Help, Extremely dehydrated gravid panther!

[chamlover]

I have an 11 month old female blue bar ambilobe panther that was mated on Jan 13. Every thing has been going fine, but this last week with the weather, it has been so dry in the house, that i noticed a couple of my guys looked a little dehydrated. So i increased the misting, up to 4 x day for up to 20 minutes each time, ( that depends on the cham, sometimes i only do it for 5 minutes) but the 2 that i got worried about i misted a little longer. I also made sure that the dripper was going constantly, even refilling it 3,4 times, (it's a small one). I even started giving them showers for up to 20- 30 minutes. All of them started doing much better except for my female panther. Today i was so scared, i found her laying on the bottom of her cage, upside down, not even trying toget up. Her eyes were very sunken in. I immediately picked her up and she had no grip and she was limp.I put her in the little tub thing with warm water and pedialyte and started using an eye dropper to try to get some water into her. My husband was already on his way home from the store getting the things he needed to make a hydration chamber for her. Anyway, she does seem a little better, she does have a little grip and she is staying on her stick ( in the hydration chamber) . Is there anything else i can do to help her? I've called the vet, we only have 1 reptile vet anywhere around here and he hasn't even called me back. Can i leave her in there as long as i need to? As far as the other ones, their temps and cages and stuff ane all fine, it's just the humidity problem. I've already spoken to Jason about getting the herpmist system to get a little more mositure in the cages but that will be a couple more weeks yet. Has anybody tried hooking up a humidifier to the cages? I saw that in one of the forums, but i don't know if that will help my situation or not. If it will i can do that right off. By the way i have 11 chams and only a couple of them seem to have gone on a no drinking spree. Does anybody have any ideas that might help? I would greatly appreciate it. She just looked at me so helplessly. She also hasn't eaten in 2 days.

Debby

 

[kinyonga]

Sorry..I have nothing to offer concerning the hydration problem....it seems strange to me that they should have become dehydrated so quickly with all that you have been doing.

Regarding the female, have you provided the female with an appropriate place to dig to lay her eggs? If she was already starting to produce eggs when she was mated she may need to lay them before the normal 30ish days. Not providing her with a suitable place to lay the eggs can lead to eggbinding.

 

[spatulars]

Humidifier Piping

this would definitely help keep them from getting dehydrated on dry days.

 

[chamlover]

You know my husband and i were just talking about that. I never that of that as a possibliity. Her laying the eggs prior to the time and stuff. We were thinking tht might be the problem, but now she is too weak to lay them. I put another call into my vet and still no reply. Well i am leaving her in the hydration chamber over nite and will check on her often. Hoepefully he will call in the am. If she feels better tomorrow maybe i will put her back in her cage with a bucket. She was digging on the floor, but i thought it was too early it had only been 15 days or so. I'll let you know. The hunidifier is a great idea, we will be setting the other ones up in the next couple of days. And yes it did happen that quick. All within about 3-4 days from when i started to notice a problem until now.

 

[kinyonga]

Maybe if you dig a hole for her it will help.

 

[Dave Weldon]

Howdy Debby,

I noticed that you didn't mention what the humidity is in the room. If you don't have one of those low-cost ($13) digital temp/humdity meters, send hubby to Lowe's to get an Acu-Rite unit. No Lowe's? Time to go shopping . If the room is at least 40% then I wouldn't be so worried that it is a humidity problem and concentrate on other issues.

 

[chamlover]

Actually i never bothered with the humidity in the rest of the house, but i did notice in a couple of the bigger cages that their humidity was low a couple of times like 30%. Do you think it will help if we dig the hole, i never thought of that?

 

[OldChamKeeper]

Sounds more like eggbinding to me considering your other chams are doing better than her.

This is a method I used back in the day before something called the internet popped up.

I'd get a 5 gal bucket and fill it halfway with damp vermiculite packed down. I'd then have the center of the lid cut out and replaced with screen. If the animal really needs to lay eggs just place her in it and leave her alone. Now if she's too weak already to lay then there's not much I'm aware of that can be done.

The Holmes Ultrasonic humidifiers are fabulous and the link provided above shows some real nice set ups.

 

[chamlover]

I've placed her in a bucket with all that stuff and even started a hole for her, but after 2 hours she still hadn't done anything, and then a few minutes later i even noticed her upside down on her side, so i took her out and put her back into the hydration chamber. Vet is gone until tomorrow am.

 

[Cherron]

You need to put her in the bucket and leave her alone.

For AWHILE.. if she notices you while she is digging, she will stop. It is gonna take longer than 2 hours to get her to dig and be comfortable and lay.

Start her a hole.. put her in it and just.. walk away. I know it is hard.. but don't look at her.. check on her in 3 or 4 hours if you can do so being absolutely sure that she can not see you.

If she abandons her laying to many times she will die.

 

[kinyonga]

I'm afraid she is already on death's doorstep since she is falling over and making no attempt at digging. IMHO seeing a vet NOW is her only chance.

Sorry to be so abrupt.

 

[BIGGUN]

Let us know what happens at the vet.

Good luck!