Need some help with chameleon

[dandkadams]

We have a large male veiled chameleon that is aprox. 4 years old.
Long story short we got him (he was dumped on us) about 2.5 years ago and he was in an 18 x 18 x 12 and had never had a sprayer, white light or anything but crickets in his diet.

He now lives in a 24” x 18” x 36” has both infared and uv light with a mister.
He is missing most of his nails so we try and supply him with extra vines and hammocks to help his climbing.
He will not touch dusted crickets.

He has fallen twice in the last 6 months, neither time far and he was up and moving after the fact quickly.
We have noticed he does not curl his tail the way other chameleons use and he hasn't used it alot in the last couple of months.

He will no longer eat crickets, and he seems to not have a sticky tongue anymore. We got him to eat a few super worms, and 2 days ago a few horn worms, both time we dusted them with a calcium and D3 and it was okay.

We have the option to buy meal worms and super worms for him, our options are very limited here. I might be able to get horn worms every couple of weeks.
Is this a reasonable food source for him?
He will only eat things he can see moving.

Sorry for being long winded.

 

[TreyLcham]

i personally dont like the mealworms and superworms as they are pretty addicting and my chameleon just started eating crickets again after being addicted to them. I would think to take him to the vet is the best option for better examination

 

[dandkadams]

Unfortunately there is not vet to take him to.
We have no small pet or exotic pet vet here or anywhere near here.

 

[TreyLcham]

what are all your vits that you use? And what is the schedule?

 

[TreyLcham]

4 years is pretty old

 

[dandkadams]

We were giving him calcium in his water.
He would only drink from a bowl but now finally seems to be enjoying the droplets

We just started dusting the worms with calcium and D3 this week as the lady at the pet store suggested.
I wasn't sure who else to ask until I tracked down this group

I'm hoping he's not just fading away on us.
We know he may have a shorter life span due to his poor start in life, we would like to give him as much chance as we can.

 

[Djturna4thakidz]

Sounds like MBD. I would not give him calcium in the water, it is hard to determine how much he is ingesting. I would give hime the liquid calcium with a dripper orally instead. What is your supplementation schedule?

Where do you live? Because when you say there are no specialty vets anywhere near you, people on here will drive 4-6 hours to have their chams seen.

 

[dandkadams]

I can't give it to him orally, he will not allow us to even put our hands near him let alone touch him.
He won't even let us use the 12" tongs to feed him.

I live in a small town in Ontario. I don't drive, and the nearest exotics pet vet is 3 hours from here.

I can start a schedule of supplements with the worms now that he is eating them, I'm trying to determine the best way to do that.

 

[TreyLcham]

Ok so here is what I use for supplements. I use the cut with d3 1 to 2 times per month depending on how much he eats that day. I use the vit a 3to4times a month only on about 3crickets each time. I use the supervit 1time a month and I use the calcium without vit d3 ever day. One thing that i read is that you said his tongue is not really sticky? This to me sounds like a vit a def which in that case I would give him this every other day for about 2 week then see what his progress has came from. If he is now able to at least grab the crickets with his tongue then go to giving it to him every other week for about 3 weeks then after that I would ween it to once a month. This is what I had to do with my chameleon when he was having trouble shooting his tongue out far and fast and it solved my problem. I do not believe it will hurt to try and do this because it would take a lot of vit a to hurt him. Also if he has mbd I would also give him the d3 about 4times a month for one to two month to try and strengthen the bones back up. After that I would go back to giving it once a month so that you don't have any crystallizations form from giving it to much.

 

[TreyLcham]