HELP!!! I think my Panther is slowly dying!

A

AndyGregoire

New Member
I did a lot of research before I bought my female panther. I bought her about a week ago from Uncle Bill's and they told me that she was a 5-6 month old female panther. Over the last week, it looks like she might have lost weight, she moves very slowly, and her eyes are usually half closed. Her eyes also appear to be sunken in as opposed to popped out like they should be. Here is my set up:

Cage Info:
Cage Type - 24X18X18 (in.) ExoTerra Screen Terrarium
Lighting - ESU Slimline Reptile Fixture with Super UV Lamp (UVA and UVB bulb)
Temperature - ~70 degrees at night and between 75-85 in the day. ~85-90 degree basking area.
Humidity - I don't have a humidity gauge because the "reptile expert" at Uncle Bill's told me that it wasn't necessary. I mist the cage 2-3 times a day and have "The Little Dripper" by ZooMed
Plants - No live plants, fake vines. I have a fake twig and a large fake log.
Location - The cage is on my desk in my room next to my other reptiles.


Any suggestions about this setup being good or bad would be greatly appreciated. I have given my chameleon a few misting baths. I pointed the majority of the mist near her face but tried to get some directly in her eye in case it just happened to be something in her eye that was bugging her. I really don't think that this is the case since both of her are sunk in and look almost the exact same. Please let me know what I can do. I will be very hurt if I lose my new little buddy....
 
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what exactly is the uv light that you are using? i don't recognize the one that you were talking about, what is the UV output? is it a 5.0, 8.0, 10.0? is it a bulb or tube? is your chameleon drinking when you mist? what do the urates look like? we need more info to be able to help you better. pix always help too: the enclosure and cham :) thanx!
 
Your cage ,temps and misting, drip watering seem fine. I would get her a plant to give her a sense of seclusion , when she needs to be hidden.

I am also curious about your UVB lamp. Is it the 3% UVB fixture and is the plastic lens still on it or has it been removed? Either way, It is not an issue if you have only had her for a week.

Is she eating ? And what are you feeding her? What supplementation are you providing?

Post a picture if you can. It would be helpful.

From your description, it sounds like stress and dehydration, but it could be a number of other issues also.
 
I would strongly suggest a visit to the Vet at this point. It sounds like she is severely dehydrated. Have you seen her drink? How long do you mist for-it can take up to 5 minutes or more just to trigger her to drink. When she poops is there a nice white part and a brown part, or is there orange or yellow? You definitely need more than just vines and logs, live plants help them hide and keep the humidity up. Can she see the other reptiles-that could be stressing her to no end. How about supplementation? Does she look "fat"-she could be eggbound at this age...
 
Helping your girl........

What is the exact brand and "model" of your tube light? There are several things that could be wrong with her. Sounds like she is dehydrated. You need to get this corrected by getting her to drink some water somehow. Some warm mistings in a sink while she sits on a small plant might stimulate drinking. What were you feeding her? Is she pooping? Is it possible to get a picture of her and her cage (two pictures)? The best recommendation I can make is to take her to the vet. There are so many conditions that can cause what you are seeing now. We can help you make some caging changes, if needed. We can help you get her hydrated. But we probably can't correct any underlying issues that might be present.
 
The light you have comes with a plastic cover over the bulb. You need to remove it as UVB does not pass through plastic or glass. But I agree-after only a week this is not the issue. I use that fixture on my cages but replace the bulb with an 18" Zoomed Reptisun 5.0.
 
DarkRapture said:
what exactly is the uv light that you are using? i don't recognize the one that you were talking about, what is the UV output? is it a 5.0, 8.0, 10.0? is it a bulb or tube? is your chameleon drinking when you mist? what do the urates look like? we need more info to be able to help you better. pix always help too: the enclosure and cham :) thanx!
Click to expand...

It's an 18", 15 watt bulb that emits 3%+ UVB and 7%+ UVA. I saw her drink once when I was misting her but that's about it. She has eaten around 15 crickets in the last 5-7 days. I'm not really sure what urates are so please help with that. I tried to upload some photos off of my computer but every single one that I tried failed. They are .jpg files so I really don't know why they won't upload. PLEASE HELP!!!!
 
