Help Please... Veiled Chameleon Female

[Kitdragon2000]

hey

Thank you! so far so good. she seems to be doing a bit better.... she's more mobile and active today. i still hear the 'clicking' sometimes when she breaths, but i dont want to over load / stress her out more by doing more than one thing at a time.

i am continuing the tums as the DVM prescribed, she seems to actually like it! she's realized where the fruity stuff comes from and moves her head towards the syringe!

Geesh these "free" chameleon's have turned into a heck of a hand full!!! good thing i was looking into them Before they were dumped on me >.<

Also was hoping you may have the answer, if not i will post on a diff. thread to hopefully get peoples attention :/

1) do you know the recommended consumption levels for the vitamins you mentioned?

2) i am working on the cricket food, its hard when they are going through those suckers every couple days! the question is how long do the crickets have to be on the good diet for it to make any difference?

3) how much water should they drink in a day? at the moment the girl is getting free drip system, as well as me syringing her two times a day. I do it follow up / with the tums, help her wash it down. Tonight she drank the whole 0.5 tum mixture than proceed to drink another 0.4 of the plain water!

4) with respiratory infections, how do they get them? like if they were to cold / to wet for a period of time? that way i can (hopefully, Maybe) prevent this from happening again.
5)with the supplements, i will do the dusting as you recommended. do you suggest i should ditch the exo terra calcium and get a different type? or keep with it?

6) What kind of liquid calcium and how much would you recommend? I know the DVM was recommending the tums for the calcium, but if there is something else out there you suggest that is better i can certainly give it a try!

7) is it okay if i trim the girls toenails? she keeps catching in everything including herself :/ i understand if they are trying to climb those sharp suckers help, but at the moment she's not doing a lot of climbing. or still not recommended?

8) how much food should she eat in a day? again i am trying to be extremely careful with how much she eats, to make sure she is getting enough, especially since i am still assuming she has a clutch of unfertilized eggs in there..

9) lately she has not been eating the crickets well, so i tried her with the phoenix worms i got, she LOVES those suckers!!! Can i make that her staple until she gets better? Or still try and get her to eat crickets too? she loves the worms so much she will eat them from my hand! (Yeah!) but the crickets not so much..

10) with the Edema on her neck, do you think it would help to some how have her clinging to the branches all night? to help the edema go away? at the moment when she get's weak she actually falls to the ground.

11) with how mobility changed she is at the moment, do you think i should make her a small, hospital cage? at the moment the only small one i have is the repti breeze small. and that is their outside cage, if it has to go back and for it will not happen :/

Thank you!! I know a lot of questions. i really, really appreciate the input!!

Thank you!

 

[kinyonga]

How are you giving her the tums? Crushed? Dusted on the insects?

I feed the crickets and gutload them with the same things slow they are always "loaded". Since I have always done this I don't know how long they have to be on the "diet" before they make any difference to the chameleons.

I don't know how much they should drink in a measurement. Look at this Site for information...
http://www.chameleonnews.com/02NovDonoghue.html
You will find other articles about how much to feed, etc on this same Site.

Liquid calcium are said to be more easily absorbed than powders or pills.
Liquid calcium sandoz or liquid calcium gluconate are good choices as I said before.

You have to decide what to do about the supplements. I was just telling you what I use because it works. Other supplements also work if you give them in balance and watch out that you don't over do the fat soluble ones...D3, vitamin A, vitamin K, vitamin E. You will have to figure it out for yourself as to what you think is right.

Edema can be from organ failure, etc incorrect balance of fat soluble vitami, infection, etc. I doubt that her position will help it to go away.

How much she should be fed is not an easy question to answer. You want her not to be fat or thin and if she's producing eggs fed well enough to sustain them without overfeeding her.

In her present condition I don't know how she can possibly lay eggs if she does have them. She likely can't dig and likely hasn't enough energy to lay them either.

You really need a good reptile vet to get her through this. I've explained as much as i can and explained a lot of it twice. No more to say but good luck.