Veiled Tongue problem

my chameleon has a tongue issue she dosent want to use it to eat any more it only comes out about an inch when feeding she wont hunt anymore but will eat from my hand i called a vet and they want me to wait till next tuesday what should i do i think its a lack of vitamins????

Tongue problems can be caused by an injury but inability to be able to shoot the tongue out can also be caused by a calcium imbalance. You could get some calcium sandoz or calcium gluconate liquid from a pharmacy and give it some (a few drops) in a needleless syringe for a few days. A little extra calcium won't hurt for a few days. I'm not sure if that would make it more difficult for the vet to diagnose the problem if it is a calcium problem or not though.

Also, if the problem is from a calcium imbalance, you need to make sure that your UVB is being provided properly, that your basking temperatures are good and look at your supplements, what you feed the chameleon and what you feed to the insects to see if you have a proper balance so that once the levels are corrected they will stay that way. Can you post what you are doing regarding the above?

i had on a repti-glo 10.0 compact bulb but i switched it out for a sun-glo day lamp but in gets natural sunlight about 7 hours a day i feed her crickets and superworms i gutload crix with fish food apple store gut load potatoes oatmeal broccoli and my superworms with oatmeal and potatoes. ive only been using 1 vitamin supplement since i got her and it is REPTIVITE w/D3 i dust about twice a week

Found some of the information...
You said..."exo terra sun glo 40w daylight lamb and a 40w basking bulb the temp in the cage during the day usually hits 86 degrees or so and drops to the low sixties at night so i have a night lame on at night to keep it by the 70s"...I use the repti-sun 5.0 so I don't know anything about the one you are using. The temperature can drop into the 60's at night.

You said..."i gutload my crickets with apply,broccli,potato,store cricket food,oatmeal,grapes whatever seems good and i gutload superworms with oatmeal and potatoes"...I feed/gutload my crickets and superworms with an assortment of greens (dandelion, kale, collards, endive, escarole, mustard greens, etc.) and veggies (carrots, squash, sweet red pepper, sweet potato, zucchini, etc.)

You said..."i only have one type of vitamin but i have more on the way in the mail but so far ive been useing zoo meds Reptivite with d3 and i dust about twice a week"...I dust at most feedings with a phosphorous-free calcium powder at most feedings to help make up for the usually poor ratio of calcium to phos. found in the normal feeder insects. I dust twice a month with a vitamin powder that contains a beta carotene source of vitamin A since beta carotene won't build up in the system. If the chameleon needs preformed vitamin A a little can be given separately once in a while. Excess preformed vitamin A can prevent the D3 from doing its job and push the chameleon towards MBD. I also dust twice a month with a phos.-free calcium/D3 powder. D3 from supplements can build up in the system so don't overdo it.
Appropriate temperatures allow for better digestion and thus play an indirect part in nutrient absorption.

nicoRamirez said:

i had on a repti-glo 10.0 compact bulb but i switched it out for a sun-glo day lamp but in gets natural sunlight about 7 hours a day i feed her crickets and superworms i gutload crix with fish food apple store gut load potatoes oatmeal broccoli and my superworms with oatmeal and potatoes. ive only been using 1 vitamin supplement since i got her and it is REPTIVITE w/D3 i dust about twice a week

Click to expand...

I heard compact bulbs cause eye problems to chams

what kinds of vitamins do i go buy??????????

I'm also new at owning a cham. I have had mine for 2 1/2 weeks now. hm you said you dust your crickets twice a week? I dust mine everyday, am i doing this wrong?

alot of people dust theirs everyday thats the same thing im trying to figure out.

before i got my cham, i read about dusting, people told me they dust everyday so thats what i did. You should research on that to make sure your cham gets its calcium properly

Lot of informative threads collected in this blog entry regarding supplementation:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/65-supplements.html

Also, this entry has useful info regarding gutloading:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/75-feeder-nutrition.html

I use a calcium dust on all crickets. Dust lightly, not until they are ghosts.
I use a calcium with D3 powder once every other week. I use a vitamin supplement the opposite week to the D3.
I do not bother to dust most other feeders I use.

