danTHAman152000
Member
Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - five month old(ish) male blue bar ambilobe
Handling - handled every couple days to transfer from inside to outside
Feeding - crickets, hornworm, sometimes blue bottle flies; he will eat probably 5 or 6 medium sized crickets at a time (or more if I let him)
Supplements - Zoomed Ca w/o D3 daily, w/ D3 once a month; reptivite multivitamin once a month
Watering - currently using hand sprayer, but I have MistKing but not set up at this moment; i do see him drinking
Fecal Description - Poops look nice and formed and brown, with white urates (no fecal exams at this time)
History - none
Cage Info:
Cage Type - Free ranged
Lighting - 36 inches of a 72" quad fixture are over his free range, currently with one 12% Arcadia and one 6500 bulb
Temperature - 75 in the cooler areas, up to 90 in the basking area; measured with hygrometer
Humidity - 60% today
Plants - Pothos, Ficus, Umbrella, Money
Placement - garage, low traffic
Location - Los Angeles, CA
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3k9835vt6fsuz6l/IMG_0577.JPG?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0mb7fenwd9psocz/IMG_0572.JPG?dl=0
I CANNOT FIGURE OUT HOW TO UPLOAD PHOTOS WITH MY NEW MACBOOK. FML
Current Problem - I noticed in the last couple weeks, my new Panther chameleon has been missing his bugs with his tongue. One of the first times I noticed a problem, was when he shot for a bug, missed and hit a branch, and couldn't bring his tongue back in and quickly sprinted to the branch and basically peeled his little tongue off. It totally caught me off guard and freaked me out, but he seemed to be fine after that, and even ate another cricket afterwards and was fine. That was the start..
Anyways so I noticed about like half the time he is missing. Then I started to see that he is consistently hitting the "above and to the right" mark. Today he hit my finger, and then ran up and bit it! My goodness, can the little guy chomp down.
I don't see any weird discolorations or trauma to this tongue. He still shoots up at them when I hold them or they are walking the branches of his free range. Today, when I saw he was consistently missing anything that was further than 3 inches from his head, I put a 5 gallon bucket with a vine going down in so he can just cup feed for now. Worked ok, but the best way for me to feed him today was just stick the bug an inch from his head.
So I combed the forums, and I read it is basically trauma to tongue, eye problems, or supplementation problem. I went ahead and gave a couple crickets with multivitamin just to make sure that isn't the problem.
Now, when I spoke to Todd from Light Your Reptiles, he did mention the UV was very strong coming from the fixture (it originally had two 12% bulbs and two plant bulbs, so I just run half the set up). I give plenty of shaded areas and stuff for him to escape the UV light, so I figured the 12% would be ok for him. The light is about 24" above his plants with no screen above.
I purchased the guy the weekend of the Anaheim show, which was like about a month ago. They said he was about three months old at the time. I had him for about a week before hanging the new lights, which is when the problems basically started.
So when lighting is affecting tongue accuracy, is that due to light physically getting into their eye at the moment of shooting their tongue, or is it like a problem even in the shade? When he is eating, he's not generally in a basking area or anything like that, and still misses.
Oh and another thing, he just had a full shed the other day. He has a tiny piece of shed skin on one turret still, but it does not seem to be blocking his eye or anything. They look normal when he goes to shoot.
My two year old veiled uses the other 36" of the fixture (separated by divider) and has not had any problems, with his tongue better than ever.
Anyways, I appreciate your help and looking into it for me. I am hoping I can just add some of the clear "UV block" plastic that that came with the light in case the UV is too strong.
Anyways, thanks again!
Your Chameleon - five month old(ish) male blue bar ambilobe
Handling - handled every couple days to transfer from inside to outside
Feeding - crickets, hornworm, sometimes blue bottle flies; he will eat probably 5 or 6 medium sized crickets at a time (or more if I let him)
Supplements - Zoomed Ca w/o D3 daily, w/ D3 once a month; reptivite multivitamin once a month
Watering - currently using hand sprayer, but I have MistKing but not set up at this moment; i do see him drinking
Fecal Description - Poops look nice and formed and brown, with white urates (no fecal exams at this time)
History - none
Cage Info:
Cage Type - Free ranged
Lighting - 36 inches of a 72" quad fixture are over his free range, currently with one 12% Arcadia and one 6500 bulb
Temperature - 75 in the cooler areas, up to 90 in the basking area; measured with hygrometer
Humidity - 60% today
Plants - Pothos, Ficus, Umbrella, Money
Placement - garage, low traffic
Location - Los Angeles, CA
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3k9835vt6fsuz6l/IMG_0577.JPG?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0mb7fenwd9psocz/IMG_0572.JPG?dl=0
I CANNOT FIGURE OUT HOW TO UPLOAD PHOTOS WITH MY NEW MACBOOK. FML
Current Problem - I noticed in the last couple weeks, my new Panther chameleon has been missing his bugs with his tongue. One of the first times I noticed a problem, was when he shot for a bug, missed and hit a branch, and couldn't bring his tongue back in and quickly sprinted to the branch and basically peeled his little tongue off. It totally caught me off guard and freaked me out, but he seemed to be fine after that, and even ate another cricket afterwards and was fine. That was the start..
Anyways so I noticed about like half the time he is missing. Then I started to see that he is consistently hitting the "above and to the right" mark. Today he hit my finger, and then ran up and bit it! My goodness, can the little guy chomp down.
I don't see any weird discolorations or trauma to this tongue. He still shoots up at them when I hold them or they are walking the branches of his free range. Today, when I saw he was consistently missing anything that was further than 3 inches from his head, I put a 5 gallon bucket with a vine going down in so he can just cup feed for now. Worked ok, but the best way for me to feed him today was just stick the bug an inch from his head.
So I combed the forums, and I read it is basically trauma to tongue, eye problems, or supplementation problem. I went ahead and gave a couple crickets with multivitamin just to make sure that isn't the problem.
Now, when I spoke to Todd from Light Your Reptiles, he did mention the UV was very strong coming from the fixture (it originally had two 12% bulbs and two plant bulbs, so I just run half the set up). I give plenty of shaded areas and stuff for him to escape the UV light, so I figured the 12% would be ok for him. The light is about 24" above his plants with no screen above.
I purchased the guy the weekend of the Anaheim show, which was like about a month ago. They said he was about three months old at the time. I had him for about a week before hanging the new lights, which is when the problems basically started.
So when lighting is affecting tongue accuracy, is that due to light physically getting into their eye at the moment of shooting their tongue, or is it like a problem even in the shade? When he is eating, he's not generally in a basking area or anything like that, and still misses.
Oh and another thing, he just had a full shed the other day. He has a tiny piece of shed skin on one turret still, but it does not seem to be blocking his eye or anything. They look normal when he goes to shoot.
My two year old veiled uses the other 36" of the fixture (separated by divider) and has not had any problems, with his tongue better than ever.
Anyways, I appreciate your help and looking into it for me. I am hoping I can just add some of the clear "UV block" plastic that that came with the light in case the UV is too strong.
Anyways, thanks again!
