Inappetant baby cham

[XamCham]

I can't copy/ paste from my phone, so I'll add all the info I can think of. I am very open to critique, as I haven't had a chameleon in a few years.

Due to my work in the veterinary field, I had a pet store surrender a chameleon to me as the store policies on husbandry were causing rapid health deterioration.

When we first saw her, she was 5 grams. We soaked her, I force feed her a small amount of critical care carnivore, and she was given ceftazidime. She was 6 grams the next time we saw her a week later. 5 grams the next week, and 4 grams when they turned her over to me.

She presented with the initial complaints of not eating, sunken eyes, and spending all her time on the floor of her cage with her eyes squeezed shut.

At the last visit to my clinic, I was able to convince her to eat two crickets on her own, and to drink droplets from the end of a syringe on her own. She was emaciated and dehydrated, and the store opted to surrender her.

Caging:
I set her up in a 4x2x2 screen/pvc cage in my room, as it is the lowest traffic, calmest room in the house. It has live plants from a list of veiled chameleon safe plants I found. There is one plastic plant in there as it is where she prefers to sleep, but I will be replacing it with a live plant once I work out how best to attach the pot to the cage wall.

I am working on adding more branches/ vines as my wallet allows to fill more of the space.

Heating:
She has two ceramic heat emitters, because my room is kept very cold. (I can't change the ambient room temperature, I have a health condition that requires me to keep myself in cold environments) These keep the ambient daytime temperature at about 70, with the basking spot at 80. I have a digital thermostat with a probe that controls it. Night temps are right about 65.

Humidity:
Day time humidity is 55-70, controlled with a fogger and digital hygrometer. Night time humidity is 80-95.

I mist the enclosure by hand 10 minutes before the lights come on in the morning, and 10 minutes before the lights go off at night, for approximately 2 minutes each time.

UVA/UVB:
Light is an Arcadia pro T5, set right above the basking area. As well, I have her cage backed up against a tall window, so from 3pm-5pm, sunlight reaches about 1/3rd of the interior of the cage.

Watering:
Lastly I have a dripper set up, 1 drop every 2-3 seconds that goes for the first few hours of the day. I do see her drinking from this on occasion.

Supplements:
I dust food items with repashy superfoods calcium plus daily, and rep cal herptivite with beta carotine every other week.

Feeding:
I am offering food daily. Banded crickets, black soldier fly larvae, silk worms. I want to incorporate more horn worms, but I'm struggling with those. They grow so quickly that in the time it takes her to eat one or two, the others become too large for her. And that's a pretty big expense for the waste. I also offer mealworms occasionally, but only ones that have freshly shed and are white still.

I have two feeding stations set up, one in her favorite hiding plant, and one near the basking spot. There are always BSF in both dishes, and at least one silk worm in each. Crickets run off everywhere, but I have seen her hunt them down before so I just let them be.

History with me:
When I first brought her home, she both ate and drank on her own, but... not as much as she should. I can get her to eat one bug once a day. At most. She initially gained 2 grams, but over the last two days she's lost some weight and is now 5.23 grams. She didn't eat yesterday and hasn't eaten today.

Her poo has looked good imo - formed and solid brown fecal material, with mostly white urates.

She's a tiny baby, I know she needs to be eating a lot more than she is. She just doesn't seem to want to. And now is losing weight again.

I'll be taking her back in to work with me this week if I have to, and next time she poops I'm going to take it in to run a fecal.

Am I missing anything? Doing something wrong? Could there be something going on with her that maybe my vet hasn't considered? Why might she not seem hungry?

Attached pictures are the day I brought her home, the day she hit 6 grams, and her current cage set up. I know there is a possibility she could get to the CHE inside the cage, and I will be moving it out of the cage once I get more branches in there to get her close enough to it to feel the warmth. It's a very small CHE and it gets to 80 degrees only a couple inches below it. So far, she has not climbed on the mesh lid, and has made no attempt to get to it. Even still, it will be out of there soon as I can.

Thank you for any and all feedback!