How often you use suppliments will depend on various factors: age and type of chameleon, whether or not it has access to outdoors, what feeder insects you are using, how you gutload those various insects, temperature, gender of chameleon, etc.

Trying again to explain it....

POWDER #1....PHOSPHOROUS-FREE CALCIUM POWDER...
I dust at MOST feedings with a phosphorous-free calcium powder at most feedings to help make up for the usually poor ratio of calcium to phos. found in the normal feeder insects.

POWDER #2...VITAMIN WITH A BETA CAROTENE SOURCE OF VITAMIN A.
I dust TWICE A MONTH with a vitamin powder that contains a beta carotene source of vitamin A since beta carotene won't build up in the system. If the chameleon needs preformed vitamin A a little can be given separately once in a while. Excess preformed vitamin A can prevent the D3 from doing its job and push the chameleon towards MBD.

POWDER #3...PHOSPHOROUS-FREE CALCIUM POWDER WITH D3 IN IT...I also dust TWICE A MONTH with a phos.-free calcium/D3 powder. D3 from SUPPLEMENTS can build up in the system so don't overdo it.

I heard compact bulbs cause eye problems to chams

Click to expand...

I think compacts have a bad rep, just because 'everybody heard it'! When compacts came out several brands did indeed cause photo blindness, and apparantly were removed from market. (somewhere here theres a well read thread about the UK photo blindness/compacts issue).

The reason was/is that The two uv wavelengths A and B were not balanced, A far higher than nessesary level of Uvb than found in previously manufactured bulbs/tubes or sunlight did the damage. More uv is NOT BETTER than a little! (this is akin to over supplimenting)

HOWEVER....Be aware that the high uvb idiocy still prevails and some linear (long tube)
types do the exact same damage because they have extra high UVB output.
These are generally Uv 0.10 tubes.

Just recently I switched a Uv 0.2 tube (Repti-glo © by exo-Terra) to a Tube called 'reptasunplus' 10.0 that had extra high UVB wavelengths.
I was thinking the screen of the cage would cut some out, plus it was a linear (long tube) so it must be ok right? Wrong!!

After three days my poor cham was clinging to his branch with his eyes clamped tightly shut and spending long periods down on the floor among the plants.

After just an hour of switching back, hes happy again and resumed normal behaviour and his color is brighter.

So just because its a tube, dosent mean its safe. Dont use 10.0 uv for anything, even desert herps, they all are excessive uvb wavelengths.
If your animal needs more uv than you provide with a uv 5.0 tube, then get it outdoors instead!

I will be buying a 5.0 Repti-glo © by Exo-terra shortly. Some names you can trust, some you cant.

jojackson said:

I think compacts have a bad rep, just because 'everybody heard it'! When compacts came out several brands did indeed cause photo blindness, and apparantly were removed from market. (somewhere here theres a well read thread about the UK photo blindness/compacts issue).

Click to expand...

They are not removed from Market. They are still out there, but now come with a little 'instruction' booklet

jojackson said:

The reason was/is that The two uv wavelengths A and B were not balanced, A far higher than nessesary level of Uvb than found in previously manufactured bulbs/tubes or sunlight did the damage. More uv is NOT BETTER than a little! (this is akin to over supplimenting)

HOWEVER....Be aware that the high uvb idiocy still prevails and some linear (long tube)
types do the exact same damage because they have extra high UVB output.
These are generally Uv 0.10 tubes.

Just recently I switched a Uv 0.2 tube (Repti-glo © by exo-Terra) to a Tube called 'reptasunplus' 10.0 that had extra high UVB wavelengths.
I was thinking the screen of the cage would cut some out, plus it was a linear (long tube) so it must be ok right? Wrong!!

After three days my poor cham was clinging to his branch with his eyes clamped tightly shut and spending long periods down on the floor among the plants.

After just an hour of switching back, hes happy again and resumed normal behaviour and his color is brighter.

So just because its a tube, dosent mean its safe. Dont use 10.0 uv for anything, even desert herps, they all are excessive uvb wavelengths.
If your animal needs more uv than you provide with a uv 5.0 tube, then get it outdoors instead!

I will be buying a 5.0 Repti-glo © by Exo-terra shortly. Some names you can trust, some you cant.

