Young Male Veiled Dead - Why?

NDeuser

New Member
About two days ago I found my young male Veiled (~10 months old) late in the evening with a large, grey mass sticing out of his mouth. His light was on late, so I wasn't sure if it was a large moth he had caught and couldn't swallow or if it was actually his tongue, somehow infected and now a dark grey color, or if it was possibly regurgitated food due to some sort of bowel impaction. Days before this I did notice that he was getting pretty fat, but seemed otherwise healthy. So anyway, I didn;t try to remove this object from his mouth due to fear of inducing more harm than good, especially if it was his tongue. In any case, the next day I put him outside in the sun (where he has spent the last two months) along with his mercury vapor bulb and water dripper. The lights went out around 6pm but I didn't get time to check on him that night due to a baseball game. This morning I go to check on him and he is dead at the bottom of his cage and pretty well rotten already. His body looked as though he had been laying on the bottom for a while before he died. The mass in his mouth seemes to be mostly gone, but his whole belly was quite bloated and blackened. Does this sound like a bowel impaction/infection that killed him, possibly dehydration cause as it turns out his dripper didn;t drip at all since the day before and it did get pretty hot, or something else. Could he have gone to the bottom to avoid the heat and look for water? Could somethign he ingested still have been alive and caused damage to his intestine and therefore create infection or impaction? I feel like he would be able to spit out any bug he couldn;t swallow, but maybe not.
 
First lett me tell you an I so sorry your chameleond died.

It sounds like that he had eather a problem with breathing, hence forth the tonque sticking out.

Or he eat something that he could not swalow, what do you use for bedding?

A vet can do a autopsie for you, but they are expensive and most vets do not have a lot of xp with chameleons.
 
Back
Top Bottom