Obstruction

Daytoe

New Member
Does anyone know if a cricket could be too large for a 2 year old veiled chameleon and cause an obstruction? We just got an x-Ray and she has an obstruction. I don't know of anything else she could have ate.
 
Where is the obstruction? If she ate the cricket it should digest in her stomach before it turns into waste. If it is something she could not digest, then that could cause an obstruction. Do you have any fake plants in your cage, twist ties, etc?. Also, what led you to get xrays? So no, a cricket should not cause an obstruction.
 
Midori had been acting odd for about 3 weeks and was very bloated. She also had lumps above her hind hips. After reading everything I could I came to the conclusion she was egg bound. (She had been scratching at the back of the cage, trying to get out of the cage to get to my orchid pot I had outside her cage, she was hanging out on the bottom, and stopped eating. I took her into a vet today thinking she would get an oxytocin injection, but ended up leaving without her. The x-ray showed she did have eggs, but also she had a bowel obstruction and dehydration. The vet said it looks like bone and asked if she could have eaten something. She rarely came out of her cage and I watched her when she did. There is only one fake branch on suction cups on the side of her cage. I can't think of anything she could have eaten. No twist ties etc.
I couldn't afford the surgery, so I ended up signing her over to the vet. Now I'm sad and left wondering what happened. He said otherwise she looked great, no Bone disease etc.
 
Autopsy update

The vet called and Midori died. Autopsy showed she had a cystic ovary with tons of fluid and a lot of necrotic tissue. (She also had 80-100 forming eggs). He said she did have a grainy substance in her that looked like sand. That is what he had previously seen on x-ray, but that didn't cause her death. I'm sad, but glad to know what happened.
 
Im sorry for your loss.

How much did you feed her, and how often?

What were her basking temps?


Controlling all of that can limit the number of eggs they produce.
 
The basking temp is 85 degree and ambient temp 74.
Honestly I didn't know that they would produce eggs when there isn't a male. I learned about it when she started acting strange. I fed her every other day about a dozen crickets, but they have been huge lately. Do they produce more eggs if they are overfed?
 
To prevent Yuki my female veiled from having eggs (She's 1 year and roughly 5-6 months old, never had a clutch) I feed her once a week. She'll get a couple of small crickets every other day when Ryuu doesn't eat them, but otherwise she doesn't get much to eat.

I offer her a basking spot ranging from 28°C - 34°C as she should be able to decide how warm she would like to be. So far she has not had any eggs and her most recent vet visit showed she had nothing in her belly, so I am quite content with how she is being kept.

I am a strong believer that it is the amount of food a chameleon gets in captivity that triggers egg growth rather than the backing temperature. If a cham has an abundant amount of food, then of course, it's time for babies! Warmth might be a factor too, but so far she has shown no signs of eggs as she just gets enough food for herself and not enough for developing eggs too.

I hope this does not discourage you from eventually, when you are ready, getting another. You could always try your luck with another female, or go for an easier to maintain male! They also tend to be bigger, which also has a coolness factor of its own!
 
Thank you for the information. I would like to eventually get another. I just want to do research first to make sure everything is perfect. I can't imagine loosing another.
 
The basking temp is 85 degree and ambient temp 74.
Honestly I didn't know that they would produce eggs when there isn't a male. I learned about it when she started acting strange. I fed her every other day about a dozen crickets, but they have been huge lately. Do they produce more eggs if they are overfed?

Females with Definetely lay eggs when over fed.

If you feed a female 3-6 bugs every other day, and keep temps at 84, you can reduce their egg laying needs, and in some cases, stop the egg production all together.
 
Back
Top Bottom