoms were that and now he's on antibiotics with needeles cause I didn't take him the first time and now it doesn't even shoot and inch out so get him to a vet

 

[lumbasammler]

To be honest taking him to a vet now would probably do more harm than good.
I´d just try the method mentioned above the next time you feed him and see what happens.
You can still take him to the vet if this doesn´t work so relax a little.

 

[jessica]

I didn´t only hear that (from a person with a huge experience in keeping chameleons),
i also made this experience myself.
I used to always give my guy water before feeding, because he would accept it better this way.
After drinking, his tongue would sometimes not stick to the feeders as it usually did so i asked for help in a german chameleon-forum.
I got the tip to wait a couple minutes before feeding him and everything was good again.

I've heard and seen this too.

Another reason I have seen a tongue not stick is mild dehydration

 

[ataraxia]

I've heard and seen this too.

Another reason I have seen a tongue not stick is mild dehydration

i second this. make sure your are providing him enough hydration. what does his feces/urates look like?

 

[sandrachameleon]

After I woke up this mornnig and turn on my chams basking lamp and after several minutes of warming up, my vieled attempted to shoot for a superworm four times with zero success. By success I mean that he shot for them but while his tongue did make contact it didnt seem to stick to the super and he gave up after the fourth attempt. I misted his cage for five minutes all over including directly on him and I did see him lick a couple of the leaves before he tried to shoot for his snack. Is there something wrong with his tongue or is that something normal?

i would not say this is normal, no.

If it only happened this once, dont worry about it. If it happens more often, you need to review your husbandry and take note of the details of the situation

Does your chameleon get plenty of water? What do the droppings look like (is the urate white, yellow, or worse orange?) failure of the tongue to stick can be a sign of dehydration.

Its also possible that there was too much supplement on the worm.

Another possibility is that the chameleon had just eaten something else or drank some water just prior to shooting at this particular worm, and the remnants in its mouth interfered.

If the aim is off, and getting worse, could be a deficency issue.