 

[Gloriawood]

Hi and welcome!! I am not real familiar with females or babies, so I’m going to give limited advice and let others do a full review. But the only thing that jumps out at me is: daytime humidity is a smidge high. Aim for 40-50. Night is great as long as temp drops like you stated. Supplements: I’m not familiar with those two. They may be fine, but this is what we typically recommend here: plain calcium without D3 on every feeding and one of these two multivitamins at one feeding every other week: repashy plus loD or reptivite with d3. I’ll attach photos of those.

I’m sure someone more helpful will be along shortly. Hopefully my comment will boost your post.

 

[Gloriawood]

Oh! And you can use branches you find outside, just wash with dawn and hot water and let dry. Just none from sap producing trees.

 

[XamCham]

Oh! And you can use branches you find outside, just wash with dawn and hot water and let dry. Just none from sap producing trees.

Thank you for your advice! I'll get my hands on those supplements if the consensus is that they're better. This little girl had a rough start, but life is only going to be looking up from here if I can help it.

I didn't know that about collected sticks - I thought they had to be baked before being considered safe. That limited me a bit because my oven is a real dumb shape lol

 

[Gloriawood]

Thank you for your advice! I'll get my hands on those supplements if the consensus is that they're better. This little girl had a rough start, but life is only going to be looking up from here if I can help it.

I didn't know that about collected sticks - I thought they had to be baked before being considered safe. That limited me a bit because my oven is a real dumb shape lol

Some do bake them, but you can just let them dry in the sun after washing and they will be perfectly fine!

 

[kinyonga]

Welcome to the forum! This is a good place to learn about the chameleons!

You said…”Due to my work in the veterinary field”…and…”At the last visit to my clinic”…are you a vet? BTW, I’m not a vet…I just speak from 30+ years of chameleon experience and from what I’ve read, and learned along the way.

What’s the substrate in the floor of the cage?

I’ve put my answers in bold.
You said…”We soaked her, I force feed her a small amount of critical care carnivore, and she was given ceftazidime. She was 6 grams the next time we saw her a week later. 5 grams the next week, and 4 grams when they turned her over to me”…not good that she’s losing weight like that. Soaking really doesn’t do anything for a chameleon as a rule…except maybe stress them out.

You said…”She presented with the initial complaints of not eating, sunken eyes, and spending all her time on the floor of her cage with her eyes squeezed shut”….

“At the last visit to my clinic, I was able to convince her to eat two crickets on her own, and to drink droplets from the end of a syringe on her own. She was emaciated and dehydrated, and the store opted to surrender her”…what made you think she was dehydrated? We’re the crickets offere to her of an appropriate size?

Caging:
I set her up in a 4x2x2 screen/pvc cage in my room, as it is the lowest traffic, calmest room in the house. It has live plants from a list of veiled chameleon safe plants I found. There is one plastic plant in there as it is where she prefers to sleep, but I will be replacing it with a live plant once I work out how best to attach the pot to the cage wall. Glad that you’re going to replace the plastic plant soon.

I am working on adding more branches/ vines as my wallet allows to fill more of the space.

Heating:
She has two ceramic heat emitters, because my room is kept very cold. (I can't change the ambient room temperature, I have a health condition that requires me to keep myself in cold environments) These keep the ambient daytime temperature at about 70, with the basking spot at 80. I have a digital thermostat with a probe that controls it. Night temps are right about 65.

Humidity:
Day time humidity is 55-70, controlled with a fogger and digital hygrometer. Night time humidity is 80-95. The fogger should not be used during the daytime….and only when the temperatures are cold enough at night. I hope someone else will have more to say to explain this as I never used foggers.
This might be of interest to you…
https://chameleonacademy.com/fogging-for-chameleons/

I mist the enclosure by hand 10 minutes before the lights come on in the morning, and 10 minutes before the lights go off at night, for approximately 2 minutes each time.

UVA/UVB:
Light is an Arcadia pro T5, set right above the basking area. As well, I have her cage backed up against a tall window, so from 3pm-5pm, sunlight reaches about 1/3rd of the interior of the cage. Where do you live? If it’s a cool area, having the cage near the window is not recommended. Also, sun through glass does not provide UVB needed by the chameleon.

