Born With Defective Tongue???

[gratefulj]

So come to find out my boy ambilobe Wallee, I believe has a defective tongue. I got him about a month ago, and always noticed him running up to feeders and "licking" them up off the screen wall, hence his name Wallee. At first, I didn't really think much of it but as time has gone by and I have observed him feeding more and more.. I've noticed he cannot properly or effectively shoot his tongue. In fact I haven't seen him successfully shoot and capt a feeder in his mouth but maybe once or twice when I first got him and it was from a very short almost "can't miss distance" .. He still has an intense appetite but he has to work extremley hard for his meal, chasing around his feeders every inch til he corners them. I'm pretty concerned, imagining this could shorten his life-span by quite a bit I would think. What is everyone's input on this? Any experiences with chams who had this type of defective tongue? Did it shorten their life?

 

[K9Luvn]

I am so sorry to hear about your cham having problems with his tongue. I remember hearing about a couple people that had issues with their tongues on the forum... but can't remember exactly who it was.

 

[moviemanmania]

My blue bar has a defective tongue. He was hatched with it also. I now handfeed and he's an adult now at about 14months old. I tried changing his supplement(s), reptaid, spoke with breeders, the whole nine yards. Everyone I've talked to says its just the luck of the draw with baby panthers.

I wonder if this isn't a result of years of captive breeding or inline breeding to enhance a chams colors. Have always wondered what the ratio of CB cases would be to those in the wild.

 

[gratefulj]

My blue bar has a defective tongue. He was hatched with it also. I now handfeed and he's an adult now at about 14months old. I tried changing his supplement(s), reptaid, spoke with breeders, the whole nine yards. Everyone I've talked to says its just the luck of the draw with baby panthers.

I wonder if this isn't a result of years of captive breeding or inline breeding to enhance a chams colors. Have always wondered what the ratio of CB cases would be to those in the wild.

Ditto, I wonder about the inline breeding myself, I know that their gene pool is so vast but yet inline for too long.... I could see this being the problem. I haven't yet spoke with the breeder but will probably give them a call tomorrow and see what they think.

 

[moviemanmania]

What breeder was it, may I ask?

 

[sandrachameleon]

defective from birth is possible. Early age injury is possible
poor nutrition prior to your ownership, also very very possible

Check this out:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/232-tongue-troubles.html

You might like to bowl feed, at least some of his prey, so that you can ensure Wallee is getting enough to eat (without working off too many calories to do it, especially if he is still growing).

I've read a few accounts of chameleons who completely lost their tongues, and still lived on well enough. I had a male that suffered an injury when very young that effected his ability to shoot his tongue. Didnt have a negative effect on his health.

So long as Wallee is able to eat (a bowl would make that easier for him) and drink, he should be fine.

 

[jojothefirst]

My male veiled does the "licking"rather than shooting thing.
He is about 3 1/2 and we were badly advised when he was a baby and got MBD which I think has effected the bone in his mouth used to shoot. He eats and moves great though. Could this be the issue or has he not been able to shoot from day 1?

 

[gratefulj]

defective from birth is possible. Early age injury is possible
poor nutrition prior to your ownership, also very very possible

Check this out:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/232-tongue-troubles.html

You might like to bowl feed, at least some of his prey, so that you can ensure Wallee is getting enough to eat (without working off too many calories to do it, especially if he is still growing).

I've read a few accounts of chameleons who completely lost their tongues, and still lived on well enough. I had a male that suffered an injury when very young that effected his ability to shoot his tongue. Didnt have a negative effect on his health.

So long as Wallee is able to eat (a bowl would make that easier for him) and drink, he should be fine.

Thanks, Sandra. As of lately I have been cup feeding him, which he does pretty well with because he enjoys crawling completely in the cup. But now that you mention a little bowl, I think I will do that.. would even be more accessible for him. Considering he's a Kammer baby, I highly doubt any previous care issues was the reasoning, I think just the luck of the draw. But I will definitely accomadate for him.. I just wanted to make sure he was getting enough calories w/o working off what he's working to get. I just feel kinda bad for him cause you can almost read in his body language that he's getting irritated/frustrated by multiple attempts at catching and multiple fails to follow ..... He's still a beautiful little boy though

 

[gratefulj]

He's only 4 months old... He has been like this since day one of me getting him.. That's how we came up with his name lol

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

My cham injured his tongue so it wouldn't shoot straight. After a while he gave up and would run up to crickets like yours it doing. He cup feeds now and never misses a bug:

Since the cup has a narrow base he can sit comfortably on the edge and still get all of them pretty easily.