Veil is cracking...

My veiled cham is approx. 1 year old. He grew very very fast and is quite active. He loves to go out of his cage and we have set up a safe place for him to free roam a few times a week. He is in a large DIY screen cage. He has a power sun heat lamp. He has real plants and fake plants in his enclosure and bamboo to crawl on. He eats crickets every other day that are gut loaded and sprinkled with calcium. I also put in some dark greens for him as everyday as he seems to like it. About once a week I will give him a tiny bit of fruit as well and the occasional hibiscus flower. He is pretty different from some chams I have encountered as he really seems to enjoy being held. Especially by females. As far as water his cage is sprayed on top about 5-6 times a day creating droplets on the top screen. However when he is in shed...for some reason he seems to LIKE to be sprayed directly.

Here is my concern.....

Today I noticed that the rim of his veil is cracking all the way around. I am not sure why this is happening at all. I noticed he was for a while rubbing it on the top of the cage and dropped his bamboo down a bit so he could not do that. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

On a side note....just for background info....we did get another female cham (she is about 2 months old right now). She is in the same type of cage only smaller next to his cage. Not sure if that will have any bearing as to what is happening.

Again thank you for you help!

Can you post a pic? About the power sun, how far is it away from the cage and what is the wattage/ basking temp? That bulb is usually made for desert type animals so there is probably more intense UVB rays, though some people on here use that without problems.

I will take some pics and post up shortly...thank you!

Thanks the pictures will help. i hope he doesn't have a burn, he sounds like a great cham.

Sorry for the wait...we are dealing with monsoons here right now in AZ.

Ok the actual light is on a light hook and stands about 22 inches from the highest place he can reach.

Here is a picture of the enclosure...

This is George

Here is the split



As you can see it is literally splitting on the rim of the veil. This had to of happened in the last 2 days. As I stated he is very very friendly and out quite a lot so I would have noticed this had it been there before. There is really nothing in his cage to have caught it on either.

I forgot to add that his basking is about 85-88 degrees. He does have a range of temps and seems to use them well.

No thin metal anywhere he could have tried wedging through, that looks like a straight, clean slice in the pictures. Is it more like a crack or slice?

im waiting to see what someone says about this that has had experience. with your basking spot temps and from your pic, the distance from the bulb and basking site have a good distance. i personally use this bulb on a few veileds with no ill effect.

on another note: a wise man told me to take the dome reflector off for powersun or solarglo bulbs. with it on, it will increase the temps around the bulb thus reducing the life of the bulb.

Wow. He's handsome. Are you sure it's not just the weird beginning of a shed?

Thanks everyone! He is a very handsome man and spoiled to boot.

I agree it looks as if something sliced him but there is NOTHING that could of possibly did that. And when you look at it closely it is definetly like a crack. He does get to free roam but even that area is free of anything that could harm him....especially in that manner and he is supervised.

Its definetly NOT a shed ...it is actually pulling apart. I feel terrible! I am pretty seasoned with keeping reptiles and have never experienced something like this and feel completely awful this has happened in my care.

Not sure who gave me the light tip but I will definetly do that. We have over 30 reptiles here and a majority need the lighting. It gets expensive...so thank you so much!!

Well I will keep checking in. I am going to make a vet appt. tomorrow before this gets infected. We are lucky enough to have one of the worlds top reptile vets here in Tucson and hopefully he will know what is going on with him!.

Again thank you for all of your input.

It's great you are taking him to the vet. Please let us know what the vet says. It all goes into the communal knowledge pool!

I've never seen anything like that either so please do let us know what the vet says.

Just to keep you all updated....it looks as if it has pulled away more today. I have an appt. with our vet at 2:30 so I will definetly let you all know what he says. Again thank you for your help.

BPelizabeth said:

Just to keep you all updated....it looks as if it has pulled away more today. I have an appt. with our vet at 2:30 so I will definetly let you all know what he says. Again thank you for your help.

Click to expand...

IMHO this looks like necrotic tissue peeling away from healthy tissue. Chances are he got burned or some sort of damage to the discolored strip on the top of his casque. An area of tissue died, and now that it is drying up and dead it's being isolated from the healthy tissue underneath like a large scab. I've seen this with a severely burned melleri. A large portion of his dorsal crest was damaged/burned before I got him. The whole area turned dark grey and died. The vet and I spent months slowly debriding and removing it. The exposed tissue underneath was pink and healthy. We helped the process by flushing it with a sterile irrigation rinse (not sure what it was), trimming off dead tissue, and protecting the newly exposed flesh with Silvadene.

Update on George's visit to the doc...

Ok just got back from the vet visit....

Here is what is going on. George has a sunburn...not a burn..but a sunburn much like we get. Now this could of happened in his cage or as he was free roaming and near the window. He was given a sulfate cream that has antibiotics in it and it will also keep the area moist. He should heal up just fine however the area that has cracked apart will eventually shed off. Dr. Jarchow suggested that we keep the same light but put an additional screen between the light and George and raise it even further up from his cage. Also...no more free roaming near the window during sunny hours. The rest of his visit went very well, no parasites, the doc kept saying he was in excellent...excellent health. One of the reasons he stated to keep the Power Sun light...was that he is in such great condition partly due to the light....however we just need to take extra precautions.

This whole process was certainly eye opening for me! But I also would like to give props to Dr. Jarchow. If you are in AZ and need a vet to look at your reptiles.....I highly recommend him. The visit and the meds and the parasite check, not to mention getting me in the same day...$49-. It never ceases to amaze me when I visit him just how lucky we are to have someone with his experience and talent here in Tucson.


To the mods....

I know this is something that many ppl have not seen before. If you want to use the pics for a sticky I am perfectly fine with that. I don't want anyone else to experience this and not know what it is.

Again I want to say thank you for such quick responses. I had never posted before on here and I really appreciate that ya all went out of your way to help!!

Great news! I hope the shed solves everything! Sounds like a great vet. To be safe though I'd switch to just your normal 5.0 linear uvb bulb with a 60 watt uva basking bulb. Better safe than sorry!

That is an excellent way for this thread to you. Congrats.

Thompson...I am kind of right with you on that one!! I know he stated it was fine....but wow...if I leave the Power Sun I am sure I will be super paranoid.

Happy news!

Hi, I've joined this forum purely to query a similar ailment. My Veiled Chameleon Fergal is now 3 y/o and has so far lived a very happy and problem free life. Just recently I've noticed the peak of his crest has split from the arc 2/3rds of the way up, to the tip. He's living in a Exo Terra Terrarium with a gauze topper. His heat lamp sits above the lid. There's nothing in his terrarium he could've damaged his crest on. I was wondering if this is the start of a crest peel (if such a thing exists), or if it might be something to do with the distance of his lamp? Any help would be very much appreciated, I'll endeavor to add a couple of photos. Many thanks

Three Stoats