Watering:
Lastly I have a dripper set up, 1 drop every 2-3 seconds that goes for the first few hours of the day. I do see her drinking from this on occasion.

Supplements:
I dust food items with repashy superfoods calcium plus daily, and rep cal herptivite with beta carotine every other week. This was addressed already I think.

Feeding:
I am offering food daily. Banded crickets, black soldier fly larvae, silk worms. I want to incorporate more horn worms, but I'm struggling with those. They grow so quickly that in the time it takes her to eat one or two, the others become too large for her. And that's a pretty big expense for the waste. I also offer mealworms occasionally, but only ones that have freshly shed and are white still.

I have two feeding stations set up, one in her favorite hiding plant, and one near the basking spot. There are always BSF in both dishes, and at least one silk worm in each. Crickets run off everywhere, but I have seen her hunt them down before so I just let them be.

History with me:
When I first brought her home, she both ate and drank on her own, but... not as much as she should. I can get her to eat one bug once a day. At most. She initially gained 2 grams, but over the last two days she's lost some weight and is now 5.23 grams. She didn't eat yesterday and hasn't eaten today. Are the insects the right size for her?

Her poo has looked good imo - formed and solid brown fecal material, with mostly white urates.

She's a tiny baby, I know she needs to be eating a lot more than she is. She just doesn't seem to want to. And now is losing weight again.

I'll be taking her back in to work with me this week if I have to, and next time she poops I'm going to take it in to run a fecal. Good idea to run a fecal!

 

[XamCham]

Welcome to the forum! This is a good place to learn about the chameleons!

You said…”Due to my work in the veterinary field”…and…”At the last visit to my clinic”…are you a vet? BTW, I’m not a vet…I just speak from 30+ years of chameleon experience and from what I’ve read, and learned along the way.

What’s the substrate in the floor of the cage?

I’ve put my answers in bold.
You said…”We soaked her, I force feed her a small amount of critical care carnivore, and she was given ceftazidime. She was 6 grams the next time we saw her a week later. 5 grams the next week, and 4 grams when they turned her over to me”…not good that she’s losing weight like that. Soaking really doesn’t do anything for a chameleon as a rule…except maybe stress them out.

You said…”She presented with the initial complaints of not eating, sunken eyes, and spending all her time on the floor of her cage with her eyes squeezed shut”….

“At the last visit to my clinic, I was able to convince her to eat two crickets on her own, and to drink droplets from the end of a syringe on her own. She was emaciated and dehydrated, and the store opted to surrender her”…what made you think she was dehydrated? We’re the crickets offere to her of an appropriate size?

Caging:
I set her up in a 4x2x2 screen/pvc cage in my room, as it is the lowest traffic, calmest room in the house. It has live plants from a list of veiled chameleon safe plants I found. There is one plastic plant in there as it is where she prefers to sleep, but I will be replacing it with a live plant once I work out how best to attach the pot to the cage wall. Glad that you’re going to replace the plastic plant soon.

I am working on adding more branches/ vines as my wallet allows to fill more of the space.

Heating:
She has two ceramic heat emitters, because my room is kept very cold. (I can't change the ambient room temperature, I have a health condition that requires me to keep myself in cold environments) These keep the ambient daytime temperature at about 70, with the basking spot at 80. I have a digital thermostat with a probe that controls it. Night temps are right about 65.

Humidity:
Day time humidity is 55-70, controlled with a fogger and digital hygrometer. Night time humidity is 80-95. The fogger should not be used during the daytime….and only when the temperatures are cold enough at night. I hope someone else will have more to say to explain this as I never used foggers.
This might be of interest to you…
https://chameleonacademy.com/fogging-for-chameleons/

I mist the enclosure by hand 10 minutes before the lights come on in the morning, and 10 minutes before the lights go off at night, for approximately 2 minutes each time.

