What is this behavior? She will sit under the basking lamp and hold her mouth open. Basking Temp is less than 85 degrees.

[dksengineering]

 

[kinyonga]

I see you have her by the window….are you sure the temperature is less than 85F? 85F is a little warm anyway IMHO.

Does she make any wheezing sounds? Only do it under the light?

 

[dksengineering]

I see you have her by the window….are you sure the temperature is less than 85F? 85F is a little warm anyway IMHO.

Does she make any wheezing sounds? Only do it under the light?

she is by the window but the temps inside the cage stay around 75 during the day. She has plenty of shade and comes and goes all day all over the enclosure. There's been no wheezing. She only does this when under the basking light. she will open her mouth for about a half minute to a minute then close it for a bit, then repeat.

 

[Steve A]

she is by the window but the temps inside the cage stay around 75 during the day. She has plenty of shade and comes and goes all day all over the enclosure. There's been no wheezing. She only does this when under the basking light. she will open her mouth for about a half minute to a minute then close it for a bit, then repeat.

I think your quickest way to rule out something other than temps being too high is to simply lower the temps in her basking area and see if this stops or lessens.

My male panther does this when basking for a second or two. Sometimes a few seconds, but not really that often anymore. He used to do it more when I incorrectly had his basking area too high and as soon as I lowered it, I noticed a change (doing it less) immediately.

 

[dksengineering]

I think your quickest way to rule out something other than temps being too high is to simply lower the temps in her basking area and see if this stops or lessens.

My male panther does this when basking for a second or two. Sometimes a few seconds, but not really that often anymore. He used to do it more when I incorrectly had his basking area too high and as soon as I lowered it, I noticed a change (doing it less) immediately.

Will do. Thanks much

 

[ChamelaChameleon]

Carmelo- greedy Cham -does this to beg for food. It's more like 30sec to less than 1 minute and only when I'm tending to the feeders. He knows it's not his feeding day or time. Yes he's spoiled. Sometimes I give in and drop him a feeder. Which means I just reinforced the behavior and it's not going away.

 

[MissSkittles]

Just curious how you’re measuring temps at her basking area. Temp guns are great, but only show surface temps. Usually a digital thermometer with a probe end is the most accurate.

 

[dksengineering]

I set my Govee digital Thermometer in the place where she would perch and waited until the reading settled out.

 

[Beman]

I would suggest getting a wired probe with gauge to put in at the basking branch. I am willing to bet temps are much hotter than you realize especially since you said she is only doing this while basking. That is a tell tell sign that she is too hot. With a little girl you want to keep temps max 80 at basking as well.