Worried. Does Freddy look okay

[xxaprilrose]

Freddy has been acting a bit strange. Or maybe I am overreacting, I'm not sure. He's been hanging out towards the bottom a lot. Not actually ON the bottom but about 2/3 down the cage when normally he's always moving around exploring every inch of the cage but mostly at the top. He's just been sitting recently, not moving too much. His color seems pale to me as well, however he hasnt shed in about a month an a half, possibly a tad longer so that could have something to do with it. Also I did switch out his UVB bulb a week and 2 days ago. The bulb was only 5.5 months old but I had an amazon gift card so i bought a new one and decided to just replace it now anyways incase I forgot. When Freddy is no longer near the bottom the of the cage I can find him directly under the UVB ever since I replaced it. I find this odd because yes he would bask before under it but now hes like ALWAYS under it. Kind of like hes making up for "lost time" but yet he's always had one? So I dont know why that would be unless the bulb expired long before the 6 months mark (again, bulb was only 5.5 months old). Does Freddy look like maybe he has early signs of MBD? I dont think he does but I'm not experienced in that department. Any help would be great. I filled out this forum again since last time it was months ago and a few has changed:


Chameleon Info:

• Your Chameleon - 10 month male panther chameleon (ambilobe)
• Handling - never, held him once the second i got him to put him in his cage but not since. He's an angry boy lol
• Feeding - He's eating, but not as much but also he's 10 months old and he's recently tapered himself down to eating less bugs so it could just be normal and I am unaware. He wont eat crickets and dubia roaches. I have tried everything. He used to eat them when he was younger but then it went to he would only eat them if they were loose in his cage. Now he wont at all. He doesnt like superworms, and silkworms are SO hard to come by and when they're in stock they wont ship since im in NY and the weather has been awful lately so literally the only bugs I have access to at this moment is hornworms and waxworms. He eats both, I do still give him crickets but again he wont touch them but I still try. I feed him 6-10 bugs every other day. I give him 10 bugs so he can eat what he wants. Some days he will eat 6, others he will eat all 10.
• Supplements - repticalcium without D3 every feeding unless its reptivite with d3 day which i do every other sunday
• Watering - mist king system that goes off throughout the day and night. um struggling a lot with this recently though due to the dry winter weather. Night times are ok. always between 75-90% but daytime I struggle hard. its usually 40-50% because I just cant seem to get it any higher with the furnace going in the room and if I plug in a humidifier it blows a fuse so I cant have any heavy powered electronics in that room. I hand mist a few times as well through out the day as I need to get the plants that the mister cant reach
• Fecal Description - dark brown with white urates. last pooped a week and a day ago i believe it was
• History - no history info i can think of sharing

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - reptibreeze 2x2x4
• Lighting - LED light for the plants (its an aquarium style light but helps the plants) uvb is reptisun T5 5.0 24 inch. this is 10 inches from his uvb basking branch
• Temperature -struggling with temps lately. His basking will be about 85-90 depending on what the ambiant temps end up doing but what I struggle with is the furnace in that room has a dial. When the dial is on 3 the ambient temps can range from 75-79 and thats when i notice hes usually more at the bottom so i changed it to set to 2 but now ambiant temps are about 68-69.
• Humidity - night time always above 75 but day struggling with it being 40-50
• Plants - yes live plants. 2 pothos, 1 wandering jew plant, 1 swiss cheese monsterra
• Placement - in its own room, barely any traffic at all, only have 2 fish tanks in that room and go through it to let my dogs outside but thats it. he doesnt mind the dogs as they dont even know hes there
• Location - NY

Current Problem - hes been acting a little weird and im just worried

--------------

Please Note:

1. The more details you provide the better and more accurate help you will receive.
2. Photos can be very helpful.

 

[bruce the cham]

he looks fine check your basking temps and humidity

 

[Mendez]

Is this a full-house furnace? Can you close the furnace opening to the room and instead use a portable heating unit specifically for the room? That way the heat will be specifically tuned for the room.

I recently just hooked up a small heater (without built-in thermostat) to a very reliable wall thermostat. I find the thermostats in built-in units are too unreliable. I had one heater that would cook up to 80F even when I set it for 69F. I'll send links later, dinner's ready.

But it's super reliable and I have had absolutely no trouble holding the exact desired temperature for my chameleon room.

 

[xxaprilrose]

Is this a full-house furnace? Can you close the furnace opening to the room and instead use a portable heating unit specifically for the room? That way the heat will be specifically tuned for the room.

I recently just hooked up a small heater (without built-in thermostat) to a very reliable wall thermostat. I find the thermostats in built-in units are too unreliable. I had one heater that would cook up to 80F even when I set it for 69F. I'll send links later, dinner's ready.

But it's super reliable and I have had absolutely no trouble holding the exact desired temperature for my chameleon room.