UVA/UVB:
Light is an Arcadia pro T5, set right above the basking area. As well, I have her cage backed up against a tall window, so from 3pm-5pm, sunlight reaches about 1/3rd of the interior of the cage. Where do you live? If it’s a cool area, having the cage near the window is not recommended. Also, sun through glass does not provide UVB needed by the chameleon.

Watering:
Lastly I have a dripper set up, 1 drop every 2-3 seconds that goes for the first few hours of the day. I do see her drinking from this on occasion.

Supplements:
I dust food items with repashy superfoods calcium plus daily, and rep cal herptivite with beta carotine every other week. This was addressed already I think.

Feeding:
I am offering food daily. Banded crickets, black soldier fly larvae, silk worms. I want to incorporate more horn worms, but I'm struggling with those. They grow so quickly that in the time it takes her to eat one or two, the others become too large for her. And that's a pretty big expense for the waste. I also offer mealworms occasionally, but only ones that have freshly shed and are white still.

I have two feeding stations set up, one in her favorite hiding plant, and one near the basking spot. There are always BSF in both dishes, and at least one silk worm in each. Crickets run off everywhere, but I have seen her hunt them down before so I just let them be.

History with me:
When I first brought her home, she both ate and drank on her own, but... not as much as she should. I can get her to eat one bug once a day. At most. She initially gained 2 grams, but over the last two days she's lost some weight and is now 5.23 grams. She didn't eat yesterday and hasn't eaten today. Are the insects the right size for her?

Her poo has looked good imo - formed and solid brown fecal material, with mostly white urates.

She's a tiny baby, I know she needs to be eating a lot more than she is. She just doesn't seem to want to. And now is losing weight again.

I'll be taking her back in to work with me this week if I have to, and next time she poops I'm going to take it in to run a fecal. Good idea to run a fecal!

Thank you so much for the reply! I'll try to get all this answered.

I am not a vet, I'm a veterinary assistant. I've only been working in the field for a bit over a year, and am currently in college to be a CVT. So I am a bit at the mercy of what my vet thinks is best - like with soaking.

The substrate is a bioactive reptile blend, plus coconut coir and play sand. Mostly it's for the plants. I know there is some discourse on naked flooring vs bio, I chose to try this to help with humidity retention as this room in the house is its own tightly regulated habitat, and room humidity runs low.

She was deemed dehydrated because of how deeply sunken her eyes were, her urates were nearly orange, and her skin was sunken/wrinkled around all her joints.

I have no idea what size crickets the store was offering, but the ones loose in her "hospital" cage (tiny plastic cage with a snap on plastic lid) from the store were more or less correct size, no bigger than the width of her casque.

The fogger almost never clicks on during the day, the morning misting tends to keep it right at 50 all day. But I am going to lower the humidity threshold for daytime hours to make sure it won't.

I live in northwest Oregon, and it's easy to insulate that window if I need to. Heading into summer I do that for my own needs anyhow.

The insects I feed are, as far as I know, all the correct size. All thinner than the width of her casque. When she does eat them she has no trouble getting them down quickly. She just seems to only eat one insect a day, which is worrying me. She likes horn worms best of all, but they grow too fast to keep them on hand without going broke. And even then... one a day at most. She just won't take more than that.

She actually just pooped right before lights out, so I've already got it in a specimen tube to take in tomorrow.

 

[XamCham]

Fecal results came back today, no parasites. I try not to weigh her more than twice a week, she's so small and had been bounced ask over between the store and our clinic that I just want her to relax and feel secure. I'll weigh her next tomorrow after I get home from work to see where she's at.

Is there anything more I can be doing to entice her to eat? Maybe she's afraid of the dishes and doesn't want to eat from them? Is there a better way to keep her food up near her perches and within easy reach of her?

Scratching my head with this one... everything I read says they eat voraciously at this age, but I still can't get her to eat more than one, maybe two bugs a day, and even that's with hours in between.

