MBD or Vitamin A def?

[littlebigbox]

Hi, my name is Kim and I work at a Petsmart. We've had a baby, female veiled Chameleon for sale for about a month now, not sure on age but she's barely the size of my palm. She's been a healthy eater and has had UV lights on from around 7am to 9 pm every day as well as heat lamps, switched to night bulbs at night. Her tank at the store was probably around 90 degrees f and we kept humidity up as much as possible. Crickets every evening, probably not dusted nearly as often as they should have been and occasional mealworms and wax worms. (My pet care mgr is now researching better chameleon care/feeding!) Crickets always have fresh water/ cricket food as well as Purina Pro Plan dry Cat food.

Today is tuesday, last wednesday, I took her out to clean her tank and she looked fine and healthy, maybe a tiny bit skinny, but we were trying to transition her to a little larger crickets, I attributed it to that. (Looking back, I'm kicking myself for not asking my mgr to take a closer look at her.) She chilled on my hand while I cleaned, walked off my hand with no issues onto a branch in her tank and seemed normal. Thursday, another employee noticed she was trembling here and there and missing her aim with her arms a little. Friday she was put in our ISO room because she couldn't climb at all. Saturday she looked like she had had a stroke! She kept reaching with her right arm and grabbing her eye/ head. Couldn't move or climb.

My mgr was googling her symptoms, (with corporate, it takes a bit to be able to take a rep to an exotic vet, it sucks, I know.) He seemed to think she fit a vitamin a def more than MBD, mostly because it seemed to come on very quickly. She wasn't taking vitamins or repti-boost for anyone really and a big option that kept coming up was euth.

I love this little booger and she seems to like me. I managed a little vitamins and some repti-boost and they adopted her out to me. I've had her since sunday night, she's eaten about 1 cc of vitamins mixed with a/d cat/dog food twice a day and already has perked up. She's only in a 5 gal tank, because she can't move much and can't climb at all. It's staying around 90 deg f, and I have a UVA/UVB light on around 12 hrs each day. She's gripping better and aiming her arms a little better and I keep misting the crap out of her tank in hopes she's drinking a bit.

She goes to a wonderful exotic vet tomorrow (wed), first chance I could get her in, but I keep getting conflicting searches on vit a def and MBD. Just wondering what you all may think. Her lower jaw is strong, which keeps steering me away from MBD. She fights the syringe with the food in it, so definitely no floppy jaw, and licks the food around the inside of her mouth after I feed her. I think she doesn't trust her aim to eat on her own (tried wax worms, she may have eaten one last night, or it's really hiding well!)

Again, she is going to a great exotic vet tomorrow, early, but any advice for the meantime or help would be wonderful! This is my first rep and I'm doing tons of research, but advice is warmly welcomed!!!

 

[Masked Gecko]

Vit. A deficiency is usually a tounge issue. I'd say she has MBD.

 

[kinyonga]

Bend in left arm indicates MBD sad to say.

To correct it she needs some liquid calcium Sandoz or gluconate until the bones are strong again. In addition to appropriate temperatures, proper UVB, proper feeding/gutloading and supplements.

Supplements...phos. free calcium at most feedings, phos. free calcium/D3 twice a month lightly, vitamin with a beta carotene source of vitamin A.

Appropriate temperatures...mid to low 80's F.

Gutloading/feeding the crickets, locusts, roaches, superworms...a wide variety of greens such as dandelions, kale, collards, endive, escarole, etc and veggies such as carrots, sweet red pepper, sweet potato, squash, etc.

Good luck with her!

 

[fluxlizard]

She's pretty far down the MBD road.

Kind of sad situation for a couple of reasons-

First- although the calcium deficiency can be corrected, permanent damage has been done to her appearance- she will never look "normal". So the situation she finds herself in cannot be entirely "corrected".

Second- at her size, a month is a significant amount of time- probably a lot of this happened in your shop and because of the situation provided her there.

Lastly- petsmart and petco both have problems because of their reptile display setup. Makes correct heat and lighting difficult for diurnal lizards, and because chameleons are especially susceptible to MBD and young rapidly growing animals moreso, it makes your situation difficult for these lizards. This situation is unlikely to change- huge corporations are slow on their feet and discourage local innovation and adaptation. Unless change happens from the top, you are going to be stuck using poorly designed lizard enclosures (and I do mean poorly designed for most diurnal sun loving species, basically anything other than geckos).

I had mixed feelings about the purchase, but I bought two veileds from petsmart and petco this past year because they had MBD and also because they were clearanced down to half price and also because the MBD was moderate (not mild, but not severe like yours either). Mixed feelings because until your chain changes the way they house these lizards in shop, my purchase encourages the situation to continue. And it is just going to end in more MBD chams. Bearded dragons and leopard geckos grow rapidly also and are carried by your chain when very young and growing, but those species handle lack of UVB and poor heating much better.

How to fix- you need a different top on the enclosures- screen or wire mesh, and large enough for decent lights. uvb light and heat from light both have a hard time penetrating those wierd metal tops adequately currently. Better yet would be larger enclosures with screen tops or all screen enclosures.

Not picking on you, just giving you the facts. Take her home and love her and encourage your manager to not carry chameleon babies. Housing at your store is just inappropriate and they will never do well. I live within 40 minutes of 3 petsmarts and 2 petcos. At least some of the chameleons (usually all) at all locations when I have visited have *always* shown signs of at least mild to moderate MBD and the workers are always ignorant. Even when I was buying the 2 I got last year- the workers genuinely seemed to "love" the chameleons and seemed concerned about giving care information- but they just were not educated themselves and had no idea the animals were suffering from MBD.

