black freckle like spots on tail

[Rstuart]

she has spots on her tail that look freckle like.... pictures are attached

and she keeps hanging upside down from her branches and falling to the bottom of her cage








Chameleon Info:

Veiled, female, 4yrs almost 5 .we have had her for 3.5 to 4yrs

Handling - handle her once a day or once every 2nd day

Feeding - feed her crickets (about 10-15/day), meal worms (10 every couple days) and horn worms(2/week) sometimes silk worms

Supplements - useing Exo terra calcium on crickets everyday and Zoo meds reptivite with D3 once every couple weeks

Watering - she gets her water from an iv dripper,that we have hanging thru a hole at the top of her cage,
at least once a day we see her drink from it , misting with warm water once a day

Fecal Description - her fecses is dark brown and urates are white and yellow.

Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites? no.



Cage Info:

Cage Type - EXO TERRA 100gal flexarium

Lighting - Reptiglo 5.0 uvb - 2 60w lightbulbs for heat

Temperature - cage is always room temp from 15 - 20c basking spot is a little warmer around 23 - 25

Humidity - What are your humidity levels? at 80 most of the time

use exoterra humidity and thermometers

Plants - no real plants

Placement - Where is your cage located? in kitchen .... about 6'5'' to top of cage

Location - Where are you geographically located? edmonton alberta canada

Current Problem - she is hanging upside down alot and falling to the floor of her cage
she also has some black frekle like spots on her tail

 

[lindawaz]

Hello, I am sorry your cham is not feeling well. I do not have much experience in older chams. I am positive the more experienced keepers will be along to offer you some help. She is pretty

 

[ChameleonNerd]

Has she had mild MBD at any point. Her bone structure looks rather flimsy, and she has that MBD look going on - even though there are no apparent bends or breaks in her bones

 

[Rstuart]

i dont know shes never been to vet, never had any major problems like this before...

 

[ChameleonNerd]

could be age. you have a mildly unique supplementation schedule, but if that has worked for you for the past 3 years, i wouldn't be so quick to change that.

i would suggest a vet if you have not been though. if somebody else has any ideas, that would be great. all i can 100% say though is that you should take her to the vet a least for a checkup

 

[Rstuart]

what makes her supplementation schedule mildly unique? i'll look up a vet in my area...

 

[ChameleonNerd]

most people would do either a combo supplement or d3 twice a month. you do once every few weeks

 

[Rstuart]

uhh isnt that the same thing?

 

[carol5208]

most people would do either a combo supplement or d3 twice a month. you do once every few weeks

isnt every few weeks the same as twice a month???? So you have been feeding her everyday for all these years. Wow, that is alot of food for a female. how many clutches of eggs has she laid? I am seeing her front legs looking swollen. And maybe a little swelling on her neck. Maybe it is just the pictures. Do her legs always look like that?

 

[Solid Snake]

Thats what I was thinking.
I have seen people use the word couple loosely though

 

[Solid Snake]

Does the exo-terra calcium contain any D3? Or is it plain straight up calcium?

 

[Rstuart]

shes lays a new clutch every 4 months id say since we had her(we got her from the pet store when she was lil) well there are days when she doesnt get food, every other day or sumtimes or every 2nd...nd yes her neck nd legs r a lil swollen/puffy ...the exo terra calcium has no d3 just calcium

 

[Elizadolots]

Wow....you've gotten her through a lot of egg laying. You might want to trim back on her food intake. That can much egg laying can be hard on a female.

Which leads me to....she's older and has produced a lot of eggs. She probably needs to be viewed as a senior citizen at this point. If you haven't already padded the bottom of her cage, you should. You might also consider changing her situation so she doesn't have so far to fall.

 

[Rstuart]

we have pillows in garbage bags below her to catch her fall,and kinda sinorized her cage by manking branches thicker, we kind thought it could be old age!!

but what would be a concidered "perfect" feeding schedule?

 

[Elizadolots]

Well, for females, a very controlled diet that borders on under feeding is shown to reduce the size and frequency of egg laying.

It makes sense when you think about it. In a natural setting, it would be to their advantage to produce eggs only when the environmental situations were right for successful breeding/hatching....if you create too wonderful an environment, it's always a good time to lay eggs.

Kinyonga wrote a wonderful blog post about this, it's probably the standard for caring for female chameleons.

One note, you say you made branches thicker...can she still grip them?

 

[Rstuart]

yes she can grip them easier now that there not so skinny nd there arent very many big gaps to fall between