Sick Veiled Chameleon

how old is she? she cant be mature yet. had my little dude for almost a year and 4 months and he still doesnt have mature colors
 
jajeanpierre said:
Eggs are a double whammy for a MBD female: forming them depletes calcium reserves (bone) and the physical act of laying them depletes the blood serum calcium level. If the calcium level in the blood is too low while laying the muscles cannot work so you now have an egg bound female.

The healthier, well nourished they are, the more eggs they form.... That was why I mentioned to you to keep her well nourished but on a very low caloric diet in the hope you can delay eggs or at least reduce the number.
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Thank you, that's great advice. Today she is doing pretty well all things considered. She ate five little crickets on her own. I had bought the little ones when she was having trouble with her mouth, and I guess we can keep her on those for a little bit?? She was eating large a few weeks back but I don't want to rush her. She wants to climb a lot too. We put a towel down to make her ground a little softer but she appears to be doing a lot better than usual.
Will there be signs of her being egg bound, or behavior changes if she is about to lay eggs?
 
EveryGreen said:
how old is she? she cant be mature yet. had my little dude for almost a year and 4 months and he still doesnt have mature colors
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We aren't really sure. Based on her size we were thinking 6 months, she is about 8.5 inches long. Where we got her couldn't say unfortunately. What would the mature colors be? She ranges from a pale green when sleeping, to a darker green during the day and her purplish markings seem to come out when she is disturbed or stressed. She can make those same markings a dark green as well.
 
jajeanpierre said:
@Andickey Sorry to hear your girl isn't doing so well. I have a Solarmeter to measure. Since your vet has one, I suggest you might just take your bulbs there on a regular basis. They aren't cheap--I can't remember how much I paid for mine--over $200 anyway.

Make sure your basking temps are correct. The skin needs to warm up to convert UVB on the skin to D3.

Since you are home I recommend you take her outside for real sunlight. Be careful of the temps, of course. It is easy for them to overheat. Natural sunlight is far, far superior to any lightbulb.

Nutritional causes (not enough calcium and access to UVB) are not the only reason MBD develops. Kidney failure is also a cause of MBD. Kidney failure can be caused by chronic low levels of dehydration.

I don't suggest you feed her any fruit or veggies as they really can't digest them. Feed the feeder insects the plants and let the bugs start to digest it. Then your chameleon can utilize it. She needs a good diet, but you will want to keep her on the very lean side. Fat chameleons produce a lot of eggs. Eggs deplete their body of calcium. A chamleon who is depleted of calcium can't lay as their muscles need calcium to function. A female veiled with MBD is a really big challenge and I don't envy you right now.

One of the problems with commercially raised veileds is that they are very cheap. They wholesale for about $8 apiece. That's not enough to be able to properly feed the mother and the babies. Mothers are nutrient deficient and unable to put in enough vitamins and calcium into the egg yolk for the baby so babies hatch with MBD. Many commercial breeders dispatch their females after the first clutch because they are so depleted. It's an ugly business and a good reason never to buy a veiled unless produced by a serious breeder. Few breeders who would do a good job with them will bother since they can't recover their costs.

Good luck with your female.
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Thank you so much for all the information, she is a challenge, but she is ours so I'll do whatever I can to get her healthy. We will be bringing her out to the sun, once we get some sun. The weather has been not so great during the week but it looks like sun for the weekend so getting her out for a little bit and monitoring her is a priority. I'm pregnant myself with my first so she and I can sit in the sun for a little bit in the mornings and relax, it's actually supposed to heat up this weekend in NJ so I don't want her to overheat. Having the vet check the lights is a good idea. I did see some of the monitors and they were pretty expensive. Having him check for now is a perfect solution so I can focus our money on anything else she may need.
 
