Scratches on Panther...

[NorCalAnthony]

Hi Everyone,

So a few weeks ago my 15 month old Nosy Be, Poseidon, went through a shed and a few days later I noticed that he had some pretty severe scratches on his side. I'm assuming he got them while he was trying to get his old skin off but I'm wondering how normal this is. The scratches do appear to be getting better but it's been close to 4 weeks and I'm not sure how long it should be taking to heal up... I'm also a little concerned he might be a little undersized for his age at 14" and 92g. What do you guys think?

Here are some pictures of the scratches when I first noticed them:







And here are some updated shots from today:









Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - 15 month old male Nosy Be. I've had for 13 months now and bought him from LLL Reptile at last years reptile show.
Handling - I used to take him out 1-2 times a week sometimes more but with my new job that's been cut down to maybe once a week... He loves coming out to explore and will start pawing at the screen whenever I go near his cage.
Feeding - Crickets are the main staple and he gets five 3/4-1" daily with the occasional silk worms or horn worms mixed in whenever I can get them. The crickets are gut loaded with a pureed mix of kale, mustard greens, dandelion greens, spirigula, butternut squash, red pepper, apples, carrots, and oranges. The horn worms eat the chow that comes in their cups as do with silk worms but I also add in mulberry leaves from our mulberry tree in the back yard.
Supplements - Rep-Cal w/o D3 at every feeding, Rep-Cal with D3 once a month, Rep-Cal Herpitivite once a month, and Zoo Med Reptivite w/o D3 once a month.
Watering - Mist King goes off and hour after lights on and then every other hour for three minutes with the last cycle an hour before lights out. There is also a Little Dripper that provides water throughout the day.
Fecal Description - Healthy dark brown with a white urate. I've never had the feces examined but I plan on taking some in to a local vet just to make sure there's nothing going on.
History - Nothing out of the ordinary. He's always been a happy, healthy, and friendly cham.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - 2' x 2' x 4' Reptibreeze
Lighting - 22" T5HO Reptisun 5.0 for UVB and 150w spot light for basking.
Temperature - 94 degrees at the basking spot 6" below the screen and an ambient temp of 75-77 degrees.
Humidity - 45% with spikes over 85% during misting.
Plants - Yes, large schflerra.
Placement - Cage is in the corner of the cham room on a stand with the top of the cage a little over 6' tall. There is a window that can be seen from his cage that lets the morning sun in but does not heat up his cage at all. There is also a ceiling fan in our cham room that is left on the lowest setting to keep the air circulating.
Location - Northern California around 10 miles north of Sacramento

Current Problem - See above

Thanks for looking

 

[junglefries]

Their claws are nothing to treat lightly. glad he is healing up nicely. as time goes by and he gets to adulthood, they should fade even more, hopefully.

 

[carol5208]

Could he have gotten scratched from a plant branch or stick or something. Those scratches toward the back seem like they would be hard to do with his foot unless he is double jointed or something! They do look like they have healed up though so looks like nothing to worry about. As far as the size.. Are you sure your scale is right? He sure looks bigger than 92 grams, especially in the last picture on the stick. My Ambanja is 13 months weighs 145 grams and he is a lot smaller than your chameleon from what I can tell in that picture. .

 

[pigglett79]

I agree with Carol, you might need to check yoru scale, because he looks too big to weigh only 92grams.

 

[NorCalAnthony]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm glad that everything seems to be healing up as normal. I've never had that happen to any of my chams before so I wasn't sure how long it should take to heal all the way but I'm glad that it is.

Carol & Pigglett - I'm not sure if scale was reading inaccurately or not... It's a small scale that I got from a hydroponics store (couldn't find any decent kitchen scales in my area and that's the only other place I could think of lol).
I place a large mixing bowl on it, zero'd out the reading, and then placed him in it. He actually calmed down long enough to get a steady reading and that's where the 92 grams came from. I can try weighing him again but maybe it's the scale that's the problem?

 

[carol5208]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm glad that everything seems to be healing up as normal. I've never had that happen to any of my chams before so I wasn't sure how long it should take to heal all the way but I'm glad that it is.

Carol & Pigglett - I'm not sure if scale was reading inaccurately or not... It's a small scale that I got from a hydroponics store (couldn't find any decent kitchen scales in my area and that's the only other place I could think of lol).
I place a large mixing bowl on it, zero'd out the reading, and then placed him in it. He actually calmed down long enough to get a steady reading and that's where the 92 grams came from. I can try weighing him again but maybe it's the scale that's the problem?

Could be. You sure it was set for grams? Don't mean to make you sound stupid or anything, just double checking. Pics can be deceiving when just taking a pic of the cham. But you can see how big he is on the stick next to your arm. I have a little scale that has a small little like bucket on the top. I taped a stick on that and set the chams on the stick. It weights 90 grams by itself and then I just deduct that when I weigh the cham and the bucket together. Like I said my guy weighs 145 grams I and he does not look as big as yours . Whatever the case, if he is that weight, he looks healthy and very beautiful.

 

[NorCalAnthony]

Could be. You sure it was set for grams? Don't mean to make you sound stupid or anything, just double checking. Pics can be deceiving when just taking a pic of the cham. But you can see how big he is on the stick next to your arm. I have a little scale that has a small little like bucket on the top. I taped a stick on that and set the chams on the stick. It weights 90 grams by itself and then I just deduct that when I weigh the cham and the bucket together. Like I said my guy weighs 145 grams I and he does not look as big as yours . Whatever the case, if he is that weight, he looks healthy and very beautiful.

Don't worry no offense taken. It was set for grams and the readout has the little g next to the number so you know which unit it's measuring. This scale did come with the little dish that's made to go on the scale as well but it's maybe 1.5-2" deep and my chams won't stay in it so that's why I was using a bigger bowl that they can't climb out of and then zero it out to get the weight of just the cham. I do have the original dish and some left over sticks though so I might try your method. I don't suppose you have a photo of your weigh station set up that you could post do you? And how do you keep them on the stick to get their weight? All of my chams love to explore so much they'd just use the stick on their way to climb around the table lol.

I know what you mean about pictures being deceiving so I always try to include one with our measuring stick as a reference (1/2" wood dowel with a zip tie every 1"). I'm a fairly large guy at 6'3" 270lbs so even a large cham will look smaller than normal when I'm holding them lol. Like you said though, he's beautiful, healthy, happy, and friendly so I'm not overly worried if he's a little under weight. I just got a fresh shipment of his favorite food, silk worms, so maybe those will help him put on some healthy weight