Two lost toenails in two days

[Erica1884]

My veiled male is a little over a year old. I just upgraded his 18x18x36 to a 24X24X48. They were both Reptibreeze cages. My little fella is notorious for climbing on the screen, I have vines and sticks everywhere to try to deter him from doing so. He has never lost a nail before and now that he is in the new set up two are missing. I also put his cage by the window and am noticing that he will scratch at the screen by the window more frequently.... Is there anything I can do to prevent more nails being lost? Should I put some sort of ointment on the lost nails to prevent infection? Tia

 

[Randall-the-Chameleon]

I don't know how to prevent infection but if you catch him on the screen any more I would as a last resort tie flat sticks up the cage walls (not the door so you can still watch him) every few inches or at a length were he can easily grab the next stick. If he loses claws at this rate he will not be able to climb in a week at all. I just redid my 24-24-48 cage yesterday, I used an embroidery needle and thick thread to string sticks to the cage.

 

[Erica1884]

I don't know how to prevent infection but if you catch him on the screen any more I would as a last resort tie flat sticks up the cage walls (not the door so you can still watch him) every few inches or at a length were he can easily grab the next stick. If he loses claws at this rate he will not be able to climb in a week at all. I just redid my 24-24-48 cage yesterday, I used an embroidery needle and thick thread to string sticks to the cage.

I picked up some larger spaced chicken wire type screening I am going to try zip tying it around the inside and hope that helps. Thanks for the advice

 

[absolutbill]

I use plastic chicken wire (I have no idea what it's really called!), which has about 1" squares but is plastic. I zip tie that over the screen walls of the cage so that if your guy feels he HAS to climb the walls then at least his weight is a little more evenly distributed. My veiled loves this, but just got down from the top between the screen side and the plastic so I had to rescue him. It's the first time he's done that - thank goodness my Dragonstrand cage will be here next month!

 

[Andee]

The new cage size may be making him more stressed out at the moment which may be the reason he's climbing more often and maybe more frantic. Hopefully he will calm down in a few weeks. With the help of the chicken wire hopefully he can not lose anymore in between the time.