So it’s weird. So Freddy is in his own room which is an addition that was put into my house. Is behind the garage so it’s attached to the garage but not the house. Inside the room there is a large furnace that runs in gas that’s on a gas line to the house and it does have an internal thermostats which works but there’s just such a large gap between setting 2 and 3 lately but I think it’s because of the crazy weather here in ny. One day it’s 1 degree outside and the very next day it’s 32 degrees so maybe it just is all over the place because of outside temps? Unsure

 

[xxaprilrose]

For instance right now outside it’s 36 degrees and it’s on setting 2 which I put on yesterday morning and his ambiant temps right this moment is 72.

 

[Beman]

Hey there I am going to go through everything and put my feedback in bold.


Freddy has been acting a bit strange. Or maybe I am overreacting, I'm not sure. He's been hanging out towards the bottom a lot. Not actually ON the bottom but about 2/3 down the cage when normally he's always moving around exploring every inch of the cage but mostly at the top. He's just been sitting recently, not moving too much. His color seems pale to me as well, however he hasnt shed in about a month an a half, possibly a tad longer so that could have something to do with it. Also I did switch out his UVB bulb a week and 2 days ago. The bulb was only 5.5 months old but I had an amazon gift card so i bought a new one and decided to just replace it now anyways incase I forgot. When Freddy is no longer near the bottom the of the cage I can find him directly under the UVB ever since I replaced it. I find this odd because yes he would bask before under it but now hes like ALWAYS under it. Kind of like hes making up for "lost time" but yet he's always had one? So I dont know why that would be unless the bulb expired long before the 6 months mark (again, bulb was only 5.5 months old). Does Freddy look like maybe he has early signs of MBD? I dont think he does but I'm not experienced in that department. Any help would be great. I filled out this forum again since last time it was months ago and a few has changed:

I am not seeing any visible signs of MBD.


Chameleon Info:

• Your Chameleon - 10 month male panther chameleon (ambilobe)
• Handling - never, held him once the second i got him to put him in his cage but not since. He's an angry boy lol
• Feeding - He's eating, but not as much but also he's 10 months old and he's recently tapered himself down to eating less bugs so it could just be normal and I am unaware. He wont eat crickets and dubia roaches. I have tried everything. He used to eat them when he was younger but then it went to he would only eat them if they were loose in his cage. Now he wont at all. He doesnt like superworms, and silkworms are SO hard to come by and when they're in stock they wont ship since im in NY and the weather has been awful lately so literally the only bugs I have access to at this moment is hornworms and waxworms. He eats both, I do still give him crickets but again he wont touch them but I still try. I feed him 6-10 bugs every other day. I give him 10 bugs so he can eat what he wants. Some days he will eat 6, others he will eat all 10. Ok so your going to have to do the hard approach now. He should not be getting hornworms and waxworms as his diet. Specifically waxworms at this age. You can see in his casque where he is starting to hold excess fat... This is not something you want. So first off what type of feeder run are you using? You need to ONLY offer the feeders he should be eating. He may resist and not eat at all but when he gets hungry enough he will break down and eat. Make sure the feeders are not too big or he will back off them. So crickets and dubia maybe some black soldier fly larvae too. Your going to put only them into the feeder and offer NOTHING else. Every other day feeding is fine and 10 is fine until he hits 12 months. But only when they are healthy feeders. It could take him a week to break down and eat. But it is like dealing with a toddler and you have to be the strong one and make sure he eats the healthy stuff.
• Supplements - repticalcium without D3 every feeding unless its reptivite with d3 day which i do every other sunday
• Watering - mist king system that goes off throughout the day and night. um struggling a lot with this recently though due to the dry winter weather. Night times are ok. always between 75-90% but daytime I struggle hard. its usually 40-50% because I just cant seem to get it any higher with the furnace going in the room and if I plug in a humidifier it blows a fuse so I cant have any heavy powered electronics in that room. I hand mist a few times as well through out the day as I need to get the plants that the mister cant reach So 40-50% is actually fine for daytime.
• Fecal Description - dark brown with white urates. last pooped a week and a day ago i believe it was
• History - no history info i can think of sharing

