Sick, Not Eating, Sunken Eyes

[xavior]

hi
sorry for the delay getting back to you.

I wouldn't run the mister at night.
I know you can have terribly dry air in Alberta, so if the air is dry and your home doesn't have a humidifier, you might consider one for the cham room. But as a cheap fix, get a couple bath towels wet, and hang those over the cage at night. This ups the humidity without getting the cage wet. You don't want the cage /branches wet all night. A drop in humidity at night is okay, so long as during the day he has 50-70% and sufficient drinking water

Im a big fan of drippers, so if you want to add ones of those along with your mister, go for it. Just needs to drip fairly quickly (a couple drips a second until he learns it) onto leaves to catch his attention. Even if it only drips for an hour, its a good addition to try.
Im actually not a fan of showers - I think they are very stressfull for little gain (you can achieve the same effect through misting /spraying and with drippers on the cage.)

I wonder if maybe you should stop forcefeeding for a couple days. give him opportunity eat on his own. I wonder if he wasn't eating because he was dehydrated, but perhaps now you've got that mostly resolved....?
do you know anyone with a kitchen scale? ask all your family and friends. It would help to weigh him today and then again in several days to know if he is gaining or loosing weight.

Sandra,

Thank you for the reply. I thought i had the hydration in check but appears he is still sorta dehydrated. His eyes this morning looked to be sunken in slightly, i could be wrong so i will go out and pick up some Pedalyte. I will try giving that to him instead of water as it has essential electrolytes. Just when i thought i had somethings under control, he still seems to be not fully responding to the misting by the system. I am not sure what to do. Yesterday i actually placed him by the home made dripper and he stuck around for a bit. Possibly drank some. perhaps it was not enough.

 

[dhm198555]

Hey hun!

So sorry to hear your little guy is sick, I recently rescued a panther who was in terrible shape but is now doing much much better so thought Id share some of the things that have worked really well for my little guy.

My panther was terribley dehydrated and too weak to get to the water as it dripped from the dripp system so I began giving him pedialite twice a day for the last 3-4 days and it has made a WORLD of difference. The electrolytes in pedialite really help when an animal (or human for that matter) become dehydrated. I also put a big umbrella plant in his cage to help retain more moisture. Once he started feeling the effects from the electrolyte boost he's been eating everything in site but is still a bit on the weak side so I pull the big legs off the gutloaded crix and put them in a little Tupperware thing so they cant excape and put it right in front of him. Once I back away so he cant see me he usually turns his attentions to the crix and gobble them up.

Also, I read that you said the uvb bulb is 6 months old so I would recommend maybe replacing it given his condition. And also being sick is a terribley stressful situation for a cham so would recommend only handling him when absolutely necessary, sometimes chams will stop eating from stress alone so maybe it'll help get him eating again to just leave him be as much as possible and maybe move him to the least active part of your house, I have a big big closet in my spare bedroom that I put my panther in to reduce his stress and have noticed he hasn't been displaying stress colors at all since I moved him.

Hope this helps and hope your little guy starts feeling better

 

[xavior]

Just thought i would update everyone with some fresh pictures of Theo:

https://app.box.com/s/hz9es280v14nlih19mqz

For some reason, he has this strange dark spot on one of his legs and i am unsure where it came from.

Let me know what you guys think of his condition via pictures. Also, they did not have pedalyte at my local store but "hydralyte" in black current flavor. I hope this is the same thing as i read on the container it does boost electrolytes.

dhm198555: How do you go about giving him the pedilyte? Do you use a syringe and open his mouth forcefully or does he open up for you? I have to use a thin credit card and slide it back in his mouth to get him to open. From there, i hold his mouth open and slide the syringe in and begin the injection of fluids. Also how much fluid are you giving the chameleon on each go?

 

[dhm198555]

I use an oral syringe and push the tip to the tip of his mouth with some gentle pressure until he opens and inject a little fluid as far back in his mouth as possible to try to avoid his accidently aspirating it. I wait for him to finish swallowing and repeat about 3-4 times until the syringe is empty and place him back on his branch. At first he REALLY didn't enjoy this but is actually becoming a lot more receptive as he begins to feel better.

I can't say it enough how much of a difference in his health this has had since I began giving it to him, he's more alert, active, and eating well. His skin no longer stays in place when pinched and the sunken eyes are gone. He just LOOKS better. Today I even saw him trying to go after one of the crix that managed to excape his feeding cup.

If you go down in the list of posts you can see what he looked like when I first brought him home to now to see how much better he's doing. Im still bringing him to the vet for other things that require antibiotics but as far as feeding and drinking I really think the pedialyte was what got him over that hump. Hope this helps!

 

[dhm198555]

Oh, and usually I fill up a 10ml syringe and have been doing it twice a day. I had called my herp vet and that's what he suggested as long as he tolerated it (didn't throw up) but my boy is a full grown adult, about 3 years old, so you might want to use 5ml at a time instead since your boy is a bit younger.

 

[dhm198555]

He a gorgeous boy, btw!!!! I wish you the best of luck with him

 

[xavior]

Update:

Just wanted to shoot a little quick update with a photo of Theo as he appears to be doing better. I will come back on later today and give the full lowdown of what we have been doing.

He seems to be more responsive of me getting close to him, pufffing up for the camera as a sign of more energy and life in him.

Also noticed that the other day, finally, he pooped out a large amount in one go and i mean a large amount. I am wondering if he was constipated or something and now has passed it. He appears to be pooping normal sizes now.

See attached photo of him. Will get a shot of the poop too for those of you interested

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gpy84kg4cmg24r2/IMG_00000384.jpg

 

[captainal]

eyes

i have the same problem with my panther. went to a vet and as soon as he saw him . not enough vit. A . once a month and vit .d once a month . the vet was good alan

 

[xavior]

Thanks everyone for their replies, he is doing much better! At first we weren't sure if he was on another hunger strike and not eating the crickets in the bowl set out for him. As soon as we let the crickets go inside the cage, he jumped up and started hunting them and gobbling them all up. He was feeling himself again and i guess he just needed a little bit more excitement from his prey.

He also, maybe twice a week, give him a horned worm to chomp down. He goes crazy for those worms where he will even almost run at them from the other side of the enclosure as soon as we put the worm on a vine.

See the last post for a current picture of him, he is doing much much better! Now i just need to go over Sandra's gut loading recipes