 

[littlebigbox]

So little Athena went to the vet today, he said it is definitely MBD and yes, she will likely have some deformities but should recover well enough. He suggested Critical Care, which I will be researching in just a bit (it's been a busy day!) Instead of the A/D, just a bit more tailored to reps.

She has been getting calcium powder added to her food slurry the past 3-4 feedings and I just put a small pile in a bowl in her tank, just in case she feels the need to access it. She likely ate 2-3 wax worms, I cannot find the little buggers anywhere so I'm hoping they are in her belly Vet said she has a mushy jaw, so that's why she's not eating much on her own.

She is still also getting a ZooMed UVA/UVB light on (brand new bulb) around 12 hrs a day. Heat is staying constant at just around 90 degrees f, may be a little high, but in such a small tank (5 gal) I'm regulating it as well as I can, and it hasn't reached above maybe 91. She does hide under a vine in the tank most of the day, she keeps trying very hard to climb it and just can't yet, but I think she is also a little cooler under there, it's pretty dense with leaves.

On the habitats at PetSmart, I'll be the first to admit (and my mgr the second) that the cages there suck butt for everyone. I thankfully work at a very caring, knowledgeable store. Unfortunately, corporate won't give us access to the varied diet Chameleons need, so we make do as very best we can. (Our employees and Mgrs always keep us stocked with fresh fruit and veggies for everyone instead of the freeze-dried garbage we're supposed to feed. More often than not, the money for those veggies come out of employees own pockets.) Our store mgr will pull new bulbs and anything we need as soon as we need it, no matter what. UV bulbs are changed regularly, but I know for a fact, we need to work on dusting our bugs much more often before feeding. My mgr asked me to come back with the info from the vet to improve housing for our future chameleons, which, we are unable to not carry. (We've been trying to stop carrying rats because they just don't sell at our store so the poor babies are stuffed into the sad little cages on the floor. We give them extra extra love.)

We will definitely be improving our chameleon set-up at the store, our only other reps that commonly have issues are just our beardies due to their cage just unable to stay warm enough, no matter how strong the lamps are, so they spend a lot of time in ISO staying toasty warm.

I will post some more updates on Athena as she gets stronger. She even hissed at me when I tried to hand-feed a wax worm! It was good to see her more feisty. She's definitely gripping better with her front feet and moving around a bit more so I'm incredibly excited about that! Thank you all for the advice and info, keep it coming please!!!

 

[mav805]

I've been in upper management at both Petsmart and Petco, and yeah, their reptile habitats are terrible for proper care of chameleons. Unfortunately there's little you can do because even if you tell the DM that they suck, they'll spew back all about how the company vet signs off on all care and habitat protocols blah, blah, blah. The animals aren't meant (and the company does not want) to spend much of their life in these habitats, which is the only way I can imagine a vet saying they're appropriate.

My advice in the future is that if you have multiple chameleons in the cage, maybe you rotate them out every couple of days or so. That way the display isn't empty, but you can "raise" them in a more suitable habitat in the sickness/wellness room. Also, I haven't worked at Petsmart in 10 years but they probably have a timeline of how and when to offer discounts on animals that have been there for a certain period of time. If you have chameleons or other animals there, your manager can begin offering discounts to move them out of the store.

My final suggestion is to educate yourself and not count on the other employees there to know anything about the proper care of chameleons. I walked into a Petsmart a few months ago, and they had a veiled in the same condition as yours there. I told the Specialty manager that the chameleon had MBD and was in bad shape. Naturally they had no idea what I was talking about, so I told them I didn't expect them to know anything about the proper care of chameleons and to trust me, but who knows what they did afterwards. Good luck, it's good to see that you're willing to help her.

 

[littlebigbox]

So, new discovery; a month or so ago I looked up how to sex a veiled chameleon and misinterpreted the info as a male has a spur on all four feet. Well, looking at my baby's casque compared to other females of it's size, I'm like, hmm, mine looks very tall and she has nubs on her back feet. Welp, turns out Athena is actually a male and now is Orion!

He ate a wax worm right in front of me and I got him some flukers liquid calcium and he loved that stuff. I also put some in a shallow bowl of water in his tank. He's eaten at least one other wax worm as well (that's 2 today) as well as his usual A/D slurry. I figured if he's eating bugs on his own now ans improving, why spend $24 plus shipping on the critical care. He's also roving all over his tank and the zoomed 18x18x36 mesh cage I bought should get here tomorrow so I may be setting that up sooner than I thought! He's done a huge turnaround since I got him what, 4 days ago? And my mgr is working to check when we changed our UV lights last and talk to everyone about dusting crickets. We also, often, will offer free-choice calcium powder to some of our reps, so maybe we'll do that more as well.

I'll try to get a couple pics of him tomorrow, I'm trying to keep a photo timeline of his progress for my own interest.

I'm very excited with the progress he's making

 

[Scoobthenoob]

Never a crazed gunman that walks into the CEO's office..

Looks like your wasted in amongst the Petco$ of this world.

I hope you continue to study any/all creatures within your care just do not expect much if any recognition from head office.

If I neglected my animals like many of the giants do I would be looking at prison time, and rightly so..

Rant over.