I tried to search-didn't find the answer-any idea

[Barb]

My 11 month male veiled Cham sits in front of the 5.0 UVB bulb with his mouth open. Not gasping, not opened all the way, no drooling, no discharge, no noises. Humidity is 50-70 lower at night. Temps, 65 on up to 85 and basking 95-100. Does not look dehydrated. Eats good, crickets, horned worms, super worms and meal worms, also some greens in with crickets, not sure if he has eaten any of them. If I open the cage and look in on him or talk to him or try to feed him a worm, he will close his mouth and not do it the whole time I'm there. I have enclosed a pic, hopefully it will turn out and you can see his mouth open.

Any suggestions? BTW, he climbs all over and loves coming out of his cage onto my drapes. I don't let him be out without my full attention. I know he hasn't eaten anything he's not suppose to.
Any help/ideas greatly appreciated.
Thank you

 

[camimom]

Thats because he is hot

That basking temp should not be hitting triple digits.
max temp it should be is 90, and even then i wouldnt do it.

my guys dont bask in temps higher than 88.

 

[Barb]

I thought that was it too. The only thing is, on the side he does the open mouth is not that hot, it's in the low 80's and even 75. I have a temp gun and two thermometers. He also has the other side of the tree he could go that is even lower. Could the UVB light have anything to do with it? His fave spot too be is right in front of the UVB light?

 

[camimom]

If t was too bright, he would just his eyes, not open his mouth.

Is he making any coughing, huffing, wheezing noises?

 

[Barb]

No signs or noise of any kind. Everything seems fine except the open mouth. It's not all the time, but has been since I have been feeding the hornworms. However, he didn't get any hornworms yesterday and only got some later in the day today.

 

[camimom]

I doubt it was the worms.
Im betting its just too hot for him

 

[Barb]

Okay. I will check it out tomorrow and lower the temps. The temps i had searched were as follows, 90-100 basking and 72-80 ambient. 68 or even lower at night. Mine gets to 65 at night. My cage temps are from 68 on up to the 95-100 basking. Probably lower then 68 towards the very bottom of cage.
So, I will drop the basking to around 85 and the ambient temps between 75-80. Does this sound okay, to high, to low. Thanks for all the help. I really appreciate your time.

 

[MCSEB]

I agree. The basking spot is too hot. Try to stay in the 80's possibly mid 80's but that's it. My basking spot for my 5 month old veiled chameleon is usually 78-83F.

 

[camimom]

The ambient temps are fine. the basking temp should be no higher than 88.

They can handle temp drops to the mid or even low 50's at night.

 

[crocky]

What are you measuring your temps with? I have used digital readouts with probes and when compared to another could be 6-10 degrees off. Just 6 degrees can make a world of difference. I always test mine with three different ones and a infrared and take the closet three out of four. But I am obsessive like that . I have just seen too many cases where those probes were off in my SW fish hobby times. They are much better than the dials but even digital ones can be off. When something is amiss with temps I always go there first.

Just saying all that to recommend double checking your temps with another temp gauge.

 

[Barb]

I will switch back to the original bulb i was using. Here's what caused me to buy a bigger watt bulb and get the higher temps. During my research, I read that the younger veileds need the lower basking temps, but that the older veileds need higher basking. Mine is 11 months maybe 12, person i got him from not 100% sure if the birth month was January or February. but did say, its so close, i could start feeding him as a yearling. So, I figured i needed to up the basking and bought a higher bulb.
I will do as you suggested and lower the basking. Btw, makes sense, he doesn't do it at night when heats off and didn't do it when he was out of his cage. I am always more concerned about them getting cold then hot though. Seems he would go to a lower spot if he was too hot. But they can only get as warm as the hottest spot, not like they can put a jacket on. LOL. That's why I worry more about the cold then heat. Should be an easy fix, I hope that's all it is.
Thanks everyone. I so appreciate your time. I will let you know if that fixes his open mouth.

 

[Vmag86]

Like others have said, chams open their mouths like that in an attempt to cool down because they are too hot. I would suggest lowering the temp in the cage wherever he has been doing this.

 

[Decadancin]

No signs or noise of any kind. Everything seems fine except the open mouth. It's not all the time, but has been since I have been feeding the hornworms. However, he didn't get any hornworms yesterday and only got some later in the day today.

My boy Zaphod was doing this after eating some larger hornworms. He actually was doing this early in the morning before the basking bulb came on.

The ambient temps are fine. the basking temp should be no higher than 88.

I would suggest a bit lower also, but with enough foliage to shield the heat it could be O.K. Zaphod's basking temps are about 88 to 92 degrees.

Like others have said, chams open their mouths like that in an attempt to cool down because they are too hot. I would suggest lowering the temp in the cage wherever he has been doing this.

This is normally the reason for keeping the mouth open unless there is a health issue. I would do this and see if the behavior stops. If it does, that should be the answer!

 

[Barb]

Thanks for all responses. I changed the bulb out this a.m. Hopefully that will fix the problem. Now that I think about it, I do believe that is when he started doing the mouth thing, when I upped the watts. We'll see if the lower watts works.