Reptile & Amphibian Forums

can you tell me how do i know if my young cham is too skinny? i cant really tell as sometimes he puffs himself up in defence.
What are the signs?
Also he is a male velid cham i got him in oct 2005 and he only the size of my hand is this right he still seems small so does his casque.he is deffinatly eating as ive seen him but he doesnt seem to eat alot as i can see some bones. I cant force feed him so what can i do when i got him hed gobble loads food up but now he doesnt eat as much as he did. I put a fair few loaded crickets and flies in and the odd wax worm and he doesnt eat them all and they stay ing the tank as i cant get them out all the time. Could this be why he is not eating much because there is always food in his tank is he bored of it or stressed with it and not eating it. It never bothered him as a hatchling he just ate all day. but now he doesnt hunt that much.

As we were told they grow fast and big we have just built a big 5ft tank and he doesnt seemt o be growing much unless he hass topped because the tank he in too small i dunno.
He had suspected MBD a while ago after a fall he wasc rawling on his front legs and noticed a few bumps but now he is lifting himself up fine and the bumps are less noticable.

Any advice is grately apprieciated.

One request...please put periods at the end of your sentences. It makes it hard to read if you don't.

You said..."Also he is a male velid cham i got him in oct 2005 and he only the size of my hand"...you didn't say how old he was when you got him....but he has to be at least 5 or 6 months old if you got him in October. He should be approaching full size soon and might just be slowing down because his growth is slowing. Does his length (you said its as long as your hand) include his tail?

You said that his casque still looks small....are you sure its a male because the female's casque doesn't grow as tall as the male's. Males have a tarsal spur that's a definite way to tell its a male. Here's a picture of the spur...
http://adcham.com/html/husbandry/glossary/tarsalspur.html

If it is a female, it could be slowing down if its carrying eggs and you should provide a place for it to lay its eggs or it could die eggbound. Veiled females can produce eggs even when not mated.

As for skinny or fat...if the tail has deep long ridges in it then he is too skinny. If its nice and round then he is fat enough. The picture of the tarsal spur shows the base of the male's tail and that's a healthy tail. The female's back legs show good (fat) size too. Its not unusual to see the ribs sticking out when he moves or reaches for something.

You said..."I cant force feed him"...I don't believe in force feeding unless there is no other option.

Re: food staying in his tank....its not a problem usually, but some veggies/fruit should be put in the cage for the insects to eat so they won't nibble on the chameleon.

You said how much you put in, but you didn't say how often. I think about 20 crickets a week would be fine for an adult male veiled. If you use other insects then you should expect to feed him less crickets than that. Temperature plays a part in his rate of digestion and temperatures that are too low can compromise the chameleon's health (ability to absorb nutrients, etc.). Do you have a full spectrum light including UVB over its cage (with no plastic or glass between the chameleon and the light) or is it exposed to direct sunlight? Do you gutload all the insects and use supplements on them too? With what and how often?

Re...growth stopping because the tank is too small....that doesn't happen.

You said..."He had suspected MBD a while ago after a fall he wasc rawling on his front legs and noticed a few bumps but now he is lifting himself up fine and the bumps are less noticable"...there are some good articles you might want to read on these sites concerning MBD and the roll that calcium, vitamins D3 and A play in it. There is lots of other information about nutrition too.
http://www.chameleonjournals.com/vet/
http://adcham.com/
http://www.chameleonnews.com/index.html

Hope this helps!

I am new to this forum and i wrote on here for help not how to write my messages.
Anyway yes he is only the size of my hand including tail he was only a few days old when i got him. I got him from the international herp society breeders meeting last oct and yes i know hes a male he has the spurs which are visible but to me he is still very very small.
Height wise he is only a couple of inches high and length of my hand inlc tail, his casque is only a centimetre high.
There are slight signs of ridges at the top of his tail but not at the bottom or middle. I feed him around 20 crickets a week already and they are fully gut loaded with veg and cricket foods.

he feeds early morning and seems to have a round tummy and wonders quite happily around. As i stated before i have already fixed the MBD from the help of those sites already. So i really do not know why he isnt growing or eating the heating, lighting and humidity are all spot on too.
All i know is he isnt going tot he toilet alot but when he does its mostly white so i know hes not dehydrated and he isnt eating alot or growing.
Maybe it is the tank size but if he doesnt start growing it will seem like this 5ft tank i was told to build will be for nothing as that will be to big.
Thanks for your advice and help.
I just dont understand i have been following things to a T. he got MBD because he did have a growth spurt and grew too fast for the amount of calcium he got which i have sorted and increased.

