Bone Disease??

moanachameleon

moanachameleon

New Member
please help... my 10 month old chameleon supposedly has a bone disease from not enough calcium. (according to the vet) So i am giving her .5mm of liquid calcium and hand feeding her about 6 small crickets a day and giving 2 half warm water half pedalyte baths each day. Her back legs are still swollen and she hasn’t laid any eggs it’s been 5 days now and she seems the same. She isn’t skinny and still has good color but when i take her outside sometimes her whole tongue will come out but goes back in at some point. I’m not sure what else i can do to help her or if i’m doing anything wrong?
 
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Can she retract her tongue?
Why are you giving her baths with pedialite?
What SPECIFIC supplements are you using and how often for each...I particularly want to know if they have D3 or vitamin A in them...also calcium and phos.
What UVB light are you using?
Please post some photos of the cage too.
Does she have a laybin in the cage?
 
the vet had told us to give her baths twice a day with pedialite and water. we have 2 uv lights set up one above the cage and one on the side. The liquid calcium he gave is called “calcium gluconate 10%” he said give .5mm once a day. As for a laybin the lady at petco who has a chameleon said to put moss on all the bottom of her cage so she could dig and lay eggs.
 
If you don't answer the questions it makes it hard for me to help you.
What is the brand name, strength of the UVB light? It is a UVB right?
So the only supplement you have is the calcium...you haven't been using any before that? What do you feed the chameleon? What do you feed to the insects that you feed the chameleon?

I would remove the moss ASAP. I'm worried that she could ingest it and become impacted.
 
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Did you buy this cham from Petco? If so, I would immediately forget everything that store told you about chams. I'm surprised the lady's own chameleon is still alive. They are obviously clueless and probably set you up to fail this poor female. Literally directly above your OP on the forum there's a sticky message titled "How to Ask for Help". The answers to those husbandry questions will help us understand what care you give her now so we can help you correct everything that's wrong. This is so unnecessary and infuriating. The correct care information is readily available but so many stores/staff make no effort to put it in the right hands of new owners. New owners don't question what they are told so they don't find it either. Many times the stores don't even carry the correct equipment or supplies for the animals they sell.

Preventing and correcting Metabolic Bone Disease involves giving proper supplements on the right schedule, proper lighting, and proper gutloading of her feeder insects. All of those aspects might need to be changed. To get you started, please read the Basic Husbandry article and Veiled Chameleon care sheet located under the Resources tab at the top of the forum. Lots of great information and you can compare what you were told to that.
 
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The UVB and the basking lights should be at the top of the cage.
What is the temperature under the basking light at the spot where the chameleon can sit to bask?

Your cage needs lots more branches and plants. When you have a veiled the plants should be real, non toxic and well washed...both sides of the leaves because veileds, especially females eat plants sometimes.

How are you providing water for her?

Once you move the lights please tell me what the temperatures in the cage under the basking light and the rest of the cageare.

For a lay bin you need an opaque container at least 12" X 12"X 9" filled with washed playsand that is moist enough to hold a tunnel. In her present condition she won't be able to dig a hole and may not even to be able to lay eggs if she needs to...so I would dig a hole for her. The bin needs to stay in the cage.

There's more to discuss about husbandry...but this is enough for now.

When a chameleon has MBD (bone disease) her bones are weaker and thinner and break easily. The muscles are also compromised which likely is why her tongue is coming out. The nutrients need to be provided for her and brought back into balance for her to heal...so in addition to giving her the calcium (be careful not to get it in her lungs) she needs, proper UVB lighting, proper temperatures, proper watering, healthy insects that are well fed/gutloaded and supplements dusted properly in the insects.

For dusting it's recommended that you use a phos free calcium powder at almost all the feedings lightly. Twice a month dust lightly with a phos free calcium/D3 powder, and twice a month with a vitamin powder that contains a prOformed beta carotene source of vitamin A. PrEformed sources of vitamin A can build up in the system...so thisleaves it up to you to decide if it ever needs preformed vitamin A. D3 from supplements can also build up in the system so we just use it twice a month and let the chameleon produce all the rest of the D3 it needs from its exposure to the UVB.

The insects like crickets, roaches, locusts, superworms can be fed
Dandelion greens, kale, collards, endive, escarole, squash, zucchini, carrots, sweet potato, sweet red pepper, etc.

Can she eat the way she is? If not there is a recipe for bug juice that you can feed her but if you water or feed her in the condition she's in, you have to be sure she doesn't aspirated the water...get it in her lungs.

Bug juice...
https://www.adcham.com/html/husbandry/bug-juice.html

I'm not a vet, but I see no purpose in pedialite baths...just my opinion.
 
