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Hello! I have a year or so old graceful chameleon, she's been a healthy little baby these past few months after recovering of a dire illness that hindered her ability to hunt her own food. She's been doing much better and is always bright green, plump full with crickets. She's very active and drinks healthfully, however this morning she was acting a little strangely, dark in color and nudging her nose against the top corner of the cage.

Today I've come home to find her on the bottom of the cage, where she only goes to poo, and she is so dark and weak, her eyes seem to barely open! Someone help me, what's wrong with her?! D:

Well im no medical genious (not even close!), but i think she still might have some complications from her past disorder.

Most WC chams have that phase where everything starts to look all perfect and maybe looking like they are going to get better, then you wake up to a dead cham. It happened with me and my mellers chameleon. It has happened to many ppl here. As frusterating as it is, it is even harder to prevent it.

Can you give us more details on her condition? Is she not walking right? Has she been eating? Has she been basking well?

And stuff like that. But right know, it is EMERGENCY. Take her to a vet, before it is too late.

Good luck
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Eric

I fight for the unconventional
My right, and its unconditional
I can only, be as real as i can
The disadvantage is
I never knew the plan
This isnt the way just to be a martyr
I cant, walk alone any longer
I fight, for the ones that cant fight
And if I lose, at least I tried....
(Slipknotulse of the Maggots)

I think I remember you posting about her but I can't remember what all you were told. You need to take her to a vet ASAP. She sounds like she is in a lot of trouble.

Has she got somewhere suitable in her cage to go to lay eggs if she needs to? Has she been roaming the cage more than normal lately?
Has she ever shown a polka-dotted pattern?

Does she get full spectrum light including UVB that doesn't pass through glass or plastic? Do you gutload the insects? Do you dust the crickets with calcium and vitamins? D3? What are the cage temperatures?

I took her to the vet, I didn't even have time to stick around for any replies when I posted earlier.

For information purposes, she wasn't walking or doing much of anything, she wasn't moving her eyes around and could barely open them, when I picked her up she was very very weak. I took her to the vet, and they said they believe she had a heat stroke, or just got severely overheated. We water her constantly, it's a spray manually, though, as we haven't been able to find an automatic sprayer. We're going to look online, though.

The vet gave her some shots for dehydration, and some sugar mixture to get her blood sugar back up. She perked up nicely afterwards, still weak but a lot more alive than she had been before.

right now she's back in her cage, we have the AC on and it's much cooler, the temp's reading about 80. She's been in some heavy sleeping since earlier, we hope she'll recover well. They also gave us three doses of some dewormng type medicine for her, too.

They suggested to expand her diet, which is something that needs to be done, despite her lack of interest in anything but crickets. They also suggested trying a peice of fruit or vegetable? Is this safe, and if so, what kind is good? They also mentioned buying some sort of baby food in a meat mixture, like a chicken baby food or something and warming it up a little for her. Is that safe?

Kiku has been a tremendous trooper, earlier I posted about a severe illness a few months back, she's thankfully recovered, sort of. She doesn't have nearly the appetite she did beforehand, eating 7-8 crickets at a time. Now we're lucky if she gets down 4. At first her tongue didn't seem to work right, like she'd throw it at the cricket but always come up short, and it didn't appear to 'stick'. But she's been every slowly getting better at it. The vet said if it continues to take her back and they'd do a mouth culture to see if she has some sort of infection. The vet said she weighs 46 kilograms or whatever that is.. but said she still appears thin and small for a healthy chameleon. We're hoping she'll try some superworms and various other food than crickets, the hard thing being.. that's all she really tries to eat is crickets..

Long story short, she's still alive. Weak, but better than before. I'm really hoping she does good through the night and regains her strength. If anyone has suggestions let me know. We gutload the crickets, and powder them once or twice a week. Vet recommends doing so more often. She's got two live plants in her cage, I forget their names but they've been listed on several chameleon sites as safe. Humidity is hard to keep up, but maybe the automatic sprayer, if we can find one, will work..

Thank you for the replies. Please lemme know your thoughts or suggestions on our Kiku.

You said..."They suggested to expand her diet, which is something that needs to be done, despite her lack of interest in anything but crickets. They also suggested trying a peice of fruit or vegetable? Is this safe, and if so, what kind is good? They also mentioned buying some sort of baby food in a meat mixture, like a chicken baby food or something and warming it up a little for her. Is that safe?"...I have never used meat baby food for a chameleon. I don't know if they have the enzymes to digest meat or not. Some chameleons have been reported to eat baby birds, so it might work. Veiled chameleons are omnivores and some other chameleons have been known to eat greens, plants, etc. but I've never heard of a graceful eating them. I have fed my veileds sweet red pepper, squash, dandelion greens, endive, shavings of carrot, berries, etc. Superworms, silkworms, butter worms, and waxworms would be good additions to her diet too. Go easy on the waxworms....they are fattening.

I hope that the vet is right and that it was only the heat that was causing the problem.