He does seem small for his age the way you describe him. I have seen/heard of a few chameleons that didn't grow....but there hasn't really been much documentation on the reasons.

You said..."I feed him around 20 crickets a week already"...what size are the crickets? Are they crickets that you got from a pet store or ones that you caught wild? (I don't know where you live so I don't know if its even warm enough to catch wild ones.)

Since he eats somewhat, then he has to poop...but you are describing what comes out of him as mostly white. There should be a big brown part and a smaller white part and usually there is some almost clear liquid that is like half-set jello. If there is no brown part, then its possible he is impacted. There are several reasons that impaction might happen....ingesting substrate or potting soil, insects that are too hard to digest, improper temperatures or dehydration, etc.

I know its frustrating when something isn't right and you can't figure out why.

Perhaps a vet would be able to give you some answers.

I feed him medium sized crickets from a pet store I live in the UK.
I do gut load them but he just doesnt seem interested in anything i give him.
He does eat the odd one. Today i totally cleared out his tank took all the crickets out incase they were stressing him out.
Is there any chance that he could have a growth spurt and grow to his normal size when we move him into the 5ft tank or is it unlikely that he will grow at all due to him being to old and being adult now?
Ive bought him the powersun bulb for the new tank from zoo med and it says this is what vets use to help the MBD balance.
Im just worried that he will stay so small have u heard of them growing close to his adult size still even after the MBD and small size he is? I mean the MBD wasnt really that bad compared to some ive seen and now he seems to have overcome it.

You asked..."have u heard of them growing close to his adult size still even after the MBD and small size he is?"...I have had veileds (with no MBD)that continued to grow until they were three when the growth was slow to begin with. They never would end up being the biggest veiled chameleons I'd ever seen, but their growth was well within the range of normal. I have had veiled males that had quite bad MBD at a young age that grew to an amost normal size and lived to be over 5 years old. (I had a couple of "rescues" that I kept and raised just to see what I could do with them to return them to healthy and see how long they would live.) They are surprising at overcoming disabilities! (I have had a couple of rescues that had lost a limb (or part of one) in caging accidents that have done well without the missing leg too!)

I have been using Repti-sun 5.0's (florescent tubes) for the last few years and have been very happy with them...so I can't tell you anything about the power suns. Hopefully the vet knows what he/she is talking about!

I'm still concerned that he isn't eating much or producing the brown part when he defecates.

thats good news that he could still grow to a normalish size.

Yes i to am very concerned that he is not defecating enough or eating enough he just seems to not want to eat i mean i do catch him eating occasionally but he hardly seemed interested.

I thought this could be do to too many crickets being in the tank as they just built up over the weeks and could have been stressing him out so i cleaned the tank completely and he seems alot more active. I shall try feeding him little and often. Is there anything that you can think of to intice him as UV levels heat etc are all spot on.

Maybe it is the tank being to small i dont know he will be moved soon so maybe that will give him some space to hunt.

Ive tried him with all sorts the one thing that really seems to get him going is fruit flies and curly wing flies but this doesnt seem enough. He is actually scared of wax worms and meal worms when i place them in the tank and watch he literally runs away from them.

Its shocking as when he was a hatchling he ate so often and was really tubby and fat now he seems to be getting thinner. There are no obvious ridges in his tail but just at the top around the pelvis and top of tail about the first quarter of the tail I can see some appearing only faintly.

Any tips for constipated chams. I know with snakes you bath them with warm water is there anything you can think of? Ive tried him with leafy vegs etc again he goes no were near the stuff but at least its food for crickets.

Hopefully having less crickets in the tank will let you see better how much he's eating. I'd still be concerned if he isn't eating enough, growing or pooping enough though.

Other than varying the diet and possibly trying to get him to eat some fruits, veggies and greens, and possibly feeding him twice as much every other day, I can't think of a way to get him to eat more.

You said..."Ive tried him with all sorts the one thing that really seems to get him going is fruit flies and curly wing flies but this doesnt seem enough"...at least he eats them!

You said..."its shocking as when he was a hatchling he ate so often and was really tubby and fat now he seems to be getting thinner"...veileds do look slimmer as "teenagers" sometimes.

You said..." There are no obvious ridges in his tail but just at the top around the pelvis and top of tail about the first quarter of the tail I can see some appearing only faintly"...that is likely his hemipenes.

