please help

I'm new here so I apologize if I make any mistakes in how I am supposed to post here. This is my first cham, so I'm obviously clueless.

I have a female chameleon, about 7 months old from what I was told when I got her. We looked it up and believe that she is a graceful, the lady I got her from wasnt sure.

When she came to us, the people we got her from had her in a glass horizontal cage with a rock and a stick in it, and nothing else. They got her because she was a gift to their nephew supposedly, that he didnt want. She got to them in a cardboard box. They handled her several times a day. She was fed gut-loaded, calcium dusted crickets and meal worms. She looked miserable, but healthy.

I brought her home, and am trying to get everything for her set up the way it should be. I am learning as I go so I know I am making mistakes. We dont handle her anymore, unless its necessary.

She will eat 4-6 crickets a day, those are gut-loaded with Fluker's orange cubes (thats what she came with) and dusted with Fluker's calcium powder with D3.

She is misted 3 or 4 times a day, I am just using a spray bottle for that, but I mist the cage until the leaves drip so she can drink. I never actually see her drink from the leaves though.

She has regular droppings in the cage, they are brown and white. They were brown and yellow when I got her.

I dont know if she has ever been tested for parasites. The people I got her from said they took her to the vet and she got a clean bill of health and that her nephew got her from a breeder, but I dont know for sure any of that is true.

I moved her into an 18x18x36in screen cage, which I put in an area that is calm and quiet. She is near a window, but there is no draft, and she seems to like basking in the indirect sunlight that comes in the window.

I dont know for sure what the temp and humidity ranges are, I didnt know I needed to be that precise about monitoring it. She gets misted regularly and has a heat lamp a few inches above the top of the cage. It gets about 70 degrees in the house at night, so that would be her coolest nighttime temp.

She has fake vines and plants in there now.

Yesterday she seemed fine, and she has been seeming happier since I got her. I woke up this morning and her left eye is very swollen. It doesnt look like there is an injury to the outside of the eye. I dont have a vet anywhere near here that can see her on the weekends, so I dont know what to do. She hasnt shed since I got her, so it's not from complications of shedding. The other eye appears completely normal.

Any help would be appreciated. I shouldnt have taken her since I dont know what I am doing, but she looked so sad in that tank with just a stick to sit on. I am trying to help her.

dont use the calcium with d3 every feeding only about twice a week regular calcium w/o d3 should be giving daily if u dont take the cham to get natty sun light if the cham gets a lot of natural unflitered sun light(glass filters out most uvb and uva rays ) than less d3 also the sell uvb bulbs(linear) repti sun 5.0 great for indoor use .

most home temps are great for chams 60F at night is fine basking area of 90f is a great temp too

not sure about the eye ingury but call petsmart and they will have a herp vet list also and some live plants too www.flchams.com has a safe plant list and tour theforum here thaat should help u a lot too welcome

Can you please post a picture? There aren't too many Graceful Chameleons out there, so you may have something different (a flapneck or senegal come to mind). It may be that yours is wc and not from a breeder (maybe ask the people who the breeder is so you can contact them). At any rate, shoot us a pic, and people will help you from there. We just need to know what species you have first.

Hello, welcome to the forum. We are all here to try to help you so taking that girl was most likely the best thing for both of you, I think you will find you can get very attached to your chameleon.

If you could post pictures we have member who will be able to tell you what kind of chameleon, and possibly an approximate age. If you are unable to post a picture of your cham do a search on the net for gracefuls, flapnecks, if that doesn't match your chameleon, search for chameleon pictures as a topic and look at several to try to determine what you have.

Temps are different for different chameleons so knowing what type you have and where you are located will also assist us in offering advice/opinions.

Your cage size sounds good, a few live plants help with maintaining humidity. A loy of us use pothos, ficus & umbrella plants. When you get alive plant we will explain how to get it chameleon friendly.

There is a lot more info you will need, but if you can tell us the kind of cham that will get all of us on track.

pics





I am not very tech smart so I hope the pics show up right, the first picture is her with her normal sized right eye showing, she is dark in the picture since I picked her up, normally she is a light green unless she is basking then she turns a darker green or brownish color.

The second picture is her left eye. It's hugely swollen, and looks very bulged out. It wasnt like this when I checked on her about 11 last night, but it was like this when I got up at 7 this morning, so it did that in about 8 hours. It looks horrible, I am afraid she is going to be blind now or something.