 

[MzLaurie]

Hello and welcome. She is so tiny! How old is she? Three months? I have raised two from babies so I will make a few suggestions that may seem controversial. First, the size of feeders should be no longer then the space between her eyes, not casque. She should be on small crickets right now and 10-12 a day so I see the problem. First I suggest that you get rid of the floor covering. All of it. Then you can keep a close eye on her feces and urates. Also it better to keep it clean then end up with a bacteria, fungal, or mold problem. Get rid of the coconut coir asap. Known to carry diseases and parasites unless you freeze the brick for three days prior to use. It appears to me as though you have the cage on its side. Am I correct? Is the uvb in a floresant hood or a dome hood? If it’s dome, the uvb light only goes down three inches and must be changed to a 24” asap. I don’t use Arcadia I use reptisun 24” with 22” bulb 5.0 HO HO means high output so it goes down deeper in the cage. When my chams were babies I would put 10 small crickets in a tall clear cup with bottom taped with masking tape and one small stick and one long stick in it. Ok the masking tape is so they won’t target the outside/underneath and the sticks are for her to hold onto plus get out if she goes in plus lets the crickets climb out. Now you said you have crickets lose in the cage now. The life of a cricket is 90 days. You are going to have to go in a capture the large ones as they will bite her. I would also offer her wax worms. Now I know they hold little nutrition, but they do have fat and with her being underweight I say let her have as many as she wants in hopes of increasing her appetite. The loose crickets are going to head for the light. She can screen walk so make sure you prop up the basking light a few inches so she doesn’t burn her feet. Find yourself a rubber tree and get done dead branches from it or live if no dead are available. They curve and taper nice and are soft enough for her to grab without hurting her nails. Also fluker bend a branch is my fav vine. It’s chea, three sizes, and on Amazon. Go with the small and medium although all my chams like to sleep on the large. Now she may be one of these odd chameleons that likes to eat greens. So try different types of lettuce and see if she is. Clean some small pieces and place them in her food bowl. If she does, then eventually offer her collard greens. It is highest in A and K vitamins and if you buy a stalk bunch and keep it in a vase with a little water in the frig, it will last a month or longer. Yes I had a Cham with a targeting issue and he loved his salads. Btw get a good size flat rock and glue your bowl to it and rubber band it to a branch
Or create a spot with the bend a branch. That way they can eat higher up. Let me see if I can find a pic of the feeding cup.

 

[MzLaurie]

https://a.co/d/38WFXsL

Fluker bend a branch

 

[MzLaurie]

Oh get a monstera plant. I get mine at Trader Joe’s believe it or not. Costs only 15 and they are always a good size. The stalks are strong even when shut it full grown they can take her weight. Don’t set it near the basking light as the leaves get burned but do put it in that area that’s gets the sun as it will benefit from it. If it doesn’t reach the top 1/3 portion put it on an upside down pot so it reaches the light. It has big leaves where she can hide and holds the water on them too. The best of luck to you and ? Oh my what’s her name? The one in the pic is Rosie a female panther and she is full grown in that pic. She would close her eyes when she was scared. Tiny shyest girl that I rescued. If you don’t have a name yet ask her for suggestions. We all love the name game. Please keep us posted with her progress. She is a little sweetie pie!

 

[XamCham]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply!

She came with the name Peter, but that didn't much suit her. I've named her Sylara.

 

[MzLaurie]

Sylara lovely name. Is she eating more yet?

 

[XamCham]

Sylara lovely name. Is she eating more yet?

Well, I changed a lot about her branch landscape, added a lot more slopes to and from basking spots, added an automatic misting system, and suspended a feeding cup right next to (but not directly in) her main basking spot.

I - think- she ate a few bugs yesterday, but I only saw her eat one. There are however significantly fewer bugs in the cup than there were yesterday. I don't think they escaped, so, that kind of only leaves predation as an option. Putting the feeding cup right by her preferred basking spot seemed to help. First thing in the morning before lights on, I put the old bugs back in their habitats and put in fresh ones, usually about 12-15. There's always still some left, but there again, I do think she's at least eating more now.

I did get that last plastic plant pulled out and filled the gap with more vines. There's still plenty more improvements in the near future - like covering the soil in weed cloth and large rocks so she can't get to the soil, but the plants can still thrive. Unless there's a better option, - but I did something similar for my satanic leaftailed geckos back in the day, and it worked quite well.