Click to expand...

The 5.0 linear tube from Zoomed is the proven lamp on the market.

you need to be using the 5.0 for tropical sun spectrum's the 10.0 is for desert species, and can potentially blind your cham, and can provide too much uvb.

Docility said:

you need to be using the 5.0 for tropical sun spectrum's the 10.0 is for desert species, and can potentially blind your cham, and can provide too much uvb.

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Ah, I was proven wrong once on this. 10.0 bulbs can be used for bigger cages, depending on how far down you want the UVB to penetrate. (something like that)

You don't want to think of them as tropical or desert really... you need to think of them as 'how close can the cham get to the light'. Actually there are a lot of ways to think about it I guess....

The idea is that the 10.0 has more volume than the 5.0...... say you have your music on and its just right for you at your computer..... but you get up to go into the other room and can't hear it? well you would turn it up right? so the sound will travel more? so now your in the other room and you can hear it fine because you turned up the volume. Now you go back to your computer and its really loud as you sit in front of your speakers.... This is how the UVB is. So that you can get 'good levels' at a distance the output of the UVB is greater. SO if the cham is close to the lamp the amount of UV from the lamp is greater. The advantage of this great volume of UVB is that if you need to push the UVB through thick screen/mesh or your lights are hung at a distance in a free range setup in such a way that your chameleon can't reach them.... you can still get that magic number of UVB to your cham.

If you are using a metal screen cage, the 5.0 is perfect to have sitting right on top of your cage. The 10.0 is not good for chameleons at this range. It will force the chameleon to retreat low in its cage to avoid the large amounts of UVB.

In my free range setup for Lenny, his UVB lamp is a fixture that holds 2 36" Reptisun 10.0 lamps with an aluminum foil reflector. His UV at his basking and most areas below the ficture are at around 34 on the meter. The lamps sit about 15-23" from most of his vines that are located below the lamps. These lamps are 5 months old and this reading is almost dead on with the daily average amount of UVB a cham should experience to process its calcium. Unless you own or can barrow a meter, I don't recommend veering off the beaten path of UVB suggestions.

Edit: I forgot one of the points I wanted to make..... Just because the cage is big doesn't mean you need high volumes of UVB. If you set the cage up right your basking spot will be near the UVB lamp. If you have the basking temp dialed in right, your cham will bask for heat and UVB at the same time. The cham will move about the basking area to get more or less UVB/Heat. My chams will move a bit more under the heat lamp for more heat and then slide over to the UVB lamp for more UV.

Edit 2: Also, 10.0 and 5.0 quality aren't the same. 10.0 lamps might have more volume... but like the music you are blasting from your computer... the quality isn't always there. the spectrum on a 10.0 lamp isn't exactly the same as that of a 5.0. Sure there is more UVB... but UVB is a range of light.... and the purpose of a UVB lamp is for the cham to process its calcium. Different parts of the UVB spectrum influence the calcium processing differently. So quantity isn't always more quality.

I trust Exo-Terra and the sun, Thats it!

Syn said:

Ah, I was proven wrong once on this. 10.0 bulbs can be used for bigger cages, depending on how far down you want the UVB to penetrate. (something like that)

Click to expand...

California Zoological center said to ad hear strictly to the 5.0, because though the analogy of the music makes sense. this has a different lighting spectrum to increase the UVB to 10. 10 is to mimic Desert sun light. which is direct full head on sun. 5.0 is to replicate tropical areas. which is why if you have a bigger cage research suggests using more of the same uvb rating. check the wavelengths on the box, and if you don't believe me call CalZoo.

Also if your using weird brands of lighting. they may say different ratings. you want to match the spectrum's, and general wavelength to eachother

nicoRamirez, when you took your chameleon to the vet what did they say the problem was and how was it fixed? my chameleon is doing the same thing, her tongue doesn't seem to want to work when she eats and only comes out about an inch. I don't really have the money to take her to the vet so I'm trying to fix it without having to.

I would also like to know as I have the same issue with a new (to me) Jackson. Here is my post on the subject...

https://www.chameleonforums.com/need-help-jackson-chameleon-can-not-use-tongue-66964/