kidney failure

[albacheck]

I don't think that the coccidia in this case are the direct cause for the declining health. Adult chameleons with a minor coccidia infestation, will live on for years untreated, assumed that they are in good condition and the husbandry is correct.
I'm more concerned about his dietary condition. He appears to be a bit on the chubby side imo. Because the abdominal fat storage of chameleons is directed to the interior, one usually identifies a fat chameleon when it's to late.
A lot of people don't seem to understand that reptiles have a completly different metabolsim then we have, thus feed their animals to much and to often . I also scepticaly observe the trend in the US of feeding waxworms, hornwors, silkworms and other larvae, that all contain a significant amount of fat. If you have look at what chamelons eat in their natural habitat, you will see that this "fastfood" seldomly is on their menu. This is one reason why I propagate for wildcaught bugs.
Hope he gets well soon, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

 

[Eric Adrignola]

I mentioned this earlier - he seemed chuby, but not overly obese.

thing is, if a parasite was causing the problem, I'd suspect his body condition to not be so "robust" - they usually waste away first.

 

[dodolah]

In this case, Albon seems to be far too much to handle.
I think you should consider stopping Albon. so, his body can rest.
I knew my veiled also react severely... Have you considered using Ponazuril?
If this is truly some kind of kidney failure, then all you can do is give him plenty of water. I hope your chameleon will be able to get back to his usual self.

I also scepticaly observe the trend in the US of feeding waxworms, hornwors, silkworms and other larvae, that all contain a significant amount of fat. If you have look at what chamelons eat in their natural habitat, you will see that this "fastfood" seldomly is on their menu. This is one reason why I propagate for wildcaught bugs.
Hope he gets well soon, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I beg to differ in this thought:
if you are talking about waxworms, then I agree with you.
Silkworms on the other hand..
Here is what I got from nutrition list site

Silkworms Crickets
Protein 63.8% 11.4%
Calcium .34% .08%
Fat 10.6% 22.7%
Carb 18.2% 56.0%
Ash 7.4% 9.9%

Hornworms have fat content 3.07% (from greatlake site).
(Some always advertise hornworms as fatty.. and recommend supers instead.. I do not get the idea why.. as far as I know, superworms are far much more fattening than hornworms).

As you can see essentially as far as fat, carb, and ash goes cricket (and locust) will contain more fat than silkworm.
The only benefit I see from cricket is the chitin.
imho, Chitin is needed in moderate amount (not excessive).

The reason why we don't feed wildcaught bugs in us (although I agree with you about the benefit of wild bugs nutrition) is the heavy usage of pesticide. It is becoming more and more difficult to find unpolluted area with insects that are clean of chemical and some poison trace.

 

[JackAttack]

I mentioned this earlier - he seemed chuby, but not overly obese.

thing is, if a parasite was causing the problem, I'd suspect his body condition to not be so "robust" - they usually waste away first.

ok, so to answer the questions about his diet.............

jack's staple food is crickets. this is what he gets on a daily basis. i put about 10 crix in a cup, dusted, and leave them in there for him to eat at his leisure. more often than not, there are at least 5 crix left over from the day prior so i dont have to put new ones in daily. he eats them the day after, so on avg, im estimating around 5 large adult crix per day.

when he was little, he packed away the crickets, easily 10 a day, sometimes more, size varying of course based on the size of jack as he grew. but this changes in jack now as a 2 year old male adult..., some days he'll choose not to eat at all, and others he'd eat all 10. we pay attention though, to how much he's eaten, and how much he hasnt.

about once every 2 weeks or so jack gets worms. on the days he gets silk worms or horned worms, he rarely eats any crickets, nor are they often offered. they are substituted on those days. i have seen jack pack away 6 silks in a row before, but then he wont eat anything else. since he has been sick, horned worms are the ONLY thing ive seen him eat voluntarily. he refuses crickets, and he has so far refused silks too. which is strange, because he ususally devours those.

this last week, jack has had 7 crickets force fed to him, and 4 horned he hate voluntarily. one large, and 3 small. this is in a span of 7 days. i am going to attach some pics of jack before he got sick, just to see what you guys think of his weight. these were taken about a month prior to him not being well. the last one of him where he is flaring his head flaps at me, was from about 6-7 months ago. he looks fat right now because he is completely swollen, all over his body. he feels like a raw steak when you squeeze him. he was not always like this, i assure you. we used to make fun of him because he had "chicken legs", we always thought he was on the small side for veilds......

let me know what you all think.

also, jacks poops are normal in coloring, but are runny, im asuming from the medicine. what happens if i stop the albon, and the parasites are not gone..........should i wait and ask the vet exactly how much coccida was in his stool?...........then make a call on if the treatment needs to continue?

