Veiled female MBD, possible constipation

Riven said:
sometimes she'll get "stuck" some place and I have to save her, but she's getting better. :D
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It is so cute when they do that - I got mine for one third the normal price because she had a twisted spine (literally the last cham in the shop!). She would have one main branch that she used all the time to get from one end of her viv to the other (had a 4 foot long glass aquarium, 18 inches high, previous occupant a Water Dragon). Sometimes one of her back legs would grab hold of one of her front legs, preventing her from moving her front leg.......she was stuck, lol. She would just sit there looking thoughtful until I helped her, or until she decided to just fall and start again :D My mum called her my 'special needs chameleon'. Oh, just to add to the comedy value -the pet shop who told me almost nothing at all has now shut down. They told me she was a male so she was called Stuart :D
 
How funny David! Yes sometimes she grabs her other front hand and can't seem to remember to let so and plays a little "tug of war" with herself, it's not funny, but yet it is.

I am not giving her mineral oil, that is her oral calcium supplement. I squeezed to hard and it all splurted every where and we hadn't showered her after that to help wash it off ( not drenching her face, but while we had her in the water to wipe it off with a damp cloth after it kind of soaked while being showered.)

Not to sound like I know everything or ungrateful for the advice I've gotten, but I can hand feed a baby chinchilla without it aspirating, I believe that Pascal is equally as safe.
 
Riven said:
How funny David! Yes sometimes she grabs her other front hand and can't seem to remember to let so and plays a little "tug of war" with herself, it's not funny, but yet it is.
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I remember it well :).......little Stuart is still one of my all time favourite pets. We still thought the little legend was a boy, so on the day we moved house Stuart dug a little hole and layed about 40 eggs..........I think that's partly why I had to get Chameleons again, they like to keep you on your toes......:)
 
Well tonight she seemed like she really wanted to eat, she got some good tongue movements in while drinking. I had homework to do so I put some worms in her cup and put her on her edge and thought well maybe if we just let her be and don't watch ( she's never been shy about eating before but you know... ) and a while later Hailey says that Pascal was in her food dish and asked how many worms were in there. I said I put five in... there was one left! We looked in the cage for any escapee's... but found none, so she must've eaten them on her own! Yea!

I hope she keeps up the good work, force feeding her is so stressful on both of us! She seems to be stronger again today, fighting more for her shot than before and I saw visiable progress when she was moving on a flat surface!
 
YAY!!! That all sounds so good.

I think about you, your daughter and Pascal every day. I love when I can pretend my positive thoughts help!
 
I think they are! Hopefully she'll get her tongue going again, we didn't see if she chomped or not, but eating on her own and being stronger is good!
 
Im glad shes finally getting a bit better! I love the contemplating picture! so Cute. So happy she ate her worms for you.
I am not sure I would be able to handle all her special needs. Not because I wouldnt want to, but becuase it is so time consuming and right now Im working full time and doing a graduate program.
But kudos to you for juggling kids, school, and a sick cham!
I hope pascal turns around one day hisses and tries to bite then runs to the tallest farthest spot of her cage for you!
 
LOL, she's starting to get the hissing down... some day's she just gets very upset with me. Now that she's moving around better on her own I think I can probably set up her drinking drip system ( IV tubing... lol ) Before I was just worried she wouldn't be able to move to it when needed and I wouldn't know for sure if she was drinking or not.
 
SHE ATE! We got our shipment of butterworms and pheonix worms today, and put them in her cup, perched her over it and she watched, was distracted by the people in the room ( both girls and my husband ) and after they left and things settled down she shot, and she hit! Got it in her mouth and ate all on her own!

I think she wanted another one, but I think that one wore her out. Yesterday Hailey found her up in her little tree... so I put her viney plant in there so she can "climb" without getting too high up in case she falls.

Today her lips have been kind of droopy though, should I be concerned about this? She can close them but kind of just lets them hang most of the time...

Thanks again to all of our supporters and watchers. I'm so happy that she's coming along so well I hope that her recovery is great by the time we're done with our process.
 
Okay, so I did some looking for open mouth, it's not "open" her bottom lip is sagging. When she's upset ( more people, when I took her out for her shot, etc ) then it's worse, if she's just sitting in there, it doesn't "sag".

I am wondering if it's a Vit. A def. since she hasn't been eating a lot and we've been worried about pushing the calcium, but I didn't worry about any other vitamins. We haven't given any vitamin supplements, again we didn't know if we were supposed to. :( I did wipe a q tip across it, and no skin or tissue came off. There is not discoloration other than it's a little whiter at the tip of the jaw, which I'm assuming is normal as that's where it "turns" to the other side. We've been trying to lay off the force opening as she's bruising under her chin (I for some reason I can not retain the word for that area... ), I haven't forced her mouth open for over 2 days now and this just started this morning so I don't think it's necessarily related to that. Even as she started to bruise we tried to combine any force opening to reduce the stress.