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i feed her crickets and the calcium is the only thing the vet told me to give until she’s better then use calcium powder on the crickets. as for the uvb i have 2 one is the reptisun 5.0 uvb and the other is the zilla 25 uvb t8 fluorescent bulb durning the day the cage is around high 80s and at night low 70s. I feed her the crickets by putting them in her mouth as told to by the vet and she can retract her tongue but most the time only a small portion of the tip is out. i have no removed all the moss and put the sand in and moved the lamp above the cage. As for feeding the crickets we don’t feed them as soon as they die we go out but new ones and throw the dead ones away.
 
If you don't feed the crickets then you're not giving your chameleon a good food source....and if you looked after the crickets it would save you money. Do you put al the crickets in the cage with the chameleon at once?

You can put a small lie of the same things I said to feed the insects with in the bottom of the cage so the crickets have something to eat at all times...but don't leave it there to rot.

I explained the proper supplements above...and they should be done even when you're giving the chameleon the liquid calcium. If the chameleon doesn't have enough D3 either from the UVB light or direct sunlight (not passing through glass) or enough D3 supplement, the calcium is useless....the D3 is needed for the chameleon to be able to get the calcium back into the bones as well as the other things D3 does. Since you aren't feeding /gutloading the insects you are feeding the chameleon food that is not very useful to the chameleon and she will become deficient....and all of this is why your chameleon has MBD now...so if you don't correct it she will die...soon.

How re you providing her water???

How old are you?
 
If you have a plastic container about 12" X 12" X 9" you can make a setup to keep your crickets in and they will live for a while.
 
She goes outside on good sunny days for 30 minutes in the sun with shade if needed. I have a water drip set up from the side of the cage as you can see in the first picture i sent. When she was well i would put medium crickets in the cage and she would eat them with no problem now i hand feed her small crickets because the vet said to and said her mouth was swollen. The pet store gave us “fluckers orange cube complete cricket diet” to put in to help the crickets and we buy about 25-50 everytime and they last around a week or so depending on how much i feed each day. The crickets live in a pretty good size plastic container with egg crates to separate them. Before all this she ate fine with no problems at all now she acts like she can barely chew the small crickets i feed her. So my thinking is if she can barely chew the crickets i don’t know if she’ll be able to chew the harder stuff mentioned and i am having to put it in her mouth myself. (as told to by the vet)
 
to add on i put her in the sand with the hole already dug and she pooped. She hasn’t done that since she’s been sick so is that a good sign or is that normal ?
 
First and most important thing you need to do is disregard everything that the pet store told you. They have no clue and their advice has sickened and killed many chameleons. Second and just as important is to listen to @kinyonga who has years of experience successfully keeping chams.
 
You said..."She goes outside on good sunny days for 30 minutes in the sun with shade if needed"... That's good!

You said..." I have a water drip set up from the side of the cage as you can see in the first picture i sent"... I still don't see the dripper...but I'm glad you have one. I hope she uses it.

You said..."When she was well i would put medium crickets in the cage and she would eat them with no problem now i hand feed her small crickets because the vet said to and said her mouth was swollen"... That makes sense. The bug juice would be even easier for her because it's more liquid I think.

You said..."The pet store gave us “fluckers orange cube complete cricket diet” to put in to help the crickets"... That stuff is not much good..the veggies and greens would be better for the crickets.

You said..." we buy about 25-50 everytime and they last around a week or so depending on how much i feed each day" at the age she is she should be fed NORMALLY 5 adult criclet's every second or third day. Over feeding a female veiled can lead to obesity, MBD, prolapsing, etc. and to producing large clutches which usually result in egg binding or follicular stasis.

You said.."The crickets live in a pretty good size plastic container with egg crates to separate them"...and no food? The container is good though.

You said ..."Before all this she ate fine with no problems at all now she acts like she can barely chew the small crickets i feed her. So my thinking is if she can barely chew the crickets i don’t know if she’ll be able to chew the harder stuff mentioned and i am having to put it in her mouth myself. (as told to by the vet)"... Of course since her tongue is swollen and her mouth is hurting she's not going to be able to eat easily..which is why I gave you a link to the bug juice. What harder stuff was mentioned for her to eat?

I hope you can get her back on track soon.
 
I don't know anything about females, but I do understand MBD (I think) her legs look a bit wonky to me?

Also in reference to another poster.. why does it matter how old an owner is? does being too old or too young automatially make us stupid owners? please tell me what is the BEST age to own a chameleon ... FFS
 
You said..."Also in reference to another poster.. why does it matter how old an owner is? does being too old or too young automatially make us stupid owners? please tell me what is the BEST age to own a chameleon"...it matters because if the OP is 10 I'm going to explain it a little different than if the OP is 40....that's all.
 
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