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - reptibreeze 2x2x4
• Lighting - LED light for the plants (its an aquarium style light but helps the plants) uvb is reptisun T5 5.0 24 inch. this is 10 inches from his uvb basking branch... So 10 inches is too far away... You want 8-9 inches from the bottom of the fixture to the branch below it to get a 3-4 UVI range. This is probably why he is loving the new bulb. It has not hit its burn out yet. They burn stronger the first week. So he is actually getting a higher UVI level right now. With you having it lower he is somewhere in the 2 UVI range. Right now with it being a new bulb its probably sitting in the 3UVI level which is in the recommended range.
• Temperature -struggling with temps lately. His basking will be about 85-90 depending on what the ambiant temps end up doing but what I struggle with is the furnace in that room has a dial. When the dial is on 3 the ambient temps can range from 75-79 and thats when i notice hes usually more at the bottom so i changed it to set to 2 but now ambiant temps are about 68-69. Ok so basking at 90 is way too hot... I would rather see a lower ambient and basking between 80-85max end. Keep in mind in winter ambient levels do change... And this is ok. But we still are looking for that range of no hotter then 73ish. 69 is still fine for an ambient. I am betting he is staying farther down because it is just too dang hot to go higher.
• Humidity - night time always above 75 but day struggling with it being 40-50... Daytime is spot on at 40-50%. The recommended range is 50-60% for a panther. But you have to account for gradients in the cage. In the plants your humidity is going to be higher. You do not want the entire cage sitting at 60%. You also are still looking for a cage that drys out during the day. Branches should not be wet all day.
• Plants - yes live plants. 2 pothos, 1 wandering jew plant, 1 swiss cheese monsterra... If you can add another plant it will help provide natural higher humidity.
• Placement - in its own room, barely any traffic at all, only have 2 fish tanks in that room and go through it to let my dogs outside but thats it. he doesnt mind the dogs as they dont even know hes there
• Location - NY

 

[xxaprilrose]

Hey there I am going to go through everything and put my feedback in bold.


Freddy has been acting a bit strange. Or maybe I am overreacting, I'm not sure. He's been hanging out towards the bottom a lot. Not actually ON the bottom but about 2/3 down the cage when normally he's always moving around exploring every inch of the cage but mostly at the top. He's just been sitting recently, not moving too much. His color seems pale to me as well, however he hasnt shed in about a month an a half, possibly a tad longer so that could have something to do with it. Also I did switch out his UVB bulb a week and 2 days ago. The bulb was only 5.5 months old but I had an amazon gift card so i bought a new one and decided to just replace it now anyways incase I forgot. When Freddy is no longer near the bottom the of the cage I can find him directly under the UVB ever since I replaced it. I find this odd because yes he would bask before under it but now hes like ALWAYS under it. Kind of like hes making up for "lost time" but yet he's always had one? So I dont know why that would be unless the bulb expired long before the 6 months mark (again, bulb was only 5.5 months old). Does Freddy look like maybe he has early signs of MBD? I dont think he does but I'm not experienced in that department. Any help would be great. I filled out this forum again since last time it was months ago and a few has changed:

I am not seeing any visible signs of MBD.


Chameleon Info:

• Your Chameleon - 10 month male panther chameleon (ambilobe)
• Handling - never, held him once the second i got him to put him in his cage but not since. He's an angry boy lol
• Feeding - He's eating, but not as much but also he's 10 months old and he's recently tapered himself down to eating less bugs so it could just be normal and I am unaware. He wont eat crickets and dubia roaches. I have tried everything. He used to eat them when he was younger but then it went to he would only eat them if they were loose in his cage. Now he wont at all. He doesnt like superworms, and silkworms are SO hard to come by and when they're in stock they wont ship since im in NY and the weather has been awful lately so literally the only bugs I have access to at this moment is hornworms and waxworms. He eats both, I do still give him crickets but again he wont touch them but I still try. I feed him 6-10 bugs every other day. I give him 10 bugs so he can eat what he wants. Some days he will eat 6, others he will eat all 10. Ok so your going to have to do the hard approach now. He should not be getting hornworms and waxworms as his diet. Specifically waxworms at this age. You can see in his casque where he is starting to hold excess fat... This is not something you want. So first off what type of feeder run are you using? You need to ONLY offer the feeders he should be eating. He may resist and not eat at all but when he gets hungry enough he will break down and eat. Make sure the feeders are not too big or he will back off them. So crickets and dubia maybe some black soldier fly larvae too. Your going to put only them into the feeder and offer NOTHING else. Every other day feeding is fine and 10 is fine until he hits 12 months. But only when they are healthy feeders. It could take him a week to break down and eat. But it is like dealing with a toddler and you have to be the strong one and make sure he eats the healthy stuff.
• Supplements - repticalcium without D3 every feeding unless its reptivite with d3 day which i do every other sunday
• Watering - mist king system that goes off throughout the day and night. um struggling a lot with this recently though due to the dry winter weather. Night times are ok. always between 75-90% but daytime I struggle hard. its usually 40-50% because I just cant seem to get it any higher with the furnace going in the room and if I plug in a humidifier it blows a fuse so I cant have any heavy powered electronics in that room. I hand mist a few times as well through out the day as I need to get the plants that the mister cant reach So 40-50% is actually fine for daytime.
• Fecal Description - dark brown with white urates. last pooped a week and a day ago i believe it was
• History - no history info i can think of sharing