I love having her and I really hope it isnt something that I have done that has caused this, I feel terrible.

I will get her a real plant and a UVB bulb, and adjust her temp and humidity to the right level once I figure out what she is exactly. I will look at the other types that you all have suggested and see what I can find out.

Do I only dust with calcium twice a week? Or just with the D3 twice a week, and calcium without it the rest of the time?

I tried flushing her eye out with water, but if there is something in it, it hast come out yet. I cleaned everything in her cage in case maybe there was something in there that had bateria on it that might have gotten in and irritated her eye.

She hasnt eatten anything today, the left eye is swollen shut so I dont think she can see, should I try to hand feed her?

Ok I looked at the other kinds and from what I can tell she is actually a flapneck chameleon, sorry. My husband was the one who looked it up, she does have a similiar color pattern to the gracefuls I saw but she has the skin that comes down over the neck that the gracefuls do not have. Sorry about that.

You are correct she is a flapneck , often they are miss labeled that is why I suggested you look at both.

Supplements, use calcium with NO d3 every other feeding, calcium with d3 2 x a month & herptavite 2 x a month.

About all you can do with the eye is spray her as much a possible and see if she can clear it. You might give her a shower. Put her in the shower on a plant - your fake ones are fine. Use warm water (not hot) and bounce it off the walls onto your cham, don't have it hit directly on your cham. I would try 15 minutes if you cage get her to stay in that long. If not mist, mist, & more misting it about it for now. Most likely she will clear up her eye on her own. Let me know how it goes.

Does she sit with her mouth open at all? Wheeze or make popping noises when she breaths?

Where do you live? (If you live in an area where its a cool/cold climate then it could be a respiratory infection from being near the window at night.) There are other reasons for an eye to look like that though...so seeing the vet IMHO is a good idea.

I purchased a Flapneck cham some months ago, and found all the info I needed for temp, humidity, enclosure size, etc. For the life of me I can't find it. Here's a link that might interest you: http://chameleonnews.com/06SepDeckers.html
I bought it already sick from improper care at a pet store, and it died in less than a month, which is why I don't have any specific info to give you. If I find the link I will definitely send it to you.

I gave her a shower, which she seemed to really enjoy. She hates it when I mist her enclousre but she seemed happy soaking in the shower. I am misting her often.

We live in Oklahoma, so it is getting fairly cool outside at night, but I checked before I put her next to the window and it doesnt get cold there. There's no draft or cold spot.

She doesnt sit with her mouth open, or make any odd noises when she breathes unless she is hissing at me.

Hopefully she will be ok until I can get her into a vet Monday.

Let's just hope for the best. Let me know if there are any changes before you go to the vet and lye me know what the vet is able to tell you.

There are places around her eye where the skin pigment is yellow instead of green, and the neck flap on that side is swollen now too. It looks like it may be an infection that is behind the eye pushing it out and its spreading. I am calling like a crazy person trying to find a reptile vet open on Sundays. Is it better to take her to a vet that might not be as experienced with reptiles (just a regular vet) or no vet at all?

Hi i am new to this but i need some help please.
I have two Yemen Chameleons both female about 1 year old (i have had them 5 months) they are from the same batch.
I have a problem with one of them not eating she hasn't ate for 10 days as far as i have seen whereas the other one eats anything i put in there. The one not eating use to eat crickets and locusts with no trouble now nothing. She drinks water from the water bowl they both do and i mist them 3 times a day. She doesn't look in bad condition still a good colour and not thin but just not eating. Has anybody got any ideas please.

suescliff said:

Hi i am new to this but i need some help please.
I have two Yemen Chameleons both female about 1 year old (i have had them 5 months) they are from the same batch.
I have a problem with one of them not eating she hasn't ate for 10 days as far as i have seen whereas the other one eats anything i put in there. The one not eating use to eat crickets and locusts with no trouble now nothing. She drinks water from the water bowl they both do and i mist them 3 times a day. She doesn't look in bad condition still a good colour and not thin but just not eating. Has anybody got any ideas please.

