chameleon extremely weak

Mike H.

Member
  • Your Chameleon - Male Veiled Chameleon, around 1.5 years old months old
  • Handling - doesn't like handling, but is strong
  • Feeding - I mostly fed him crickets and also wax worms. I would try to feed 8-10 crickets every two days but he stopped eating recently.
  • Supplements - Rep-Cal calcium with vid. D3 dusted every week
  • Watering - I have an drop water bottle, but he barely ever drinks from it. He usually gets his fluids from food
  • Fecal Description - normal but he hasn't gone is a couple days
  • History - I got him as a baby in November of 2016, he is an adult now, and mated twice with my female. Very aggressive and active chameleon.

Cage Info:
  • Cage Type - Screen cage Zilla 24/24/48
  • Lighting - a nnormal halogen bulb, and a uvb bulb
  • Temperature - Basking around 75-80 and the floor would be upper 60s lower 70s
  • Humidity - 70s
  • Plants - no live plants all fake plants, vines, but real branches
  • Placement - in basement
  • Location - massachusetts

Current Problem -
He is a very aggressive male chameleon and active with nice colors. usually i just leave crickets in his cage to eat, but he hasn't eaten any in the past two weeks, they just stay in his cage. I tried force feeding him wax worms and he eats them when i put them in his mouth. This morning i found him hanging from a branch on his tail, when i picked him up, he was too weak to be aggressive and fight me, or even grab my hand, he just limped.
 
Here’s some pics
 

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You almost certainly need to take him to a vet to determine the problem. I didn't notice any visible problems in your pics. Please post a picture of his entire enclosure so we can see how you are keeping him.

RE: your current husbandry, there a couple things that could use tweaking. First of all, you should be dusting his feeders with calclium WITHOUT D3 at every feeding and only dusting with calcium WITH D3 twice a month (also a multivitamin twice a month). As for water, food is not nearly enough to keep him hydrated. You do mist, correct? For how long and how often? Misting and a dripper should be his main source of water. Crickets and wax worms don't have a high enough water content. You would benefit from adding live plants, too.

You also did not say what kind of UVB your bulb is. Linear? Compact? 5.0? 10.0? The more details you can provide, the better
 
it is a compact uvb and yes i do mist once a day enough to cover his whole enclosure and enough for him to drink off the leaves. Humidity in my house is normally 70%ish.
 
what can i do right now without the vet? were in a snow storm. should i try to force feed him? force water him? put him in a warmer area?
 
Put him somewhere he can't fall but will get warmth from the basking bulb. Make a hammock. Drip some water on or near his head and see if he will drink. If that works let him rest for a while and try hand feeding him or put feeders in his mouth. Try not to do too much at once and stress him.
 
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