Can anyone diagnose this?

[IotaPhi936]

I have 1.5 year old, captive-bred, male Panther who is relatively active, but he frequently goes to the bottom branches of his cage and hangs out for a few hours (especially late afternoon 4-6pm) and will even occasionally close his eyes for brief periods . I know this is a warning sign that warrants a veterinary visit, but before I take him in, does anyone have any thoughts on this? I feel like he's pretty spoiled!

HUSBANDRY
HOUSING: 24x24x48 inch screen enclosure set up high, next to sliding glass door leading to porch overlooking swampy woodland. I often work at a desk near the enclosure, but he is pretty tame and doesn't appear to alter his behavior when I am there save for scratching the door to tell me I should take him on an "adventure" (sitting on shoulder while I work, hanging out on a makeshift "chameleon chandelier" nearby, or going outside on the porch; outside, he prefers to sun himself on my hand or arm, but usually I'll stick him in his outdoor cage so I don't have to watch him and he can stay out longer). His enclosure has an umbrella tree, two pothos, and a number of intersecting branches with fake vines. Despite this, he still does some screen walking, but it's not incessant.
DAY/NIGHT: 8:30 am to 8:00 pm
DIET: Superworms and crickets on the menu roughly half the time, while the other half he gets discoid roaches, calciworms, hornworms, silkworms, and occasional waxworms. Probably eats around 2-5 bugs a day (varies with sheds, etc.). All meals are dusted (save for the calciworms).
WATER/HUMIDITY: Usually between 60-80% ambient humidity. Pockets of higher humidity are produced at night and early morning by a fogger. Mister goes off a few times at night and early morning, but only enough to create a dew on the leaves in the morning. He gets an 8 minute shower at 2pm and a 12 minute shower at 6:30, followed by a short burst at 8:30 and Midnight. A dripper is also available during the day.***NOTE: He is often dehydrated despite my best efforts.
LIGHTING: Currently has a brand new Arcadia UVB light (I think it's 8%, whatever was recommended for Panthers), a small live-plant light, and a 100 watt UVA bulb
HEATING: 100 watt bulb gets basking spot to the low 90s. Upper part of the cage in the 80s and high 70s while the bottom is at room temperature around 70 degrees. Nights will sometimes drop into the high 60s.
HANDLING: As stated above, he "tells me" when he wants to get out and will usually happily walk right onto my arm, but sometimes he's not feeling it (never had a forced handling session).

IN SUM: He eats well, and is otherwise pretty active. Only potential health/behavior warnings I can identify is occasional dehydration, occasional screen-walking, and a desire to explore outside his cage. Any thoughts?

 

[kinyonga]

Please post photos of him and the cage.
Where do you live?
What supplements do you use and how often for each?
How do you know he's dehydrated sometimes?

 

[IotaPhi936]

No problem, here are some pics:
I live in FL. I dust his food daily with Fluker's Calcium without vitamin D3, but occasionally will give him the one with D3, (I just feel like if he wouldn't get D3 from food in the wild, I should try to limit it as much as I can in his food). I also dust his bugs with the Exo Terra Multivitamin about once a week (maybe every 7-10 days). And I think he is dehydrated because sometimes his eyes will look just slightly less puffy than usual and his skin will sag a bit (one of the pics uploaded should show this). Also, his urates will not be as white and can take on a dark yellow to even mild orange color at times. I know that this can indicate dehydration, but I'll add that I forced-fed him a little dripper of water daily for a week once and the urates still weren't the pearly white that everyone says is normal. Suffice it to say, maybe I "think" he's hydrated but he's actually fine?

 

[kinyonga]

It's actually bothering me that his eyes are like that and he's got w wrinkled belly when sitting there and that he's sitting low,etc. but I can't see anything specific that would be causing this. (I hate it when I can't figure it out.)

 

[JacksJill]

You could try backing off his basking temperature to 85 F and see if he is more comfortable. He may be avoiding the heat and not be getting enough light.

 

[IotaPhi936]

Vet did some bloodwork and the only malady (besides mild dehydration) she found was hypercalcemia. So I'm going to cut back on his calcium supplement a bit and see if that helps. Would not have expected that diagnosis, but I guess too much of anything is a bad thing.