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - reptibreeze 2x2x4
• Lighting - LED light for the plants (its an aquarium style light but helps the plants) uvb is reptisun T5 5.0 24 inch. this is 10 inches from his uvb basking branch... So 10 inches is too far away... You want 8-9 inches from the bottom of the fixture to the branch below it to get a 3-4 UVI range. This is probably why he is loving the new bulb. It has not hit its burn out yet. They burn stronger the first week. So he is actually getting a higher UVI level right now. With you having it lower he is somewhere in the 2 UVI range. Right now with it being a new bulb its probably sitting in the 3UVI level which is in the recommended range.
• Temperature -struggling with temps lately. His basking will be about 85-90 depending on what the ambiant temps end up doing but what I struggle with is the furnace in that room has a dial. When the dial is on 3 the ambient temps can range from 75-79 and thats when i notice hes usually more at the bottom so i changed it to set to 2 but now ambiant temps are about 68-69. Ok so basking at 90 is way too hot... I would rather see a lower ambient and basking between 80-85max end. Keep in mind in winter ambient levels do change... And this is ok. But we still are looking for that range of no hotter then 73ish. 69 is still fine for an ambient. I am betting he is staying farther down because it is just too dang hot to go higher.
• Humidity - night time always above 75 but day struggling with it being 40-50... Daytime is spot on at 40-50%. The recommended range is 50-60% for a panther. But you have to account for gradients in the cage. In the plants your humidity is going to be higher. You do not want the entire cage sitting at 60%. You also are still looking for a cage that drys out during the day. Branches should not be wet all day.
• Plants - yes live plants. 2 pothos, 1 wandering jew plant, 1 swiss cheese monsterra... If you can add another plant it will help provide natural higher humidity.
• Placement - in its own room, barely any traffic at all, only have 2 fish tanks in that room and go through it to let my dogs outside but thats it. he doesnt mind the dogs as they dont even know hes there
• Location - NY

Thanks so much for all this feedback! The branch itself is 10 inches but I thought the Chams back to the uvb had to be 8 inches which I think would be accurate, if not then 7 inches. As for the crickets I will try and and only give him crickets for a week to see how far we get. My worry before was they sit there because he doesn’t eat them and in return they end up getting wet from the mister and loose the calcium powder so if he did eventually eat them, there would be no calcium and I worried about that. As for bsfl I can only get them online and the last two times I got them they all came in dead so I stopped ordering them. For dubias again he won’t eat them but will try that the week after trying crickets I’ll mix them in and see if that works?

Oh also I use a bird feeder cup that gingero recommended but about 3 weeks ago I got the full throttle cricket run because he would eat “loose” crickets and he did eat all crickets the first day I tried this feeder but not since

 

[Beman]

Thanks so much for all this feedback! The branch itself is 10 inches but I thought the Chams back to the uvb had to be 8 inches which I think would be accurate, if not then 7 inches. As for the crickets I will try and and only give him crickets for a week to see how far we get. My worry before was they sit there because he doesn’t eat them and in return they end up getting wet from the mister and loose the calcium powder so if he did eventually eat them, there would be no calcium and I worried about that. As for bsfl I can only get them online and the last two times I got them they all came in dead so I stopped ordering them. For dubias again he won’t eat them but will try that the week after trying crickets I’ll mix them in and see if that works?

Oh also I use a bird feeder cup that gingero recommended but about 3 weeks ago I got the full throttle cricket run because he would eat “loose” crickets and he did eat all crickets the first day I tried this feeder but not since

Your measuring to the branch... Where the back hits is the UVI they are supposed to be in.

So what you can do is remove any feeders at the end of the day. Put them in their own container with gutload. Re gutload and try to feed again the next day. Try getting dubia again. 1/2 inch size should be good for him.

It can take some time to get them to move over to the feeders they should eat. Took me 9 days with Beman to get him moved over to dubia... The hard part is for you not them. You will feel bad that he is not eating. But in the end it is what he needs. It is far worse to have him on feeders that will not support his dietary needs. Also in winter we can't get certain feeders as readily. Dubia hold up to almost anything when it comes to extremes so they are shipped without issue.

I honestly hate the bird feeder cup that keeps getting recommended. If a cham is not trained to cup feed they do not tend to use it. The feeders are not able to move around much and therefor the cham is not stimulated to eat them. Most babies are taught to free feed. So this is where feeders like the full throttle and shooting gallery work well because they see them moving and it is more like what they are used to.

 

[xxaprilrose]

Just wanted to come on here and say Freddy looks a lot better today! His colors are bright again (hasn’t shed yet though) and he’s back to roaming around the cage! I did also find a nice large healthy poop with lots of white urate so maybe he was just constipated?? Idk but I’m glad to see it