Do you think my Cham will hate me now ?

[luckyy15]

Hi I've been treating my Cham with reptaid and every morning I have to get him out of the cage and orally give it to him which he doesn't like too much as you can imagine goes dark and tries to wriggle. I would give it to him in his food but he dosent always eat it straight away so I couldn't be certain he is getting the medicine as I go to work in the day. I just hope he doesn't start to get scared of me and just associate me with the person who gets him out the cage to give him medicine. He is nearly half way through it's day 10 tomorrow then 2 days off then he has another 10 days. He has stopped wanting to come out as much. He use to come to the door all the time when he wanted to come out. I just hope once the course is finished I can build his trust back up again.

Has anyone else been through a similar situation and there Cham hasn't been completely scared of them afterwards ?

 

[Ricardo]

Can't you just inject the liquid medicine (if it is liquid) into a feeder, for example in a cricket or so??? I'v done this when my gecko (Teratoscincus scincus) was sick and needed medicines. Bought an injection needle in the pharmacy, and bought it. It was a small amount of medicine, so it worked with larger crix or dubias.

 

[xanthoman]

first off, i hope you are measuring that reptaid carefully and accurately. (if you are just using the dropper from the bottle, you have no way of knowing how much you are giving him) imo if you are restraining your cham on a daily basis, the stress you are causing is likely outweighs any benefit the reptaid will provide. if your cham is experiencing ongoing appetite problems, it is likely due to diet or oversupplementation issues, (or maybe stress) and daily forcing of reptaid will make the problem worse not better, my advice would be to review your gutload and supp regimen and quit stressing him out. then maybe he will start eating again. you cant fix over-supplementation by giving more supps. even reptaid. my advice would be less supps, more water and less stress. jmo

 

[luckyy15]

Im actually giving the reptaid because the vet found a couple of pinworm eggs in a faecal sample not because of his appetite. Yes I give him the accurate amount using a syringe And according to his weight I would never just guess using the dropper. I adequately gut load his food with fruit and veggies and do not oversupplement him he has calcium with out d3 with every feed which is every other day and calcium with d3 and a multivitamin once a month. He dosent always eat the feeders but they are gone when I get home from work that's why I have given it to him orally as I know the feeders can die a short time after being injected and if he didn't eat them quick enough he wouldn't get any food or the medicine. I wouldn't do it if I didn't have to and I think it's quite important to treat him for getting rid of the eggs to stop a possible infection. The last thing I want to do is stress him out I love animals and would never do anything to physically harm him.

 

[luckyy15]

That's meant to he dosent always eat the feeders in front me straight away but they are go d when I get home I missed a bit out

 

[laurie]

For me today is day 10 of a ten day course of injection baytril into one of my chams. He hates to even see me in the room. I am not sure this once friendly cham will ever like me again.

 

[Miss Lily]

My Tommy is currently on a course of meds too. I inject it into one of his feeders and so far he has taken it every day. I am now a week in and it could be a long term thing for us until he regains proper movement in his leg. I got a syringe with needles from the vet - I really didn't want to have to force feed him his meds as he's such a friendly boy. For now it is working for us and I'll put off forcing him his meds until the day that I really have no choice.

 

[KingJulien]

I had to force my JJ to take oral Baytril, the last of it was probably about a month ago. He was still very new to me when that happened, so he hadn't warmed up to me yet, and the amount of baytril killed feeder bugs instantly. I had to force it into his mouth for two weeks or so.

He seems to be over it, and fairly comfortable with me now. He comes to the front of the cage if I'm in the room and he wants to be fed.

 

[luckyy15]

Thanks for all your replies its good to know others have experienced this. if he ate the feeders straight away i would defiantly opt to do it that way, but he dosent always eat them straight off when i feed him in the morning. i dont like to chance it go to work and the feeders are all dead at the bottom of the cage when i get home and he hasnt had any meds or food, due to it being too long before he eats it. He has always been a really friendly cham just going to have to keep my fingers crossed he will not hate me. im going try the feeder again see if i can get him to eat it straight off. hopefully once the next course is over we can get back to normal

 

[kinyonga]

For any of you who have to give something to your chameleon orally, why don't you drip water on its nose and when it starts to drink stick the syringe into its mouth and ease the meds/reptaid into the chameleon's mouth??? Its a lot less stressful.