 

[kinyonga]

That is a peculiar diagnosis. It's hard to overdose the calcium unless you really overdose the D3 from supplements or your prEformed vitamin A levels are off a lot from what I've read.

 

[IotaPhi936]

That's more or less what I had heard. I have been using the non-D3 supplement, which she said she strongly recommends continuing, with proper husbandry there shouldn't be any need for it and can cause an imbalance. With the calcium, she said sometimes males (though more commonly females) just have chronically high levels. As strange as it sounds, it does explain the dehydration, kidneys would be working overtime to excrete as much as it could. Anyway, long story short is it should work itself out by just dusting with calcium every other day. Thanks for all your help! It's great to have a community like this to bounce stuff off of and learn.

 

[kinyonga]

So you're going to use the non-D3 supplement on every other feeding and skip the D3 supplement? Just so I understand...the only D3 it will be getting then is from the UVB?

Does your vitamin powder have prOformed or prEformed vitamin A in it?

I've never heard it said that either male or female chameleons have chronically high levels of calcium.

You might find this helpful...
http://www.chameleonnews.com/07FebWheelock.html

 

[IotaPhi936]

Correct, I'll obviously continue with calcium every other day, but she recommended getting rid of D3 altogether for two primary reasons: (1) In the wild, D3 is obtained from the sun, very little, if any, comes from the diet, so it's not very natural to have this in their food in such high quantities; (2) It's a fat soluble vitamin (as opposed to water soluble vitamins). The problem with fat soluble vitamins is that it isn't easy for the body to get rid of (water soluble vitamins are much easier, as they can be excreted in urates). When it builds up, there are "free" molecules that affect the pathways where D3 is used, perhaps the most important of which is calcium absorption-thus the hypercalcemia (the link you shared goes into a little detail on this). So the D3 is in the supplements to artificially increase calcium absorption, but if you are giving them ample calcium in the first place this shouldn't be a problem.

 

[kinyonga]

You said..."the D3 is in the supplements to artificially increase calcium absorption, but if you are giving them ample calcium in the first place this shouldn't be a problem"...if your chameleon produces enough D3 from its exposure to the UVB then there is no problem with calcium absorption and shouldn't be an issue....it's when the chameleon is given too much D3 from a supplement that there is an imbalance in the calcium. Vitamin A also plays a part because its antagonistic somewhat to the D3... So the three have to be in balance and the calcium also has to be in balance with the phosphorous.

We can give part of the D3 to the chameleon in a supplement form and let it produce the rest of the D3 it needs from its exposure to the UVB when we keep the chameleons inside...but if you have your chameleon outside a lot then it's not necessary to supplement the D3 at all.

 

[IotaPhi936]

Yeah I definitely get what you're saying and I thought about that but I really don't take him outside that often, especially now during the winter. In the past two months I'd say he has gotten just a few hours of natural sunlight, perhaps an hour or two every other week? That being said, I don't know how quickly natural sunlight is able to yield D3, so maybe I just overloaded him? Nevertheless, the vet seemed to be pretty adamant that a D3 supplement isn't necessary so long as the UVB lighting husbandry is sound. I guess the teachable moment is that there is such a thing as too much calcium and that it may be caused by D3 supplementation; we still don't know if this was the cause of the lethargy and dehydration here though (if I've learned anything from my few years of keeping chameleons, you never really know anything, it's part of the fun!).

 

[kinyonga]

This might be of interest...
https://www.chameleonbreeder.com/podcast/125-chameleon-supplementation-basics/
"I am sure we could give too much of anything, but our main problem with causing hypercalcaemia (which is too much calcium in the blood stream) is with too much Vitamin D3 which facilitates the absorbtion of calcium from the gut. Otherwise unused calcium is just flushed out of the system."
"The body measures the levels of D3 and turns on and off manufacturing to maintain a certain level. The problem is that there is no mechanism for restricting the amount of D3 absorbed from the gut. This is not a problem in nature because there is very little dietary vitamin D3 around to be eaten. There are small amounts here and there, but not enough in the normal chameleon diet to require evolution to build a defense mechanism from dietary D3. Now, you see where this is going. By us giving dietary D3 we bypass the natural checks and balances and the chameleon’s body will store vitamin D3 into overdose."