How/What to feed a chameleon missing half her teeth

[Ferrah88]

Hello everyone!

I recently purchased a pair of panther chameleons from my local pet store (The male is such a lovely animal. Very trusting and hand feeds already, I fell in love with him at first sight. I think he saw my red hair and wanted to climb on it!). Both are roughly 2-3 years old already. The male has a teeny bit of the end of his tail that is missing, but he can use it well. The female on the other hand, looked fine, but after a week I noticed she hasn't been eating at all. I did notice that her face, around the "lips" I suppose, looked a bit funny, but didn't think too much of it originally, because every animal looks different. I didn't want to bother her, but I also don't want her to starve, so I decided to have a look in her mouth. That's when I noticed that most of her teeth were missing! She has teeth where human "molars" would be, but everything in the front half more or less is missing. I figure this is why she won't eat. Her mouth in general looks normal (It's yellow in there, as panther chameleons sometimes have it) but I don't see anything else out of the ordinary. Normal looking teeth, nothing black or decayed looking. It's as if she bit something hard, and parts of her mouth broke off. I can provide some pictures if needed, but I don't want to immediately stress her out even more (she was pretty intent on taking my finger off when I first looked).

Now my question is, what/how can I feed the poor girl? She's so far refused any crickets I have tried giving her, which are the softest prey I have at the moment. The only available food I can get that would be classified as soft would be wax worms and flies, both of which aren't exactly the healthiest options. I do plan on starting up a silk worm breeding group, but I can't get that started right away, and I haven't found anywhere I can get the live worms anyways, just eggs, which would take approx. 1 month to go through the hatching process and get to an appropriate size.

Is there anything I can do for her? Thanks in advance, any help would be greatly appreciated!

(I should note that I am from Germany, and have no access to hornworms, and like stated in the post, silkworms seems to be a problem, unless someone knows of anywhere I could order either!)

 

[PandoraExplorer]

Poor thing. I hope someone can help you.

 

[jajeanpierre]

Hello everyone!

I recently purchased a pair of panther chameleons from my local pet store (The male is such a lovely animal. Very trusting and hand feeds already, I fell in love with him at first sight. I think he saw my red hair and wanted to climb on it!). Both are roughly 2-3 years old already. The male has a teeny bit of the end of his tail that is missing, but he can use it well. The female on the other hand, looked fine, but after a week I noticed she hasn't been eating at all. I did notice that her face, around the "lips" I suppose, looked a bit funny, but didn't think too much of it originally, because every animal looks different. I didn't want to bother her, but I also don't want her to starve, so I decided to have a look in her mouth. That's when I noticed that most of her teeth were missing! She has teeth where human "molars" would be, but everything in the front half more or less is missing. I figure this is why she won't eat. Her mouth in general looks normal (It's yellow in there, as panther chameleons sometimes have it) but I don't see anything else out of the ordinary. Normal looking teeth, nothing black or decayed looking. It's as if she bit something hard, and parts of her mouth broke off. I can provide some pictures if needed, but I don't want to immediately stress her out even more (she was pretty intent on taking my finger off when I first looked).

Now my question is, what/how can I feed the poor girl? She's so far refused any crickets I have tried giving her, which are the softest prey I have at the moment. The only available food I can get that would be classified as soft would be wax worms and flies, both of which aren't exactly the healthiest options. I do plan on starting up a silk worm breeding group, but I can't get that started right away, and I haven't found anywhere I can get the live worms anyways, just eggs, which would take approx. 1 month to go through the hatching process and get to an appropriate size.

Is there anything I can do for her? Thanks in advance, any help would be greatly appreciated!

(I should note that I am from Germany, and have no access to hornworms, and like stated in the post, silkworms seems to be a problem, unless someone knows of anywhere I could order either!)

Assuming there isn't any infection/sores in her mouth, I would just ignore it and watch. If you can get feeders without spiny legs (crickets), I think it prudent to use them. They really don't need a lot of teeth to chew up their prey. I think they need teeth to puncture/cut their prey so they are easier to digest and don't just pass through undigested. That she has back teeth is good as those are the teeth they chomp up prey.

Try smaller prey--anything to start her eating. I haven't found that mouth injuries stop them from eating or biting. The female gracilior pictured below would bite my hand HARD and not let go any chance she got. Her terrible mouth/jaw injuries did not stop her nor did it reduce the pressure nor her pitbull resolve to remove a large chunk of my flesh. I've had several new imports that have had face injuries down to the bone such as the girl pictured. None were problematic at acclimating to captivity nor did their very serious injuries stop them eating. One female had a face injury as bad as below but also had a tongue injury and couldn't use her tongue for months. She was a little more problematic getting to eat but after about two months started gaining a ton of weight. I fed her silk worms as they stayed put and she could learn to walk up and just grab them.

Does your panther have a tongue injury? Is she a wild caught? Wild caughts often come in with face rubs. If s he is a wild caught, she needs special care to get over import. Her lack of appetite/eating might be more to do with import than injury.