Here's a picture of the set up now after this last round of adjustments. As always, open to advice/critique! I want this girl living her best life now that she's with me.

 

[Beman]

Well, I changed a lot about her branch landscape, added a lot more slopes to and from basking spots, added an automatic misting system, and suspended a feeding cup right next to (but not directly in) her main basking spot.

I - think- she ate a few bugs yesterday, but I only saw her eat one. There are however significantly fewer bugs in the cup than there were yesterday. I don't think they escaped, so, that kind of only leaves predation as an option. Putting the feeding cup right by her preferred basking spot seemed to help. First thing in the morning before lights on, I put the old bugs back in their habitats and put in fresh ones, usually about 12-15. There's always still some left, but there again, I do think she's at least eating more now.

I did get that last plastic plant pulled out and filled the gap with more vines. There's still plenty more improvements in the near future - like covering the soil in weed cloth and large rocks so she can't get to the soil, but the plants can still thrive. Unless there's a better option, - but I did something similar for my satanic leaftailed geckos back in the day, and it worked quite well.

Here's a picture of the set up now after this last round of adjustments. As always, open to advice/critique! I want this girl living her best life now that she's with me.

You either want to pull out that entire dirt floor (put plants in pots instead) or cover it completely with leaf litter. This is only a temp fix as your bottom is not fully bio active. but you do not want her eating the soil.

UVA/UVB:
Light is an Arcadia pro T5, set right above the basking area. As well, I have her cage backed up against a tall window, so from 3pm-5pm, sunlight reaches about 1/3rd of the interior of the cage.

For your UVB can you tell me which bulb strength you purchased? This one is an important one and if it is not correct can be a major contributor to no appetite.

 

[XamCham]

You either want to pull out that entire dirt floor (put plants in pots instead) or cover it completely with leaf litter. This is only a temp fix as your bottom is not fully bio active. but you do not want her eating the soil.


For your UVB can you tell me which bulb strength you purchased? This one is an important one and if it is not correct can be a major contributor to no appetite.

This is the one I've got:

https://a.co/d/iVJGmVW

My substrate isn't not bio active either lol. It's got springtails and isopods, some buried wood material and mulched oak leaves mixed in.

 

[Beman]

This is the one I've got:

https://a.co/d/iVJGmVW

My substrate isn't not bio active either lol. It's got springtails and isopods, some buried wood material and mulched oak leaves mixed in.

Ok hun this is what is wrong then. You have the 14% bulb. It is far too strong for a chameleon. Need to order the 6% bulb. And in the mean time you need a distance of roughly 15-17 inches between the bottom of the fixture and the highest branch in the cage. You have to reduce the exposure level.

 

[XamCham]

Ok hun this is what is wrong then. You have the 14% bulb. It is far too strong for a chameleon. Need to order the 6% bulb. And in the mean time you need a distance of roughly 15-17 inches between the bottom of the fixture and the highest branch in the cage. You have to reduce the exposure level.

Absolutely can do! She just seems hungry for the uv, though. She's always as close to it as she can possibly can get, turning one side of her body dark and facing the dark side to it. But adjusting the height is something I can do in just a few minutes. Will I still need a different bulb if the height is correct?

 

[Beman]

Absolutely can do! She just seems hungry for the uv, though. She's always as close to it as she can possibly can get, turning one side of her body dark and facing the dark side to it. But adjusting the height is something I can do in just a few minutes. Will I still need a different bulb if the height is correct?

Yes, I would replace the bulb. THe farther you get from the bulb the dispersal pattern of the uvb differs due to the reflector being farther away.

 

[XamCham]

Thank you, I'm ordering the correct one now.

Looks like she's still losing weight. Weighed her last night and she's down to 4.77 grams.

She's still just not eating enough to gain. :/

Going to pop into work here in a minute to talk to my vet and see what she says, she's probably going to send me home with ceftazidime and some critical care. Anything else I should ask her about? Fecal is negative for parasites, no signs of RI.