Veiled issue

Greengodd

New Member
Greetings;

My wife has a female Veiled chameleon , 1 year old, that has not been eating to much as of late.
We found her on the floor of her cage about 1 week ago and thought she might be looking for a nest and we placed a container with a recomended substrate. She normally sleeps on the side of the cage behind the folage. While keeping a close eye on her we noticed that she hadn't pooped in a day or so and then 1 day later we found a yellow pile on the floor and a white substance on her rectum area. This AM she was found on top of her water collection container (screen covered) with her mouth open catching water.

Her color has been normal but she has not been walking around lots.
In looking on the NET I found info about dehradration and showering. It metioned about sunken eyes and hers might be slightly sunken so we have been trying to hydrate her with warm showers.


She is in a mesh inclosure with fake leaves and branches inside. During the day she has a UV light and basking light on for 12 hours temp between 90-100and at night she has night heat lampstemps around 70. lately it has been cold here and about 2 months ago we added a second nightlight that stayes on all the time to keep the room warm. We have a drip system that drips down some leaves and then is collected and drained to a container out of the cage. The H2O stays on during the day and the leaves are sprayed with water a couple times a day. We also use Stress ease and a vitiman spray. She eats 4-6 meduim dusted crickets every other day. The cage is located in a den that is rarely used and the door stays closed.


Scott
 
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Hi Scott, welcome to the Chameleon Forums :)

It sounds like at the minimum your chameleon is dehydrated. The yellow in her stool is a sign that she definitely needs more fluids. How is she taking to the showers?

Her food intake is too low. She should be eating at least 3-4 times what she is currently eating. Introducing a variety of feeders can help. I recommend adding silkworms and a few other feeders to her current cricket diet. What are you feeding the crickets and what are you dusting them with?

Considering she probably recently became sexually mature, there may be related problems that you are unaware of. I do not have much experience with female chams and the complexity they add.

With all these variables I would probably take the cham to an experienced veterinarian to have her checked out.
 
Info

Greetings;

She is OK with the showers , one last night and on first thing this AM, she has been opening her mouth to drink water. Her eyes are looking better and are not as sunken. We do not have the funds for a vet. We have tried to vary her diet but she wouldn't eat them, live wax worms, silk worms from a can a no go. We are going out to get Pedalite to help the dehydration.

We use Flukers gut load and Herpcare cricket dust.


Thanks for your reply.
Scott and Kathi
and our Leaf thanks you.
 
Some of her behaviors remind me a lot of my corey, in her early stages before she died. She had a blockage in her intestines. My vet told me (and I never had the chance to try it myself, bc she died only an hour after we brought her home after spending a couple days in the hospital) that she recommended, for chameleons that might have impactions and were not yet serious, to increase warmth and movement because that would increase gut motility. Her suggestion was a warm bath, rather than shower, in this situation. Not enough to drown your chameleon, and that it would certainly need CLOSE supervision. But she suggested that I put some fairly warm water in a container, enough to encourage her to move around a lot (sort of swim), but not enough to drown her. According to her it didn't stress Corey out, so it would have worked well.
The more drastic measure (though it does require going to a vet) was an enema.
 
Greetings;

She is now in a bath and we are gving her some watered down pedialite by syinge. She is not to active and her tongue is sometimes out but she can retract it. We are holding her in the water and like I said she is not too active and lust wants to lay around. The water is warming her up.

Scott
 
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