I'm a sucker for an orphan--rescuing a veiled cham--please help!

[ChuWuti]

and on top of adopting Lea last Tuesday, last night we drove 30 minutes to pick up a corn snake needing rehoming . . . fortunately, he is in EXCELLENT condition! He belonged to a veterinarian whose husband is in the Air Force; they are being deployed to Japan for three years, so she has to find new homes for all her critters. Our herp society is helping with the snakes.

Life is never dull!

 

[ChuWuti]

Oh, good grief. My DH has decided to cover the outside of the base with leftover pieces of our Brazilian mesquite hardwood flooring so it will be pretty. He just took off with a whole box of the flooring pieces (we have a couple of boxes left over) to the physics department (they have saws & other equipment there he can use) to put it all together . . . He figures he doesn't have to rush too much to finish the base because she's in the middle of laying but promised me it would be ready tomorrow. He's got an appliance tray (the kind you put under washing machines for overflow) that he's going to fill with pea gravel (similar in size to aquarium gravel) for added humidity, and he's going to add molding around the top of the base that will hold the screen cage in place.

I had no idea he was going to THIS much trouble!! I just wanted something to set the enclosure on so it wouldn't ruin our fairly new hardwood flooring--I suggested a tray, and mentioned a gravel tray would help with humidity as well. But no, that's far too simple . . .

This is going to be a very fancy base!

 

[Lovereps]

First off--God bless you and your hubby for taking on the care of this cham--especially given her issues.
The pea gravel sounds like it is too small to use with a cham. Basically, you only want rocks larger than can fit in her mouth. This way she can't accidentally ingest one--and that is a type of accident that does happen.

I'm not a Veiled keeper but I know that these caresheets are very good:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/veiled/
and
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/chameleonsinmyhouse/395-veiled-chameleon-care-sheet.html

Again, glad you've adopted her and it is great news that she is laying.
Hope all continues to go well.

 

[ChuWuti]

Oh, I'm sorry--I confused you! The gravel tray will be OUTSIDE the enclosure, underneath the base he is building, and the enclosure will rest on top of the base. The cham will not be able to access the gravel in any way.

Thanks for your concern, though--I know that in another thread someone was talking about a cham eating perlite and saying nothing ever happened, as if that's proof it's OK to have in a cham's enclosure. Perlite, a volcanic glass that has been heated until it expands (sort of like popcorn), is not good for ANY herp to ingest! Not only is it completely indigestible, but also, it's likely to cause impaction--like pea gravel!

Yes, I've read through the caresheets quite thoroughly--the day I agreed to take Lea, I began researching, read every caresheet here and on other forums, bought several books . . . basically did a crash course in chameleon! Still, the books and caresheets don't answer ALL the questions, so it's fabulous to have a resource like this forum with people like you who care so much!

Thanks!!

 

[donatella]

I am a noob too, but I read through all this and I just wanted to compliment you on your caring and devotion in adopting this little dinosaur, even knowing her previous health issues. I have only had my girl for a couple of months now, but I'm devoted to her and I understand exactly what you mean when you say you fell for her! My husband and I experienced the same thing... I hope she gets through this rough patch!

 

[Lovereps]

I'm glad to know that you've been reading as much as possible in order to take the best care of her.
I have no doubt that you will succeed.
Truly you are a very caring person and will give her the proper care that she needs.

In case you haven't seen the MBD "sticky" thread, it's by chamkeeper and veterinarian Ferretinmyshoes.
Plenty of recovery stories to click on in the thread and there were some very serious cases:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/wha...ase-mbd-looks-like-how-happens-how-fix-95071/

 

[ChuWuti]

Yeah, I read that thread and looked at all the pics carefully. While Lea doesn't show the deformities associated with severe MBD, she is extremely calcium deficient. Let me update you with today's news:

Turns out Lea quit laying because she prolapsed her rectum during laying. I found her lying on the sand this a.m. with no new eggs visible, so I picked her up to check on her; that's when I found she had the prolapse. After researching this condition, I realized that even if the prolapse could be shrunk, she would be unable to lay her eggs without it recurring unless the eggs were surgically removed, which is an expense I cannot afford. Hence, I made the painful decision to have her put down.

I tried to call my own vet, but their line was busy, so I called another vet I know here locally and asked if she felt able to put Lea down. The answer was yes, so, I did not try calling the herp-certified vet in Oklahoma City--that's around an hour drive or more for me, and as I was planning only to have her put to sleep, I didn't feel taking her to a herp vet was necessary if a local vet could do it.

It may be fortunate for Lea that I did it this way! The vet to whom I took her is my husband's research partner's wife, widow, actually (he died just after Christmas, and we've helped the family a lot), and she has decided to try to save Lea. I told her we cannot afford the surgery, but she insisted that she wants to do it and won't charge, so she will be operating today. She does a lot of exotics and feels she can do it.

She also took an X-ray and we could NOT EVEN SEE THE BONES IN LEA'S LEGS--that's strong evidence of MBD. IF Lea survives today's surgery, then she's very lucky not to have the deformities from far worse MBD, and we'll be able to help her with her calcium levels.

The real question is whether Lea is strong enough to survive the surgery.

Contrary to what the other exotic animal vet said, Lea is NOT overweight; indeed, she is UNDERWEIGHT. I realized yesterday that I could see her ribs as she was turning away from me in the evening, which had me wondering about the "overweight" diagnosis, and Kerry (our friend/vet) agreed--Lea has NO fat reserves at all. So we don't know if she'll survive the surgery, but as Kerry pointed out, once she is anesthetized, she will be feeling no pain, and if it doesn't go well, they will give her a deeper dose then to humanely end her life.

