What is this?!

[brighteyez]

Hey all!
I just walked by my chams cage, and found this thing hanging from the tip of a branch. What is it?? It's gooey and kinda looks like some sort of egg or something to me. I've included a picture of the 'thing', my cham Wilson, and his cage.

Heres a more detailed description:

As you can see in the pictures, the "thing" was suspended by extremely viscous and crystal clear goo. From the time I first noticed it, the thing stayed suspended for about 3 minutes. I do not know why it fell, I just went to look at it and noticed it was gone. It landed onto a plant, on a rock so I picked it up with a wooden skewer and noticed that the "nucleus" that you can see in the picture was a hard, crumbly thing. Also included in the "thing" that you cannot see in the picture is some very soft stuff that looks like light yellow poo.

Another thing of note, is that he is staying lower in his cage than normal, but I've also just put new things in there, so maybe he's just checking it out.

 

[beeze]

Photo's not clear......could just be a poop.

 

[ChrisnLisa]

unclear photos but from your description it sounds like he had an irritating urate pass, especially since you said it was yellow in color. I know this can lead to that gel like substance to help easing that out. Make sure you are keeping up on his hydration. Parasites might also be of a concern...has he been tested? I am also concerned about the photo with his eyes closed...how long has this been going on?

 

[brighteyez]

For a while now.. I want to say atleast a month. We took him to a vet and the vet gave us some eye-drops and eye cream. The drops ran out a little bit ago, and we still have cream, but the drops didn't help and I am not seeing anything that would make me think it's an infection (no pus, no swelling, no gunk, etc)

Here is more info on the eye-closing:

He keeps his eyes closed quite a bit (about half the time I see him or more) and he seems to sleep alot (IE eyes closed and tail curled). I do not know if he is sleepy alot, or if he is is going to sleep because his eyes are closed, so why not?

We just installed a mist king yesturday, so he will be getting watered much better now. I am thinking about getting a humidifier as well. Even though I do not consider us to live in a dry area, we are having a hard time keeping the humidity above 50% (using a zoomed digital humidifier gauge)

I have heard another cause may be vitamin A deficiency, but the trouble with trying to treat that is he doesn't eat much (other than the first day we got him, when he ate 3 crickets in a row, we have had trouble getting him to eat). He does not appear to be skinny, but I don't think he eats more than a superworm every day.

I think part of the problem with eating is how we give him the food. We are trying some new things right now, one of them being setting up "plates" that we velcro to the side of the cage, that way Wilson can better see his food (this is for superworms and butter worms). Crickets are trickier, because if we let them loose in the cage they just go and hide in plants. Any suggestions?

 

[brighteyez]

Oh also, you said "an irritating urate pass" Basically chamelion kidney stones, right?? What can we do for this? I know in humans often times you do not get it all out in one shot, is this the same for chams?

 

[Julirs]

I would not worry about that runny urate as much as I would the sleeping and not eating thing. Where did you get this guy? Is he WC? Parasites as mentioned may be a bigger concern. How much are you watering him? He looks a little dry in the pics. Jacksons like a pretty decent amount of water. Dehydration can cause eyes closed, sleeping, and not eating. A humidifier is not likely to help too much unless it is SUPER dry where you are.

 

[brighteyez]

As for if he is WC or not, don't know, we got him from PetsMart. As for parasites, again I don't know but we took him to the vet recently and she did not say anything about that. She thought he had an eye infection (I remember now that the Vet did say SHE found pus, but I never saw it), but he has been getting progressively worse. The vet also mentioned the water thing. We just got the Mist King, which I think is about the best we could do. We were wanting to get a new dripper though, later on today I will probably go and research. The one we have right now has a small resivoir, and you cannot control the flow of the drip (you cannot even turn it on/off, when it runs out of water is when it turns off). We have a good drainage system set up, so I think the best bet would just be a huge dripper that we let run once a day in addition to all the misting.

 

[summoner12]

if you have a good drainage set up, then mist for a good 20 minutes in the morning and at night. Give maybe two maybe three 1-3 minute mistings during the day to keep humidity up. These guys like it cool and humid. as for eyes... Might be a supplement issue? What do you feed him? and what do you dust with? If you are feeding crickets, what are you gutloading them with? I would get a ficus into the enclosure. Be sure to wash it in the bathtub or in a bucket of soapy water and then rinse it off really well. The pothos are good plants so keep those. But I would take out that funky palm looking tree (not sure what it is) What kind of UVB lamp are you using?

Edit: and I would get him checked out for parasites. next time you see him poop, throw it into a ziplock back and take it to the vet and ask for a fecal exam. The urate didn't seem all that bad to me... sometimes they get runny urates, but they should be more solid and white.