Ease out impacted sperm plugs?

Chameleons Northwest

Chameleons Northwest

Avid Member
We have this very handsome veiled named Botero. He is huge and colorful. I have tried to breed him. He's made all the right moves, and correct positions, but I kept noticing that I never saw his "stuff" nor witnessed any penetration. And the girls he's been with never turned gravid.

It's difficult to get close to him because he is very vicious to humans. He actually linges at the front of his cage and bites the screen when I go by, like some crazy man. (But I am beginning to understand why he is so mean.)

Well, last night I was taking a closer look at him and I noticed his private area looked more like a pardalis than a veiled. I mean he is HUGE. So, at first I thought, what's with that? This guy can't mate but he's got this going for him? So I realized I better check out the area to see if it is hard or soft, as it began to dawn on me that he has probably got MAJOR sperm plugs. But there is nothing protruding at all, the vent is totally closed. He does poop, but I haven't seen smegma smears on his branches.

This morning I waxed bold and got him out of the cage and felt his privates and the whole area is hard. I don't know that soaking will help, since the vent is so well closed. I was able to pull back on the lower edge of the vent just enough to see the typical tan and brown signs of sperm plug.

So, any ideas on how to get these out? I don't really feel that sperm plugs warrant a trip to the vet unless there is no other recourse. They would probably insist on putting him under general anesthesia and I don't want to put him through that, nor pay the bill.

QUESTION: Would it be possible to use a syringe, get the tip of it under the flap, and inject something oily in there to loosen things up?

Anyone who has been through a MAJOR impacted sperm plug ordeal PLEASE let me know how you resolved it.

Thank you!

Here's a pick of Botero when we first got him (in March). His privates were normal in this photo.

stanley1.jpg
 
Have you tried to gently pull them out? First a soak in a tub of warm water may help.

I have had to do this with a panther who had a couple nasty ones. Difference is they were external to the point I could pull them out.

You could try pulling them, it does take some pulling to get them out.

Check out this thread ..

Mr Weldon had some great info in it.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/sperm-plug-do-i-16202/
 
Thank you, Ryan. So, as long as I can somehow catch hold of a bit of it, I can hopefully get it out. I may try to loosen the vent opening and soak him a bit first.

But he is so mean. I will need sturdy gloves. I got to him this morning by distracting him with a stick. As he attached the stick I was able to handle him a little.

We'll try to get them out tonight after work, when Elliot can help me. I think the best plan may be to soak him a bit, and then wrap him in a towel, with only his vent exposed, while we "work" on him.
 
My thoughts....

Hi there Sandy.....hope everything else is going well. I've been off the forum for a while. I have safely removed some hardened plugs from some older male panthers. I would not recommend poking anything up the vent. Have you ever manually everted the hemipenis of a cham before? That is what a vet would do. It's careful manipulation of the bulge area in such a way that the male eventually everts his stuff. It is done with careful pressure and requires patience. Place your thumb and forefinger on either side of the vent. Gently apply pressure and move your fingers TOWARDS the TIP of the tail. Keep doing this. You will see the male move things around. Little by little more of the hemipenis will be exposed.

You can practice doing it on a male that is less cranky to get the knack of it. Once you figure out how to do it on a calm male you can attempt it on your affected male. I would wrap his body in a hand towel to keep him from biting or scratching. Maybe have one person hold him in the hand towel while you do the procedure. Once you get him to evert his hemipenis (one side at a time) you should see some of the hardened material. You will probably see it before he fully everts. You can use tweezers to slowly and gently pull it out. If you do it VERY slowly it will not break off. If you pull quickly it will break off and be harder to get the rest out. When you get him to evert and see what is actually in there and try removing it you may come to the conclusion that you can not remove it all. This will become apparent after working on things. You will then have to take him to the vet for removal by other means.

I'm giving this information on my experience to help Sandy out in particular. She is an experienced keeper. I would not recommend that an inexperienced person try this. Sandy has a lot of experience with nursing chameleons back to health. This past experience will enable her to make sensible decisions once she attempts to do this. She will be able to figure out if she should continue with the process after a certain point and if she is getting positive results or not. I did not try to do things like this until I had kept chameleons for several years and saw my vet do certain things which educated me. Hope you can help your monster out Sandy :)
 
Thank you, Catherine. We will try your technique this afternoon and let you know how it goes! Hopefully we won't end up with Botero at the vet, and Elliot and I at the emergency room! :)


AJA said:
Sandy, this could be the reason he is so mean... :p
Click to expand...

Exactly, Amy! I am hoping for a kindler and gentler Botero when this is all done.
 
i had a HUUUUUUUGE one on my breeder male veiled.

I wouldnt try to do it in one sitting.

IMHO it would be best to soak the area in warm water a few times the first day and see if it loosens.

IE: right now without soaking you noticed it was hard and my guess it doesnt move around much. dont try to pull it out until you notice it moves around a little.

depending on how long its been sitting it could be very hard and rigid and pulling it out could cause damage like a glacier through a valley.

The problem is you want it a little soft, but soaking it will also cause the most exposed part to soften the most, which is problem because thats the site you will most likely need to use to pull it out, if its too soft it will tear and you will be worse off.

i used a needle and tweezers, needle to pry, and kind of tear of the site up to give the tweezers something to grab. and the tweezers to pull.

i just was patient and used warm water and used my fingers to roll the tissue around the plug around, like back and fourth to loosen it up. that is prob the best tip i can give, its just roll it around you'll notice it getting loose.

if you have to to try injecting something try neosporin

even after a few days of working on it it was a bIt@h to get out, and there was a little blood.

using a needle will be tricky if you cham is agressive my was a puppy so i had it easy laying him on his side.

he was back on the market in a week or so

i should mention it was a spec of blood, and also two tweezers would be best, allowing max pulling strength without exceeding what the softened plug can handle and making it worse, but two tweezers would be tough to make happen.