 

[JackAttack]

I don't think that the coccidia in this case are the direct cause for the declining health. Adult chameleons with a minor coccidia infestation, will live on for years untreated, assumed that they are in good condition and the husbandry is correct.
I'm more concerned about his dietary condition. He appears to be a bit on the chubby side imo. Because the abdominal fat storage of chameleons is directed to the interior, one usually identifies a fat chameleon when it's to late.
A lot of people don't seem to understand that reptiles have a completly different metabolsim then we have, thus feed their animals to much and to often . I also scepticaly observe the trend in the US of feeding waxworms, hornwors, silkworms and other larvae, that all contain a significant amount of fat. If you have look at what chamelons eat in their natural habitat, you will see that this "fastfood" seldomly is on their menu. This is one reason why I propagate for wildcaught bugs.
Hope he gets well soon, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

ok, so if it is his diet, is there a way to correct it? what do you mean "diagnose a fat chameleon too late"? ..........are there other signs that may suggest your cham is "fat"? ive never heard of this before..............

 

[dodolah]

If the Albon does not work after that treatment, i am leaning to think that it won't work even when you continued the treatment. Theoretically, Albon should clear the coccidia by witholding the protozoan's ability to reproduce. Albon do not kill coccidia directly. Your chameleon's antibody will be the one that combat the parasites. The problem lies in the suspicion that albon might be proven too harsh for your chameleon system.

I have the same problem where my chameleon stopped eating altogether after Albon treatment and I have to resort to force feeding him.
for 2-3 weeks.

I consult with my vet (something you should do), and we decided that quitting albon treatment is the best choice (choosing the lesser evil between organ failure or parasites).
So, after a week quitting, he finally chomp 1 hornworm.

I consult this to Dave Weldon.. and since both of our chameleons are battling coccidia at that time, Dave suggested Appertex (for pigeon).
But, since the administering it is a bit PITA.. he find a better solution in Ponazuril. This is prescription only. So, perhaps, suggest your vet about Ponazuril and see how she feels about this medicine.

Ponazuril directly kill coccidia and so far, the side effect is much milder than Albon, at least to my chameleon.

 

[kinyonga]

What was the first medication he was on along with the painkiller?

 

[albacheck]

Could you please give me a link to the nutrition list site?
The tables I looked at usually had about 6% fat content for crickets.
Althought it seems to vary depending on the diet.

Extract from:
The influence of diet on the body composition of the house cricket
(Acheta domestica) and consequences for their use in zoo animal nutrition.
By JEAN-MICHEL HATT, ELISABETH HUNG & MARCEL WANNER, Zürich
238

...In all three groups the fat content of crickets decreased with time. This observed
decrease is interesting. In mammals and birds it is known that with age the body fat
content increases. The most likely explanation for the decrease in fat content is that
the crickets received from the breeder were exceedingly fat. The animals in this
study had a fat content 356 g/kg DM. Comparison with own data of crickets from
five different breeders (Hatt, unpublished) as well as published data from Barker et
al. (1998) suggest that a crude fat concentration of about 200 to 250 g/kg DM may
be considered normal. It would have been of interest to analyse the diet fed at the
breeder, however such a food sample could not be obtained.

Couldnt find any reliable list for the composition of silkworms, but this might be a hint:

from the abstract of:
Proximate composition and fatty acid profile of Bombyx mori L. chrysalis toast
pp. 451-457(7)
Authors: Pereira N.R.; Ferrarese-Filho O.; Matsushita M.; de Souza N.E.


...The objective of the present study was to analyze the nutritional composition of Bombyx mori (L.) chrysalis (worm) toast. The results have revealed that this sub-product of the silk thread industry is a rich source of protein (51.1%); lipid (34.4%);

Of course too much of this and too little of that can be harm ful too... Chameleon nutrition is a science itself, thats why I just think, why not feed them what they eat in their natural habitat? Spiders, all sorts of flying insects, uhh and my favs

 

[Eric Adrignola]

I'm pretty certain that slikworms have a higher fat content than crickets.

Regardless, 10 crcikets a day is probably too much. even 5 a day is probably a bit excessive, in the long run.

My big males eat about 5 crickets every other day, sometimes more or less. In fact, my WC male has been eating abouy that much, and he's getting a bit fat. I'll be cutting down on his intake. I wanted to make sure he gained a bit of weight when I got him in.

I am a believer that chitin should be fed in larger quantities than is common. Tree lizards eat tree insects - flies being abot the only non-chitinous of them. They're not eatign soft insects like crickets, or larvae very much. It's grasshoppers and beetles and flies. When fed a lot of chitinous insects, their feces is not all that different - they digest it a bit.