Thanks!
 
So yesterday she ended up eating TWO butterworms! Yea! She doesn't seem to care for the pheonix worms though. Oh well, the butterworms got her eating so I'm not complaining!

Any thoughts on her lip? I'm working today and school tonight, so I'll have a report again tonight probably, but am concerned about her saggy lip.

Thanks!
 
Riven said:
So yesterday she ended up eating TWO butterworms! Yea! She doesn't seem to care for the pheonix worms though. Oh well, the butterworms got her eating so I'm not complaining!

Any thoughts on her lip? I'm working today and school tonight, so I'll have a report again tonight probably, but am concerned about her saggy lip.

Thanks!
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pictures are always worth a thousand words...
 
Yay! I'm sorry I missed the great news yesterday. I think you should start including a vitamin supplement in her schedule. Normally the recommendation here is vitamins 2x a month, but you might want to give her some a couple of times this week.

I suspect the lip thing might be related to having been force fed. You know how some bruises take a few days to show up, leaving you trying to remember when, exactly you did that to your arm? I'm thinking it's something like that.

Pictures would definitely help though, maybe someone will be able to recognize it.
 
This evening she wasn't doing it... but she was MAD! She was hissing at Hailey and hissing at me, lol.

She ate one butter worm today on her own, there was another in the middle of her area, so I don't know if she tried to get it and it failed, or earlier she got her tail into the cup and grabbed one with her tail, so she may have done that again. She was watching them so more so hopefully she'll eat another one tonight.

I was be in Omaha ( a real city ) and Des Moines ( another real city ) this weekend, so is there a supplement I can get for her at Petsmart or something? Is there anything else I should pick up for her while I'm there?

How many butter worms per day is normal for a cham her size ( appx 6" nose to vent)? Just wanted to know on where we'd like her to be for her eating. I know it will take a while for her to work back up to that both with strength and appetite.

I will try to catch her again when her lip is sagging to get a pic... I was also wondering if maybe she pulled on it herself as she sometimes grabs at things...

Oh and finally, is there anything I should do about her "chin" the skin is sloughing on it from where I had been pulling to open her mouth.
 
I'm going to let someone else recommend supplements as I have little chameleons that don't get the same supplement schedule. Also, as she's in recovery mode, there might be a recommendation outside "board standard".

I think I'd just leave the chin alone and keep an eye on it. They do sort of lose their skin every so often, the tugging just might have jump started it. As long as the skin underneath being exposed doesn't look irritated I don't think it should be a big concern.
 
Post #29 in this thread explains supplementing that would be used if she wasn't having calcium issues....so if she's getting proper UVB and liquid calcium you can still do the D3 and vitamins twice a month lightly.

Regarding the skin on the chin....can you post a photo please? An easier way to feed her if she won't eat on her own is to get her drinking water and stick the insect between her teeth when her mouth is opening/shutting while she is drinking. If she's spitting insects out that you put in her mouth it could indicate that she has another health issue.
 
I'm reading here and see leave the chin alone and such and I get off into chinchilla world and confused, lol.

Okay, I'll get pics of the chin as well. The skin is sloughing and slightly necrotic from the trauma.

I did get a pick of her "sagging lip" sorry it's not the best she wouldn't move into a good spot so it was kind of like an acrobatic deal, and I didn't want her to stop doing it before I got it so I didn't move her.

She's been eating the butter worms ( 3 total in the last two days), she doesn't open her mouth enough when she drinks to get any insects in, I've considered it though, lol. Since she's been eating on her own I'm mostly concerned about if she's getting enough nutrition, total mass wise two butter worms are more than what we were getting into her previously.

I listened to her lungs last night ( I read that gapping can be a sign of URI ) and they sounded clear.


pascalmouth.jpg


A more cropped version

pascalmouthcloser.jpg


Thanks Kinyonga, I didn't know if we needed to up her vitamins due to her reduced diet, and also she has not had any vitamin supplements since we'vd had her, beginning of August.

ETA: I am uploading some video of her chin and of her movements. She tries so hard. I should have them up later, I need to go out to the chin house and clean cages and get stuff ready for our trip. I'll make sure Pascal is all taken care of before I leave, and my friend, neighbor who's a vet tech will be by to check on her and the other pets, so she'll be in good hands.
 
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