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Welcome to the forums both of you! Suescliff, it would be better if you started your own post so the information and help people try to give won't be confused with two different issues from two different people. When you start your own post please fill this out: https://www.chameleonforums.com/how-ask-help-66/ so we have more information to give you better answers.

aschultz said:

There are places around her eye where the skin pigment is yellow instead of green, and the neck flap on that side is swollen now too. It looks like it may be an infection that is behind the eye pushing it out and its spreading. I am calling like a crazy person trying to find a reptile vet open on Sundays. Is it better to take her to a vet that might not be as experienced with reptiles (just a regular vet) or no vet at all?

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I would wait for a vet experienced with exotics. You should be fine to wait until tomorrow and a vet not having reptile experience might spend the whole day just looking up what it is and how to maybe fix it anyway. So you'll just spend extra money (especially at an emergency vet) and her eye isn't going to explode in meantime.

Once you get a vet visit taken care of just a few things to help you in the future: I didn't see a UVB light mentioned in your setup so make sure you get one so she doesn't develop metabolic bone disease. They have to have UVB rays to metabolize calcium and UVB does not go through glass so it's not enough to have her near a window. Also be careful being near a window that it doesn't get too hot in her cage. Probably not a problem in the winter but once you get a thermometer and hygrometer you'll be able to keep better track of that.

The orange flukers cubes are definitely not a suitable gutload. You need to be adding fresh fruits and veggies in addition to other nutrients. Do some research on gutloading by searching these forums for more info on that and if you have any questions about what to use please ask!
I hope you find a good vet and everything turns out okay with your new cham! You're doing a great job already taking her out of a very bad environment! We can answer more questions if you have them

OK I just walked in the door, we drove 2 hours to a 24 hour emergency vet hospital with an "exotic pets" vet. It was the closest thing I could get to a reptile vet. They said she is on the skinny side, and just generally not in very good shape, which doesnt surprise me much.

They said the swelling extends into her mouth (she wont gape at me because she was handled so often and I didnt know that her mouth was swollen too) which is part of why she stopped eating. They drained some of the fuid from around her eye because it was so swollen. They wanted to get rid of some of the pressure and see what was in it. She said it came out a yellowish fluid, but it was not pus.

The vet said that she wasnt 100% sure what caused the swelling, that maybe she had ruptured a gland or something. They gave her some subcutaneous fluids and a Vitamin B shot.

I came home with strawberry flavored Baytril antibiotics with a dose of 0.06 mls daily, Metacam to help with the inflamation 0.1 mls, Calglucon calcium syrup to give her a boost she said because of the bad conditions that she was kept in, and some Carnivore Care Repti-Aide stuff to feed her since she isnt eating.


She told me to get her a dripper, UV light, and soak her in a shallow warm water bath for 15 minutes a day till she gets better.

I am also going to rearrange some furniture and try to get her away from the window due to the temp concerns.

I didnt get the post about not taking her till I had already left, so I am not giving her anything until I get some feedback on what they told me to do.

I'm sorry I don't have any advice re the meds, but I commend you for the action you are taking, and how you are caring for your cham. I hope this turns out for the best, but if not you seem to be giving your all, and no one can do better than that. Good luck to both of you.

aschultz said:

OK I just walked in the door, we drove 2 hours to a 24 hour emergency vet hospital with an "exotic pets" vet. It was the closest thing I could get to a reptile vet.

She told me to get her a dripper, UV light, and soak her in a shallow warm water bath for 15 minutes a day till she gets better.

I didnt get the post about not taking her till I had already left, so I am not giving her anything until I get some feedback on what they told me to do.

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Well at least it was a vet that had some knowledge about reptiles/exotics! I just feared for you taking her to a dog/cat only vet, they tend to be just a fascinated by the cham as we are, but that's about it. What she said for you to do sounds like a good plan for now, and what the vet did was good medicine. The dripper and UV light are definitely good ideas but soaking a cham isn't going to do much for her. That's excellent advice for lizards that live on their bellies, snakes and turtles, but for a cham that will only stress them out and get their feet wet. A better alternative would be to bounce warm water off the shower wall at her like you have been doing. Hand feeding a cham can be too stressful for them so I would definitely try to get her to eat live crickets with better gutload if you can because stressing her out more will slow her healing. If she won't eat those after a few days I'd try to force feed. Great job getting her the help she needs, hopefully she'll be more comfortable with some of the pressure on her eye relieved until the vet/you can figure out what caused it. Good luck and keep us updated!