I had a tons of pics on another thread but they got taken down, before/after/during size comparison and the plug disected just for kicks. ended up the shap of an ice cream cone. good luck, please document the process for others benefit.
 
Last edited:
Thank you, Joshua, for the detailed response. Sounds like this is going to be a complicated endeavor. Elliot came home for lunch and said if we can't get it successfully then we'll take him in to the vet. Hopefully we can avoid that, as he is not a good candidate for a vet visit.
 
Problem with soaking.....

The problem in this case is that Sandy has said that NONE of the plug is exposed. It is all inside. So soaking him won't soften anything. The water won't get inside. I totally agree that soaking helps if part is sticking out. The stuff acts like a wick and it will wick up the exposed part and soften the interior. In this case there is nothing to wick up.

If you two need any help with your boy I'm available to come over any day next week to offer my "services". I'm betting the two of you will figure it out once you get into the process though. I'm betting that if you can get anything to evert you will get some big "stuff" out of the way pretty quickly with just tweezers. You can always stop at that point and think about the next step and see if the stuff further up the pipeline will be able to move down by itself. If it does you will be able to gradually remove everything over time with little trauma to his "parts".
 
When I received my burned veiled chameleon, I noticed the same thing with sperm plugs.. never seen any on the screen after a couple weeks.. no sperm plugs anywhere in his screen cage.

Nothing was protruding, but I did catch him going to the bathroom once, and what do you know, there was a nasty large yellow lump in his vent, I thought he might have dried out his insides at first so I was freaking out. Yuck!

I tried everything, soaking, trying to rub it out gently (as suggested by a vet, which is an odd procedure, let me tell you) but to no avail.

My only option was to have him taken to a vet so they could remove it by anesthesia (to lessen the stress and chance of losing a finger, etc) and then opening the vent with a tool and putting some sort of liquid in there and pulling it out.

I wish I could have gotten pictures, but I never thought to bring a camera.

The very next day he was quite stressed out, but the bright side was, the "operation" was cheap, and complimentary since I had asked the vet to get into chameleons in the first place.

Now he is quite fine, I find icky little plugs on the side of the screen all the time.

He seems quite happier now.
 
In my 3 1/2 years of owning a male veiled I have never experienced the plug thing. He is a busy little boy servicing my females though so maybe that's the reason. He really loves the ladies.
 
Any update?

Hi there Sandy....any update on this situation. I was thinking about this earlier. Wondering if you had attempted removing them.
 
Please post pics of this monster clog when you get it out. I'd be interested in seeing it. :D
 
PardalisGirl said:
Hi there Sandy....any update on this situation. I was thinking about this earlier. Wondering if you had attempted removing them.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid there's not much to report, yet, though we did take photos. We were only able to get out about 1/2" of one side. His little muscles were holding onto it mightily. We were able to expose the head of the plug, on each side.

I was hoping to have more positive news before posting again.

We plan to try again. This time lubricating the area. Then I will leave Botero outside this evening. I have been bringing the chams in at night because nite temps have been about 50F. We will leave Botero out so he can get into a deep slumber, so that he will be somewhat "out of it" for our second attempt. The plugs appear to be large and long. We were not able to expose his privates. I am afraid they may be jammed in there?

Will let you know how the second attempt goes.
 
I don't really feel that sperm plugs warrant a trip to the vet unless there is no other recourse. They would probably insist on putting him under general anesthesia and I don't want to put him through that, nor pay the bill.
Click to expand...

There may be other issues than sperm plugs and your attempts to 'fix' it might do more harm than good, even render it unable to breed. For gods sake take it to a decent herp vet, dont be cheap. You want to own the animal, the vet bills are part of the package!
 
jojackson said:
There may be other issues than sperm plugs and your attempts to 'fix' it might do more harm than good, even render it unable to breed. For gods sake take it to a decent herp vet, dont be cheap. You want to own the animal, the vet bills are part of the package!
Click to expand...

Thank you, JoJackson. :) We do take our chameleons to the vet quite regularly. We don't mind paying vet bills, when necessary. It's just that what we refer to as "sperm plugs" don't usually warrant a trip to the vet's. And no one wants to pay a vet bill for something that can be done at home.

If you had read the rest of the thread, you would have seen that we planned to take him to the vet if the home remedies did not work.

Well, they didn't. Attempt #2 was a failure, and so this afternoon Botero took a trip to the vet. We discovered, while attempting to treat him at home, that once he is out of his cage and wrapped in a towel he settles down completely and lays still. So, the vet visit was no problem.

The vet used a catheter and an antibiotic lubricant to ease out the impacted plugs. The one side was worse than the other, and shows layers of dried, bloody, mass where the side wall of his hemipenal area was irritated by the hard dry plug. The procedure took just a few minutes and the entire visit cost $53. Well worth the price!

They are probably not the largest plugs ever, but no doubt they felt huge to Botero! (please excuse the animal hair on the gauze. It came out of the vet's surgery with the hairs attached. :rolleyes:)

boteroplugs.jpg
 
Im glad its been fixed and you felt the visit was worth it. Given there condition and the irritation iside it cased being hard and dry, further attempts at home may well have donr more damage.
Did the vet give a clue why this happens in the first place? I imagine an animal in the wild suffering the same fate would end up in a bad way!
Best wishes :)
 
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