Furcifer Brussis
New Member
I have a male Red Bar Ambilobe who got gout. I have read a lot on the disease in chams and have determined the cause to be a combination of raising my crickets on dog food (mainly) and night time temps being too low (he's kept outside in Naples and got down to 40F one night he was out and i had failed to check the weather. After that night, it was often down to the high 50's, i take him in when it is going to be below 55F).
Anyway, i was going to put him down bc i didn't want him to suffer with the pain of it. As you can see from the pictures its getting pretty bad and treatment is pretty futile. However, i have read some things on how reptiles feel pain an sense or process it quite like we do. And it is unclear if the gout is even painful for them. We often humanize animals and come to the wrong conclusions as a result bc they are simply not humans (gout is very painful in humans for example). I decided to palpate the gout lumps and he didn't seem to mind one bit. He didn't react at all like he would have if his toe was getting pinched or something. I assumed he wasn't using his back legs when he was resting because of pain but i have found that it seems to be more bc the lumps keep him from putting his legs together as they need to be in order to perch on a branch. When i try and move them together (like he was putting his knees together) he again didn't seem to mind but it was clear that the lumps kept it from happening. Now I'm thinking I should just let him live his life out. If i were a large breeder i might be inclined to put him down or give him away because he isn't good for breeding anymore but I'm not a big breeder and he still looks cool so why kill him or give him away? I'm not going to take him to a vet which i know will rub some people on this forum the wrong way but if this is gout, i know the cost and success rates or treatment and its not worth it. I need to decided what to do so i have some questions.
My questions
- am i diagnosing this correctly? If not, what do you think is wrong with him?
- what do you guys know about pain in chams with respect to gout? Please don't humanize. I believe in treating animals humanely, but they are not biologically human and therefore direct comparisons to us often don't correlate. Im looking for facts.
- how does gout progress in chams? I assume it ends up killing them but how?
- does anyone have a cham with gout that still mounts the females?
Thanks in advance!
Anyway, i was going to put him down bc i didn't want him to suffer with the pain of it. As you can see from the pictures its getting pretty bad and treatment is pretty futile. However, i have read some things on how reptiles feel pain an sense or process it quite like we do. And it is unclear if the gout is even painful for them. We often humanize animals and come to the wrong conclusions as a result bc they are simply not humans (gout is very painful in humans for example). I decided to palpate the gout lumps and he didn't seem to mind one bit. He didn't react at all like he would have if his toe was getting pinched or something. I assumed he wasn't using his back legs when he was resting because of pain but i have found that it seems to be more bc the lumps keep him from putting his legs together as they need to be in order to perch on a branch. When i try and move them together (like he was putting his knees together) he again didn't seem to mind but it was clear that the lumps kept it from happening. Now I'm thinking I should just let him live his life out. If i were a large breeder i might be inclined to put him down or give him away because he isn't good for breeding anymore but I'm not a big breeder and he still looks cool so why kill him or give him away? I'm not going to take him to a vet which i know will rub some people on this forum the wrong way but if this is gout, i know the cost and success rates or treatment and its not worth it. I need to decided what to do so i have some questions.
My questions
- am i diagnosing this correctly? If not, what do you think is wrong with him?
- what do you guys know about pain in chams with respect to gout? Please don't humanize. I believe in treating animals humanely, but they are not biologically human and therefore direct comparisons to us often don't correlate. Im looking for facts.
- how does gout progress in chams? I assume it ends up killing them but how?
- does anyone have a cham with gout that still mounts the females?
Thanks in advance!