I removed the lens off of the light... Has anyone else had any troubles with upload pictures from a file on your computer, not off of a website?
 
Uploading...

Your .jpg files may be two big to upload. They need to be under 250 KB to upload. You may need to resize them. So what is the exact brand and name of the light you are using?
 
remove the plastic lens on your UVB fixture and replace the bulb with a Zoomed 5.0

The 3%UVB isnt enough

try feeding silkworms or butterworms. They help with hydration .

We need to know what your supplementation regimine is?
 
i would take her to the vet as soon as possible it sounds like dehydration. is there anything in your cage the she could possibly swallow cause if you let her food go free she could accidently swallowed something. but i would take her to the vet ASAP!!!!
 
PardalisGirl said:
Your .jpg files may be two big to upload. They need to be under 250 KB to upload. You may need to resize them. So what is the exact brand and name of the light you are using?
Click to expand...

Catherine-the exact name of the light is in his original post:
Lighting - ESU Slimline Reptile Fixture with Super UV Lamp (UVA and UVB bulb)
I use these on several of my cages but I Replace the bulb with the Reptisun 5.0 or 10.0's and remove the plastic lens.
 
Alright thank you to everyone who is trying to help, I really appreciate it. I have been misting her down for the last 20 minutes and it really seemed to help with the sunken eye situation. She opened her mouth and few times and I had a straw ready with water. I'm trying to find a vet in Indianapolis right now but I'm not having any luck with one open at 11:25pm. I'm really scared for her life... Here are the pics from photobucket.com. Thanks again to everyone who's trying to help.





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Oops!

Oops! Sorry Juli....I saw the name for the ESU fixture but did not recognize the name "Super" as the brand of the bulb. Have not heard of that one. Thanks :)
 
Not good..........

I just saw your pictures.....She is near death. Her only hope, if she has any, is to get to the vet tomorrow morning. Her condition has advanced to the point that is probably not reversible. Extreme dehydration. When it is this bad she has probably already sustained permanent kidney damage. She needs water but you have to be careful about how you give it to her. You don't want it going down into her lungs. I'm not sure what you are doing with a straw. If she does start to recover at all you need to do some changes to your cage. You need some big bushy live plants in there. You have nothing in there for her to drink water from. It looks like she is living in a big arid desert right now. The cage is a little on the big side for her. You can correct it by putting the big and non-toxic plants in it. With a cage that size I would go to a Reptisun 10.0. A 5.0 is not going to penetrate far enough down. Well, I hope you can revive her.....it's not looking good though. Do what you can for her.
 
Very bad news...

.....thank you to everyone who tried to help. Unfortunately, she just passed away a few minutes ago. I'm extremely sad, and very discouraged about getting another one. I would really like to, but I don't want to do it until I absolutely know for sure that I have the proper habitat. Would you please tell me what you meant by "it looks like a dry arid desert"? What types of plants should I have been using? I'm really sad
 
I agree with PardalisGirl on this one. Definitely get her to vet ASAP tomorrow. She is severely dehydrated from her enclosure. Chameleon's will not drink from standing water. They will drink water from the leaves off of a tree in their habitat or a good Ficus or Hibiscus, Shefflera or Phothos plant in their enclosed environment. And definitely get at least a 24" ReptiSun 10.0 UVB bulb, a 5.0 wont be enough for a cage that deep. Make sure the UVB and a basking bulb run at least 10-12 hours a day with misting at least times a day for 5 min or more. I hope your dusting the feeders as well as they need Calcuim with D3 a calcium without D3 and a good Vitamin supplement like RepCal Herbtivite all rotated on a daily basis. This is how some people diverse their supplements.
Calcium Powder without D3 (Tues & Fri)
Calcium Powder with D3 (Mon & Thurs)
Herptivite (or other multivitamin) (Wed) and nothing on Saturday and Sunday. Everyone does this different though so if someone has a better method, feel free to chime in. I really hope she can pull this. We hate seeing bad things happens to good Chams :(
 
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