 

[albacheck]

ok, so to answer the questions about his diet.............

jack's staple food is crickets. this is what he gets on a daily basis. i put about 10 crix in a cup, dusted, and leave them in there for him to eat at his leisure. more often than not, there are at least 5 crix left over from the day prior so i dont have to put new ones in daily. he eats them the day after, so on avg, im estimating around 5 large adult crix per day.

when he was little, he packed away the crickets, easily 10 a day, sometimes more, size varying of course based on the size of jack as he grew. but this changes in jack now as a 2 year old male adult..., some days he'll choose not to eat at all, and others he'd eat all 10. we pay attention though, to how much he's eaten, and how much he hasnt.

about once every 2 weeks or so jack gets worms. on the days he gets silk worms or horned worms, he rarely eats any crickets, nor are they often offered. they are substituted on those days. i have seen jack pack away 6 silks in a row before, but then he wont eat anything else. since he has been sick, horned worms are the ONLY thing ive seen him eat voluntarily. he refuses crickets, and he has so far refused silks too. which is strange, because he ususally devours those.

this last week, jack has had 7 crickets force fed to him, and 4 horned he hate voluntarily. one large, and 3 small. this is in a span of 7 days. i am going to attach some pics of jack before he got sick, just to see what you guys think of his weight. these were taken about a month prior to him not being well. the last one of him where he is flaring his head flaps at me, was from about 6-7 months ago. he looks fat right now because he is completely swollen, all over his body. he feels like a raw steak when you squeeze him. he was not always like this, i assure you. we used to make fun of him because he had "chicken legs", we always thought he was on the small side for veilds......

let me know what you all think.

also, jacks poops are normal in coloring, but are runny, im asuming from the medicine. what happens if i stop the albon, and the parasites are not gone..........should i wait and ask the vet exactly how much coccida was in his stool?...........then make a call on if the treatment needs to continue?

That is indeed waaaaaaay to much food. An adult ch. calyptratus should get about 5 crickets A WEEK. A chameleon should always be hungry, if it starts to get picky, then you should let it starve, untill it starts eating again anything you offer.
If your chameleon has been fed like this for a long time, then I wouldn't offer him any food at all for 1-2 weeks and after that I would cut out on the wormy stuff, and only offer high quality gutloaded feeders.

 

[JackAttack]

That is indeed waaaaaaay to much food. An adult ch. calyptratus should get about 5 crickets A WEEK. A chameleon should always be hungry, if it starts to get picky, then you should let it starve, untill it starts eating again anything you offer.
If your chameleon has been fed like this for a long time, then I wouldn't offer him any food at all for 1-2 weeks and after that I would cut out on the wormy stuff, and only offer high quality gutloaded feeders.

5 crickets a week???? im sorry, but i have had chams before, and i have never fed them only 5 crickets a week..........thats keeping them a little more than just "hungry" in my opinion.......the last veiled i had lived to be 6, and he ate at least 5 crix a day.........

 

[JackAttack]

What was the first medication he was on along with the painkiller?

the first medicine he was on was called cephalexin ( 5 doses, no luck)
the second was baytril ( 4 doses, no luck)
albon (7 doses, 6 more to go, so far no luck)

 

[JackAttack]

I'm pretty certain that slikworms have a higher fat content than crickets.

Regardless, 10 crcikets a day is probably too much. even 5 a day is probably a bit excessive, in the long run.

My big males eat about 5 crickets every other day, sometimes more or less. In fact, my WC male has been eating abouy that much, and he's getting a bit fat. I'll be cutting down on his intake. I wanted to make sure he gained a bit of weight when I got him in.

I am a believer that chitin should be fed in larger quantities than is common. Tree lizards eat tree insects - flies being abot the only non-chitinous of them. They're not eatign soft insects like crickets, or larvae very much. It's grasshoppers and beetles and flies. When fed a lot of chitinous insects, their feces is not all that different - they digest it a bit.

jack isnt consistantly eating 10 crix a day, like i said, it varies.......there was a period there when i would put 10 crix in the cup, and they'd all just die, because he wouldnt eat them. that would last for a week at a time, and then he'd pick at them and eat one or two a day when he got over his little strike. he's not mowing 10 crix or worms every time they're in the cage. i am having a hard time believing that my cham is obese, and thats what the problem is.......he likes to eat, all chams do, but its not different from the way i've fed my other chams thats all. i just made a post asking about this too, "how many crickets" and there are all sorts of answers. some say 8 crix/day, some told me that for my 3 month old panther, 20 crix a day was normal. it varies between owners it seems........

 

[GooglezNvincent]

jack isnt consistantly eating 10 crix a day, like i said, it varies.......there was a period there when i would put 10 crix in the cup, and they'd all just die, because he wouldnt eat them. that would last for a week at a time, and then he'd pick at them and eat one or two a day when he got over his little strike. he's not mowing 10 crix or worms every time they're in the cage. i am having a hard time believing that my cham is obese, and thats what the problem is.......he likes to eat, all chams do, but its not different from the way i've fed my other chams thats all. i just made a post asking about this too, "how many crickets" and there are all sorts of answers. some say 8 crix/day, some told me that for my 3 month old panther, 20 crix a day was normal. it varies between owners it seems........