You said..."They also gave us three doses of some dewormng type medicine for her." All at once?? Or to give her over the next couple of weeks? Did the vet test for parasites or just medicate her anyway?

How is she now? Hope she's improving!

You said..."We gutload the crickets, and powder them once or twice a week"...gutload and dust with what??

Sometimes a symptom of low level dehydration is a tongue that won't "stick". If the cham is low on fluids they don't produce enough of the mucous that makes the tongue tip sticky. If she is not drinking much you could give her some Pedialyte to balance out electrolytes. But, once she starts drinking on her own you should not keep using it. Poor aim or tongue control can also be a nutritional problem. What are you gutloading with?

I would not feed her baby food of any kind. There are other ways to expand her diet naturally. What kinds of insects have you tried? Also, a change in gutload will change the taste of the insects a bit. Try houseflies, dull colored night moths, any green insect like leaf hoppers or grasshoppers, mantids, spiders, waxworms, silkworms, cultured tomato hornworms. If she is not hunting her own food you could put her in a smaller cage or put the food in a plastic bin in the cage. She can climb to the rim of the box and shoot at her food a little more easily than hunting the entire cage. Good luck!

Did the vet check to see if she might be gravid with infertile eggs? Did they do a fecal exam to see what parasites she does have? It's always safer to treat for what is actually present and not do a general "shotgun" approach.

We've been gutloading the crickets with orange block things we buy from the local Petco, I forget the brand name of them but the jar is about six or seven bucks if I remember right. We dust them with calcium powder.

After we brought Kiku home, she didn't move the rest of the night. She was alive, but she slept. She didn't move the next day either. I had that day off, and I attempted to give her some water, but she ended up throwing it right back up. I called the vet again because she seemed to just be growing weaker. The vet made an appointment for me to bring her back. This was the vet that had seen her last.. April I think it was when was really ill. The one she'd seen on Tuesday was a different doctor. Anyways, this time she told me to try some sugar water to try and get her sugar back up. I managed to give Kiku some of it, but she was still very, very weak. She couldn't stand at all, hasn't since the day before and could barely open her eyes. Realizign she wasn't really gonna make it until the appointment I took her to the vet for an emergency call.

The vet said she wasn't sure what was wrong with her, but believed it was actually a combination of the heat -and- something that might've been remnant from the illness she had in April. They told us they wanted to keep her for a few nights and while we tried to deal with the financial end, Kiku ended up pooing, but it was really thick, bloody, and smelled -really- bad. The vet took her back and they gave her some medicine, brought her back and said it didn't look good. Said she was barely breathing.

Sadly, unfortunately, our precious little Kiku passed away only a few moments later. We had her for about a year, almost exactly. During this time she was always pretty and loved attention, would even crawl onto our hands when we reached in to do some daily cleaning in her cage. She was a sweet little thing, and was quite a trooper. We miss her dearly, and are still mourning for her.

Thanks though for helping me with Kiku this time and the past time I posted here, I appreciated the advice. It's probably going to be a long, long while before we get a chameleon again, if ever. Kiku was a precious little thing, and we miss her tremendously. Her cage seems so empty now. But at least we had a year with her, and not the couple of months I've heard that graceful's live in captivity. May she rest in peace.

I'm so sorry for your loss. I know how hard it is to lose a chameleon...even though its happened to me many times over the years I feel the loss for each one just as I did the first. I'm glad you have good memories or her.

I too know how hard it is. I lost my female veiled in January. I worked really hard trying to keep her alive as well. I thought the same thing...I wouldn't get another for awhile, but Squiggy showed up about a month or so later. For some reason, I just had to get another cham. Through the midst of Pudge's ordeal, I did find these fine folks on this forum. Good luck in the future, and sorry again.

Kris

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2.1 Black Labs Tucker, Raider and Lacey
1.0 Lepoard Gecko Kumar (Another lost pet RIP and party on with Harold!)
2.0 Horses Smoothie and Rocky
1.0 Husbands (he puts up with me)
1.2 Kids-Trevor (congrats c/o 2006), Logan and Rylie
1.1 Ferrets Tank and Ellie (The fun fuzzies)
1.1 Veiled Chams Squiggy and Pudge (may she RIP)
0.1 Snowflake Cornsnake Lucky

Squiggy a week or so ago.

Pudge

Squiggy as a baby, courtesy of Tyler Stewart at BLUEBEAST Reptile. His link is above...he is one of the sponsers for this site.

Kris
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2.1 Black Labs Tucker, Raider and Lacey
1.0 Lepoard Gecko Kumar (Another lost pet RIP and party on with Harold!)
2.0 Horses Smoothie and Rocky
1.0 Husbands (he puts up with me)
1.2 Kids-Trevor (congrats c/o 2006), Logan and Rylie
1.1 Ferrets Tank and Ellie (The fun fuzzies)
1.1 Veiled Chams Squiggy and Pudge (may she RIP)
0.1 Snowflake Cornsnake Lucky