Thanks everyone for the advice, I am amazed at how quickly everyone in my family got attached to her, she is our favorite pet. My husband is stationed overseas and he is already making plans for building on to her enclosure and everything when he gets home and he asks me to take the webcam in so he can watch her eat.

Her eye is still swollen but the fluid is still draining some from where the vet drained it, so at least it isnt getting worse.

I will switch back to showers then, she didnt seem to mind the bath but I think thats probably due more to her not feeling well, she's not very energetic right now.

I will try giving her some crickets in a bowl, she wont usually eat them out of a bowl, but it would make them easier for her to see. I think the vet recommended hand feeding because she already a little underweight. She went through a little hunger strike from the stress of me moving her into my house, and she was already a bit on the skinny side. She hasnt had time to put the weight back on. She was eating several crickets a day, but she wont touch her worms. I have tried mealworms (which is what the people I got her from said they fed her) and superworms, but no luck with either of them. The crazy lady that had her said the worms have more calories in them, so I thought maybe that was why she was gaining the weight back so slowly. Is it still best to wait to hand feed her if she is already too skinny? I fed her a little bit today when I gave her the meds since the stuff that they gave me to feed her is adminitered in exactly the same way as the meds. It makes a kind of brown thick liquid that you give orally out of a medicine syringe. I didnt give her very much of it.

I am going to look at the other forums and try to get my gut-loading/feeding and enclosure issues worked out. I'm not sure of the forum etiquette here, so if I have issues about those things do I post a new threads in the appropriate forum or keep them all here on one thread? I moved her enclosure away from the window and put it on the other side of the room so thats one problem solved.

Here's some information you might like to read.....
Exposure to proper UVB, appropriate temperatures, supplements, a supply of well-fed/gutloaded insects, water and an appropriate cage set-up are all important for the well-being of your chameleon.

Appropriate cage temperatures aid in digestion and thus play a part indirectly in nutrient absorption.

Exposure to UVB from either direct sunlight or a proper UVB light allows the chameleon to produce D3 so that it can use the calcium in its system to make/keep the bones strong and be used in other systems in the chameleon as well. The UVB should not pass through glass or plastic no matter whether its from the sun or the UVB light. The most often recommended UVB light is the long linear fluorescent Repti-sun 5.0 tube light. Some of the compacts, spirals and tube lights have caused health issues, but so far there have been no bad reports against this one.

Since many of the feeder insects have a poor ratio of calcium to phosphorus in them, its important to dust the insects before you feed them to the chameleon with a phos.-free calcium powder to help make up for it.

If you dust twice a month with a phos.-free calcium/D3 powder it will ensure that your chameleon gets some D3 without overdoing it. It leaves the chameleon to produce the rest of what it needs through its exposure to the UVB light. (Some UVB lights have been known to cause health issues, so the most often recommended one is the long linear fluorescent Repti-sun 5.0 tube light.) D3 from supplements can build up in the system but D3 produced from exposure to UVB shouldn't as long as the chameleon can move in and out of it.

Dusting twice a month with a vitamin powder that contains a beta carotene (prOformed) source of vitamin A will ensure that the chameleon gets some vitamins without the danger of overdosing the vitamin A. PrEformed sources of vitamin A can build up in the system and may prevent the D3 from doing its job and push the chameleon towards MBD. However, there is controversy as to whether all/any chameleons can convert the beta carotene and so some people give some prEformed vitamin A once in a while.

Gutloading/feeding the insects well helps to provide what the chameleon needs....so its important too. I gutload crickets, roaches, locusts, superworms, etc. with an assortment of greens (dandelions, kale, collards, endive, escarole, mustard greens, etc.) and veggies (carrots, squash, sweet potato, sweet red pepper, zucchini, etc.)

Calcium, phos., D3 and vitamin A are important players in bone health and other systems in the chameleon (muscles, etc.) and they need to be in balance. When trying to balance them, you need to look at the supplements, what you feed the insects and what you feed the chameleon.

Here are some good sites for you to read...
http://chameleonnews.com/07FebWheelock.html
http://web.archive.org/web/200605020...Vitamin.A.html
http://web.archive.org/web/200604210...d.Calcium.html
http://www.uvguide.co.uk/
http://raisingkittytheveiledchameleon.blogspot.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/200601140...ww.adcham.com/