Am i right in presuming that Jack is getting better?!?!?! I hope so, hes a beautiful guy and you are doing everything for him, i really hope hes showing signs that he can pull through and does!

 

[JackAttack]

Am i right in presuming that Jack is getting better?!?!?! I hope so, hes a beautiful guy and you are doing everything for him, i really hope hes showing signs that he can pull through and does!

awe thank you so much for your kind words. people on here have been great, really, and its amazing how many people have been following my posts.

unfortunately no, jack is not doing better. he will eat horned worms on his own accord, but that is all. and it is only once a week thus far. i have been force feeding crix, but i think his appetite is fine, and he'll eat when he wants to, so im going to stop that. he is very swollen, all over, and has no grip in his back legs any more at all. they are solely used for leverege, and even that is pushing it. he falls all through the day. its so frustrating, because like what everyone says, he doesnt look sick, but he sure acts sick. doesnt move around at all, unless he has to get to his heat lamp. lays on his belly on my hand when i hold him as im sure you read in the last posts, we're still debating what is wrong with him. after a few more albon treatments, i think im going to stop it.........i have to talk to the vet but as it is easter weekend, nobody is open..........fingers crossed.

 

[jannb]

I agree. Jack is a extremely handsome guy and I do so hope that he is improving and will have a full recovery. I just wish you'd go to another vet for a second opinion.

 

[JackAttack]

I agree. Jack is a extremely handsome guy and I do so hope that he is improving and will have a full recovery. I just wish you'd go to another vet for a second opinion.

that is the plan, none are open this weekend though as it is easter......its so hard to try and make the right choice. i think though, we are going to stop the albon, this week, and let him have a bit of time to get the meds out of his system. then if there is no improvement, take him to a new vet.....

 

[GooglezNvincent]

awe thank you so much for your kind words. people on here have been great, really, and its amazing how many people have been following my posts.

unfortunately no, jack is not doing better. he will eat horned worms on his own accord, but that is all. and it is only once a week thus far. i have been force feeding crix, but i think his appetite is fine, and he'll eat when he wants to, so im going to stop that. he is very swollen, all over, and has no grip in his back legs any more at all. they are solely used for leverege, and even that is pushing it. he falls all through the day. its so frustrating, because like what everyone says, he doesnt look sick, but he sure acts sick. doesnt move around at all, unless he has to get to his heat lamp. lays on his belly on my hand when i hold him as im sure you read in the last posts, we're still debating what is wrong with him. after a few more albon treatments, i think im going to stop it.........i have to talk to the vet but as it is easter weekend, nobody is open..........fingers crossed.

May b if you get a really short cage so he doesnt need to climb to get heat, and put towels on the bottom so if he does try n climb and fall it wont hurt n e more, and just turn the heat lamp on and off when you think he needs some heat. I think its just time that is the problem, he might need more time to heal, because the older an organism is the less resiliant it is. Best of luck and i will keep following Jack's thread. Keep on truckin and dont lose spirit!

 

[jannb]

that is the plan, none are open this weekend though as it is easter......its so hard to try and make the right choice. i think though, we are going to stop the albon, this week, and let him have a bit of time to get the meds out of his system. then if there is no improvement, take him to a new vet.....

Albon was very bad for Luie. After 3 days he would not eat and I had to force feed. I stopped the Albon and got him on one of the alternative drugs.

 

[dodolah]

Could you please give me a link to the nutrition list site?
The tables I looked at usually had about 6% fat content for crickets.
Althought it seems to vary depending on the diet.



Couldnt find any reliable list for the composition of silkworms, but this might be a hint:


Of course too much of this and too little of that can be harm ful too... Chameleon nutrition is a science itself, thats why I just think, why not feed them what they eat in their natural habitat? Spiders, all sorts of flying insects, uhh and my favs

The one i mentioned be4 is from a commercial site (in which I can understand your doubt in believing such info). But, the one i list is close to the reliable info I have.
I got my info from Journal of Zoo and Wildlife.
The article title is Preliminary Information On the Nutritional Content of Mulberry Silk Moth (Bombyx Mori) Larvae. by Frederic L Frye and Chris C Calvert.


The one you mention is for Bombyx mori chrysalis toast (you should try to find the nutrition list when they are still in larvae mode). unless, you are trying to feed your chameleon the pupae.
And you are correct, Cricket's fat content will be different based on the food you provide.
In this case, we should find the one that is fed with commercial gutload.
Such as this link:
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cach...ket&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a


This is quite fascinating.
I want to continue this discussion. But, shall we do this further in a new thread, so we do not hijack JackAttack's original post?