You said..."Any tips for constipated chams. I know with snakes you bath them with warm water is there anything you can think of?"...you can do that with a chameleon too and very lightly massage/stoke him from about the "waist" down towards the vent while he's in the water. This takes a bit of skill with a chameleon since you have to hold it so that it won't bite you and so that you keep its head out of the water while you are stroking it!

You said..."Ive tried him with leafy vegs etc again he goes no were near the stuff but at least its food for crickets"...I usually try thin apple wedges or pear wedges first then when they get used to that give them red pepper and then try the greens, etc. (No spinach or cabbage or other veggies that are known to bind the calcium.)

My chameleon is really not looking well I do not know what else to try I have run out of options he looks like hes never fed now, Looking at his weight.

The vets said they did not know what was wrong.And told me to try critical care formula.They didnt want to administer anything because he was so small it cud stress him further. Like i said before the vets in the northern UK are rubbish at exotic animal care. The best are about a days drive away which i just cannot afford to get to.

Ive got the critical care formula from vetark to try him on he takes a little.
He seems to be growing weak and as i feared his eyes are starting to look sunken in which has never happened beofre but he drinks all the time from a dripper thats on all day and i see him at it alot so i dont see how its dehydration.

I tried him on just flies again as its what he eats most and he did eat a load yesterday and day before but today he looks skinner than he ever did yesterday his eyes were not sunken yesterday but today he looks bad.

I do not know what i can do its not like i havent looked after him because i did everything to the T e.g. light, heat,nutrition substrates etc. Maybe he just wasnt a good hatchling but thats the thing he was really healthy and fat up until 2 months ago when he that growth spurt then he got MBD which we managed to control and then he stopped eating.

Oh well i guess this happens often. If he survives the night we will be puttin him in the new enclosure. But now i can start to see ridges of his spine and his pelvis is extrememly visable now within 2 days this had happened.

I mean my cousin is a Dr in reptile studies and head of a reptiles section of an animal park and ive kept reptiles for 6-7 years some of my lizards have lived to 20 22 yrs old so its not like am a beginner and not like am short of advice. I just dont know whats wrong with him.

You said..."i did everything to the T e.g. light, heat,nutrition substrates etc."...you mention substrates...what do you use? I mentioned before that substrates can often cause impaction.I never use substrates for a chameleon.

Is the feces watery or smelly? Is there any brown part? You said he ate quite a few flies....does he poop (brown part) when he does eat?

You said..."I mean my cousin is a Dr in reptile studies and head of a reptiles section of an animal park"...have you talked to your cousin about your chameleon?

Sorry to hear that the vets didn't have any answers for you. Did you give them a feces sample so that they could look for parasites?

You said..."yesterday his eyes were not sunken yesterday but today he looks bad"...I'm sad to say it, but your chameleon definitely sounds like its going down hill. I wish I had an answer for you, but I have run out of ideas. I hate it when that happens.

I tranferred my chameleon to its new tank a 5ft high 4ft wide, 1.5 ft deep one.
He seems alot more active and very very green now i have placed him in there.

He still is not eating but yesterday i gave him the critical care formula which is part powder mixed with lots of water. I gave him this with a pipet through out the day and he seems more hydrated, than yesteday. And he is drinking the formula well.

His eyes are still slightly sunken but i assume that it will take a while to regain full strength.

he did however poo as soon as i put him in new tank which i guess is good news. there was a very small part of brown and his poo was very very watery this time.

he has a bark substrate but i have only put him in the new tank today and he hasnt even gone near the ground. he is just sitting under the light.

My cousin said that as chameleons are sensitive that it can happen commonly and he also could not think of why he did say that maybe i should have moved him to a bigger tank when he began to grow thats all.

the vets did not ask for anything and did not even ask me to go back.

I'm glad to hear that he's a little more active in his new cage and that he is taking the critical care formula. Just watch that you don't put too much in his mouth at once...you don't want to get any into his lungs.

Good to hear his eyes are less sunken too...it would be nice to hear that he turns around and gets back to good health.

Poop is good news too....and at least there was some brown part.

You said..."he has a bark substrate"...I hope its not cedar or pine...they can be toxic to chameleons. I still believe that not using any substrate is the best idea for chameleons.

Your cousin is right about chameleons being sensitive.

I'm surprised/disappointed that the vets didn't ask you anything or say that you should come back either.

Fingers crossed that all will go well!

i have photos of him so you can see and judge what am dealing with better.
But i do not know how to post them to you on here i can email them if you give me your emails.