Think good thoughts for Lea; I'm much more hopeful now than I was earlier this morning!!!

 

[Djturna4thakidz]

I wish the best for both of you. Bless you for taking in this chameleon and doing everything in your power to give her a better life. I know it's stressful, hang in there and we will all hope for best. Let us know as soon as you hear anything

 

[Kate]

I wish I had a vet friend like you. Thinking about you both.

 

[ChuWuti]

Kerry just called. Lea actually was able to pass an egg before they were able to do the surgery, so they have given her water/dextrose water and are going to hold her for observation to see if she might be able to lay the rest by herself without surgery tonight. Then they can repair the prolapse.

 

[little leaf]

got my fingers crossed for her please keep us posted - good luck

 

[ChuWuti]

Well, we're down to our last hope. Thursday we were able to get Lea to eat a cricket--just one--and a mealworm. Friday we got her to eat a cricket. That afternoon, she pooped a nearly undigested cricket. She has refused to eat since, and I'm now force-feeding her bug juice trying to get her system jump-started again. She laid a total of 39 eggs with the veterinarian's help--gentle manipulation of her abdomen to stimulate laying--up through Friday. This weekend she hasn't laid any more eggs.

I am feeling pretty hopeless at this point . . . without being willing to eat, Lea can't get enough energy to lay. She is still prolapsed, and the tissue is drying out despite our efforts to keep it moist. The vet had managed better than I, I'm afraid; I can't stay home all the time to clean the tissue as much as I wish I could. She is visibly weakening. I'm afraid things are pretty bleak.

 

[laurie]

How is she doing? Any better since we talked last night? Are you able to get the bug juice down her? Still have my fingers crossed. Let me know how the 2 of you are.

 

[ChuWuti]

Sad News

Last night when I force-fed Lea some bug juice, she wasn't very responsive, but this morning she gulped down about 1 ml--kept opening her mouth and swallowing! That made me feel somewhat more hopeful except for the fact that she hadn't laid any more eggs and we knew there were more, and the prolapse was looking worse, too. DH and I took her back to the vet before noon. Midday they tried again on the force-feeding, and she refused, and she was looking so thin and tired we were all really worried. My vet friend tried helping her lay more eggs with gentle manipulation (which had worked last week) and gave her a calcium injection.

However, this afternoon Lea died. Kerry did an autopsy and found Lea had 23 more eggs in her little body. Kerry said, "You would not believe how thin she was after the eggs were taken out--she was absolutely emaciated, and her bones are really soft." I asked whether I could have done anything differently to have helped her and she said, "No, you couldn't have done anything in two weeks time--this was the result of long-term bad husbandry. If she hadn't been egg bound, you might have been able to save her from the poor diet, but I don't think so."

So there we are, at the end of our less than two weeks with Lea the chameleon. I wish we could have saved her . . .

I really appreciate all the help from everyone here. DH and I think that sometime in the future we will get a chameleon of our own, perhaps a male (avoid problems with egg binding!) Jackson's, as my DH really likes the way they look with their horns. After all, we now have a big enclosure for a chameleon and have set up in a nice spot where we can keep the humidity up, provide sunshine (without overheating), have lots of plants . . . but for now we are pretty sad about Lea, as she really grabbed our hearts in the short time she spent with us.

Thank you all again!!! Laurie, I especially appreciated the text and phone call--it's so good to know that this forum is filled with truly caring people!

Sandy

 

[ChuWuti]

Extremely calcium deficient female CANNOT lay eggs

Hi, all,

If any of you are still following this thread, or for anyone in the future who might be inspired to learn more about egg binding and its association with calcium deficiency, here is what the other exotic animal vet at my friend's clinic told me today (Kerry had already left when I went to pick up my equipment, so the other vet came out to talk with me).

When they opened Lea up to see why she hadn't laid the rest of her eggs, they found two problems:

1) her uterus, which should be a reasonably thick, muscular sheet of tissue so that it can push eggs out, was extremely thin and nearly transparent, indicative of the weeks or months of deficient nutrition to which Lea was subjected.

2) her remaining eggs' shells were not fully calcified, and so, rather than being smooth and simply lying loosely inside the uterus, the eggs were literally STUCK TO the uterus. There wasn't enough shell to separate the eggs from the uterine wall.

As a result of the two conditions, Lea literally was incapable of laying all of her eggs.

The vet said she had been underfed/neglected for a long time, and that it was simply impossible to improve her condition quickly enough to save her.

The only good things to come out of this for me are 1) that I have a new relationship with local vets whom I feel I can have confidence in for herp health issues, and 2) my DH & I have learned a lot about chameleons--though we're fully aware that we don't know everything by any means!! What we have learned, though, makes us feel that someday we will get a chameleon (or a few). After all, now we have some of the appropriate equipment! We also got plants, so we'll go ahead and set up an enclosure and ensure that humidity, lighting, and temps are good BEFORE putting any critters into it.

Again, I am more grateful than I can fully express for all the support provided by members of this forum. I'll be back, that's for sure!

Sandy Moore-Furneaux
Norman, Oklahoma

 

[Tiny]

I day here (at work yikes) and read your entire thread. How generous of you two to have taken her in. Your story has brought me to tears. We very recenctly got a Jackson (male, I could never handle live bearthing) and we are very attched. I can't imagine going threw what you both have been threw.
I'm sorry it ended this way... RIP Lea :'(

 

[ChuWuti]

Thanks, Tiny. It was a rough couple of weeks, but Lea had it the worst and for so long, poor girl. I'm glad she's no longer suffering.

Thinking about turning an upstairs bathroom--a very long space with south and east windows somewhat shaded by trees--into a free-range room . . .

It won't be right away, though.

Enjoy your chams!

Sandy