Here are some pictures of a wild caught female I bought that had rubbed her face off to the bone. She was imported in June of 2016 and is doing terrific. Not only did she have a terrible face rub to the bone (and lost some of her jaw and of course teeth) she also has an abscess on the end of her tongue and abscesses in her toes. The tongue abscess did not stop her from eating and she quickly got over import getting quite fat and round. I bred her in the fall and she produced a nice clutch of eggs for me. The last two pictures were taken today so I could show you the progress. I did not treat her with anything, even antibiotics for months because the vet and I were worried that in the struggle to medicate her, the tongue abscess might open up flooding her exposed bone with bacteria. At some point, we did give her a round of Baytril more as a prophylactic--things were improving dramatically on their own.

Miley, one week after import:

Miley, today, 11 months after import. Notice that she is growing scales on the scar tissue on the lower mandible.

 

[Ferrah88]

She's a captive bred chameleon, not wild caught. She looks fine outwardly, just the one part on the right side of her face looks a bit strange, as if she has a small overbite almost, because 90% or so of her teeth are missing on that side. Hardly any teeth on the top, and a very few stray ones on the bottom. I'll post some pictures below. (The one of the upper side of her mouth looks like there's something darker at the tip. It doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary in person, but I will check it again tomorrow if it's cause for concern!)

I'll grab some wax worms and flies tomorrow, and order some soldier fly larvae, which will arrive at the end of the week most likely, if at all this week. Hopefully that will get her to start eating! After that I could try crickets without any hind legs... what do you think?

Thanks for the help so far! I appreciate it

 

[jajeanpierre]

@Ferrah88 she's got plenty of teeth. Have a look at the right top front. See if that is teeth or maybe infection. It has a funny look to it--might just be the picture. Sometimes they get sores and infections in their mouth and the infection can look a bit like plaque.

I would guess that someone broke her teeth when they forced her mouth open with too much force. Chameleon teeth are really just attached to the gum--they don't go into the jaw bone. It isn't all that difficult to damage their teeth.

 

[Ferrah88]

@Ferrah88 she's got plenty of teeth. Have a look at the right top front. See if that is teeth or maybe infection. It has a funny look to it--might just be the picture. Sometimes they get sores and infections in their mouth and the infection can look a bit like plaque.

I would guess that someone broke her teeth when they forced her mouth open with too much force. Chameleon teeth are really just attached to the gum--they don't go into the jaw bone. It isn't all that difficult to damage their teeth.

I'll have a look at the top when I am home tomorrow. It didn't look like anything when I checked earlier to take the pictures, but it's hard to focus.

Yes, I assume that she had her mouth forced open or bit down on tongs or something like that. She did only try to bite me with the left side, so I'm hoping tomorrow when I have some softer prey to entice her with, she might be more inclined to have some.

Thanks for the insight!

 

[kinyonga]

Acrodont..
http://m.meritnation.com/ask-answer...-explain-wit/digestion-and-absorption/8902643

 

[jajeanpierre]

Accident...
http://m.meritnation.com/ask-answer...-explain-wit/digestion-and-absorption/8902643

Did you mean "acrodont" and your auto corrected to "accident"?

Thanks for making it clear--I didn't bother to research how the dental arcade is attached. My bad. Thank you.

 

[kinyonga]

Not bad...you did good!

 

[jajeanpierre]

I did know one type of teeth are attached to the top and the other type attached to the sides. And I did know they had names.... And I believed chameleons attached to the top.... I just didn't get the details correct and was too lazy to look it up. Thanks. You are a wealth of knowledge.

 

[4everscaled]

Almost all lizard teeth are pleurodont( attach to the side of the gum, no socket) but chameleons and beardies have acrodont(attaches to the top of gum, no socket) and are used for holding the prey while they try to swallow it asap. I do think that sticking to soft worms might be best.

 

[kinyonga]

I had a Parsons chameleon female that came in (WC) with a terrible mouth infection. The dental arcade (and attached teeth too of course) on one side of the mouth fell out in the vet's hands while she did the surgery to clean out the infection. The vet was astonished when it happened and worried about how she would eat. She quickly learned to eat on the other side. They can adapt to a lot of things!

Jajeanpierre ...I have a lot to learn still.

 

[Ferrah88]

I had a Parsons chameleon female that came in (WC) with a terrible mouth infection. The dental arcade (and attached teeth too of course) on one side of the mouth fell out in the vet's hands while she did the surgery to clean out the infection. The vet was astonished when it happened and worried about how she would eat. She quickly learned to eat on the other side. They can adapt to a lot of things!

Jajeanpierre ...I have a lot to learn still.

That's good to know! I'll just have to be persistent and patient with her then, as she still has teeth on both sides (just more on one side). She does know that she can bite better with the one side, so I'm hoping changing her diet to something softer and upgrading slowly will help. Trying to make sure her mouth has no infections though has caused her to dislike me at the moment though. She doesn't try and bite me when I clean up in there, but she does get all dark and puff up, telling me to leave her alone. I'll let some flies out in her cage tomorrow while I am out at work. I haven't yet known a chameleon who hasn't loved flies!

I also checked that dark spot in her mouth. It was just a shadow cast by the other teeth in a gap where a single tooth is missing, there wasn't any discolouration or anything. She's just missing teeth, but is otherwise really healthy!