Sunken eyes ??????????

neonate

neonate

New Member
Please can anyone tell me what they think of my cham his eyes have looked the same since i got got him and he seems to be thriving, but i have seen other chameleons with much bigger eyes????

View attachment 10194
 
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Hummm....

His body looks great. No dehydration at all. He looks kind of pissed. I know some of my male Veileds eyes are not quite as prominent as others are even though they seem to be very healthy. All the female eyes seem to be evenly prominent. Do your male's eyes ever go out more? Like when you are not close to the cage or during misting?
 
Yes .....but what im saying is they have been like that for a few months and hes drinking really well, he has a shower once a fortnight????
 
Thankyou pardalisgirl .... yes his eyes bulge when hes gettin misted. That answeres it i didnt think there was anything wrong ...!!:)
 
My female has a misting system that sprays her whole cage every 4 hours(6 times a day obviously) for 2 minutes. I recently saw the dydtem go on and she just sat there under the sprinkler and when it was done she was licking her lips and drank a little from the plants, but she also has sunken eyes. Sshe is about 5 months old, what do you think could be wrong because i doubt it is hydration for mine.
P.S. sorry i dont mean to steal the thread.
 
More thoughts...

I don't think hydration is the problem because the condition of the body does not point to that. There are other issues is could be I suppose. I'm interested if other Veiled male owners have chams that naturally have "recessed" eyes. I know during stress they can retract them a bit. My juvies do that when I take them to photograph them. It would still be good to see what others have to say about this.
 
check his urate for hydration status.
Is it white? or yellow/ orange?

White means he's drinking well.
Other color means there is something wrong.

When chameleon is stressed/ in aggression mode, I noticed some can exhibit sunken eyes symptoms.

Shower can be stressful to chameleons. If his urate is white, i think you should stop doing shower therapy.
 
PardalisGirl said:
I don't think hydration is the problem because the condition of the body does not point to that. There are other issues is could be I suppose. I'm interested if other Veiled male owners have chams that naturally have "recessed" eyes. I know during stress they can retract them a bit. My juvies do that when I take them to photograph them. It would still be good to see what others have to say about this.
Click to expand...

I agree with you. I have some that I know are healthy but yet they keep there eyes in a bit, while others have them all the way out.
 
what if i have my female 5 month old cham with sunken eyes, white urate, should i cover her whole cage with towels so she cant see n e thing outside?
 
My male veiled seems to sink his eyes a bit when annoyed the same posture which looks like in your pic as he is puffing his chin and making himself appear large etc.

nice looking male you got there!!!!
 
Neonate, he looks great to me honestly. I can see what you mean about the sunken eyes. The rest of his body, however, looks fantastic, and not dehydrated at all.

I'd go along with what other folks in this thread have been suggesting, and keep a close eye on his urate.

Your Veiled to me seems to have a VERY pronounced bony brow. Moreso than I've seen on a lot of other Veileds. It's really very interesting. I think that because his brow is so pronounced his eyes may just look more sunken than they really are.

Pictures of your boy when he isn't puffed out and angry might help too.

Honestly though he looks really healthy to me. Keep an eye on the urate, but I don't think you have anything to worry about.
 
Easy to diagnose. It's dehydration, period. NOT to be confused with fasting or lack of food. If it was a hunger issue, he would be more boney and you could see his rib bones sticking out. My crested geckos had sunken eyes while I was a way on vacation. I put a water bowl for them w/o any food. Within the next morning it was gone. This was done before I even had a chance to offer them food. Poor a bottle of water next to him. then trickle it on his mouth. Let him take gulp fulls of water. Do this for a few days. He'll be better.
 
PardalisGirl said:
I don't think hydration is the problem because the condition of the body does not point to that. There are other issues is could be I suppose. I'm interested if other Veiled male owners have chams that naturally have "recessed" eyes. I know during stress they can retract them a bit. My juvies do that when I take them to photograph them. It would still be good to see what others have to say about this.
Click to expand...

We have had that with our veileds. We have chams (veileds and others) that appear to "draw their eyes in" when they see us looking at them, or when they see a camera.

But, we have also had young adult veileds that are very lean, not starving or bony, just very lean. There is a fat pad between the eyes (according to our vet and I have to agree with her because of certain things I've observed). When the chameleon is very lean, the eyes may appear a tad sunken. When the chameleon is very fat, the eyes will appear to protrude. SOme of you have probably seen this in posts and photos on this forum. When our male veiled Guido was overweight his eyes really bulged out. As he lost weight his eyes returned to normal. Our lean man- Wolfie- is very lean and his eyes appear slightly receded.

If the casque is flat, or even slightly hollow looking, as it is in 2 photos of veileds on this thread, then the chameleon is very lean, with little fat storage. In that case I would expect the eyes to look a bit sunken, as well. It has to do with fat storage.

But this is just my experience. It never hurts to give a cham a little extra hydration now and then. We shower our chams occasionally, in spite of the fact that they have auto misters and their enclosures get well misted twice a day for 15-20 minutes.
 
neonate said:
How can you increse fat storage and is it neccessary?
Click to expand...

I don't know that it is necessary. Just like people, there are skinny chams and plumper chams. Probably has to do with metabolism. If you do want to try to add some more fat to the diet, I believe superworms are recommended.
 
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