Andickey said:
Hi, yes, she is our first. We just got back from running out and she is currently trying to climb. She also just popped again and peed, and still surprised that it looks healthy from what we have seen healthy stuff should look like. I'll try hand feeding the crickets. We were also thinking worms may be easier to hand feed if you have suggestions for what type of worm. We heard Phoenix worms may be good. Real plants would be great, I'll look for jade. And thank you!!! We thought we had everything planned according to what we read with lighting, gut loading, feeding etc so this took us by surprise and we are trying whatever we can to get her back to a comfortable living again.
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Sorry I couldn't add more to what I was saying yesterday, someone left work early and I got stuck with their shift. Anyways, as far as worms go, wax and superworms are pretty good. In the past, I have actually dusted the worms when I couldn't get my cham to eat enough crickets. You say you dust with D3/calcium, which is great, keep doing that. However, chameleons need a little more than that, at least once weekly they should be provided with an assortment of other vitamins instead of the calcium. I reccomend Reptivite, my veilds seem to thrive on this. It's a dust as well, just contains other critical nutrients. When I had a cham with MBD, I would do something a little different than usual with the dust. Every 3 days or so, I'd mix 50/50 regular calcium (no d3) and the vitamin dust together and use that for my feeder insects. There are also water supplements available for vitamins as well.
As far as climbing goes, she's naturally going to want to get up as high as possible, but she needs to stay low for the time being. Make sure she's comfortable as far as humidity goes (60-70% during the day), and that the lights are close enough to her. Provide plenty of other things down there for her to hide in. As her condition begins to improve, you can start the very slowly add higher areas, although I would speak to your vet first before you do that.
 
well im pretty sure females dont mature in color but they do range from color to say that they are ready for egg laying. if you look at my profile pic that is what cooper used to look like. now he has a lot more vibrant yellow and blue dots. but if you compare to a fully matured male he is not 100% yet
 
update us on any improvements. try and gut load your crickets with fruit and veggies, and try and ditch commercial feed. has she been getting little white thing around her nose? (salt deposites)
 
Thanks, she is doing better it seems. So, we will continue to push and follow through with all the suggestions everyone has been giving us. We will be checking out a few places for the live plants, and see what we can do to increase her humidity this weekend. She has a full screen cage, so even with the mister, lamps to give different temperature zone etc getting it humid has been a challenge. We are going to try and plexi two sides, but i also don't want to mess around with her getting the full strength of the lights. Today though she ate two more medium size crickets, dusted with vitamins. Yesterday she had 5 small crickets, all on her own but i didn't have the vitamins, just calcium. I got all new crickets too, fully cleaned the cricket cage (it's cleaned often, but wanted to start fresh) and put some fruit and veggies in that. We now have a cricket house for the medium size ones and then very small ones. The issue i saw with the very small ones was how fast they move compared to how slow she is currently moving. How often should I be dusting? And how much? Attached is her picture from today. She also took the liquid calcium the vet has given. Right now we are outside, i brought her whole cage out here while I work so she is getting some natural sun. Overall, I'm happy with what i'm seeing in her progress and cautiously optimistic. I know she may never climb and move like she use to, but my boyfriend is very handy and we are very committed to building her whatever home suits her new needs as she does get better.
 

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EveryGreen said:
well im pretty sure females dont mature in color but they do range from color to say that they are ready for egg laying. if you look at my profile pic that is what cooper used to look like. now he has a lot more vibrant yellow and blue dots. but if you compare to a fully matured male he is not 100% yet
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That's a female in your profile picture
 
Just a quick weekend update, Waffles is doing well. She has enjoyed six full size crickets today and is hunting a little more, though still slow and a lot of the crickets are coming to her, which is where she catches them. Still taking her calcium and we bought some extra vitamins. The crickets have been on various fresh food diets so that seems to be going well. All in all, a pretty good weekend for her and continued progress in her recovery.
 
Andickey said:
Just a quick weekend update, Waffles is doing well. She has enjoyed six full size crickets today and is hunting a little more, though still slow and a lot of the crickets are coming to her, which is where she catches them. Still taking her calcium and we bought some extra vitamins. The crickets have been on various fresh food diets so that seems to be going well. All in all, a pretty good weekend for her and continued progress in her recovery.
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That's great to hear!
 
We have a member on here. Her Veild just turned 7 yrs old. She's had him since a baby. She feeds him strawberries! Can't be that bad for him! Just some food for thought!!!!
 
carol5208 said:
We have a member on here. Her Veild just turned 7 yrs old. She's had him since a baby. She feeds him strawberries! Can't be that bad for him! Just some food for thought!!!!
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iv fed mine bananas, he seems very curious. and then finds out the hard way he cant shoot at them and he has to bite them instead
 
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