Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My veiled is about 4 months old, seems healthy except for the last few days. He seems to sit on a branch and is slouched over, very lathargic(sp) lookin. Also when i get near his cage he gets all brown and runs to the back of the cage. Curious if something could be wrong.

he is on a cricket diet, dusted with calcium. crickets are gut loaded with Flukers orange cubes and blue water stuff. i sometimes feed them some potato as well. and lately i have been giving him(veiled) some super worms fed with potatos also.

pretty new to this type of pet and anyhting i can do to make his life better i wanna do!

thanks again for any help
Nick

also i have been dusting his crickets all the time...as i was told.
im readin some other posts in this site takin about dusting once or twice a week... any help would be appreciated, thanks
Nick

You said..."He seems to sit on a branch and is slouched over, very lathargic(sp) lookin"...does his cage have a UVB florescent tube light or does he get direct sunlight? (Neither should pass through glass or plastic.) UVB allows him to produce D3 which allows him to use his calcium.

Is the calcium powder you use a phosphorous-free one? Insects have a poor ratio of calcium to phos. so dusting with a phos.-free calcium powder helps to make up for this. I dust with it at almost every feeding.

Do you use a vitamin powder? Does it have a preformed or beta carotene source of vitamin A? Vitamin A from beta carotene won't build up in the system, but preformed sources do. Vitamin A is antagonistic to D3...so its important that they be in balance. I dust with vitamin powder twice a month

Because my chameleons don't get any sunlight, I also dust with a calcium/D3 powder twice a month.

Appropriate basking temperature is important for proper digestion too.

I gutload the crickets with a wide variety of greens (dandelion greens, kale, collards, endive, ROMAINE lettuce, etc.) and veggies (sweet potato, white potato, squash, sweet red pepper, zucchini, etc.) I have little faith in commercial gutloads because its hard to be sure of what is in them so it makes attaining a balance difficult.

Calcium, phos., D3 and vitamin A are the main "players" in bone health...and IMHO its important to keep them in balance.

You said..."Also when i get near his cage he gets all brown and runs to the back of the cage"...that's normal.

I use Jurassi Cal with IS phosphorus free but havent use vitamin or d3 powders.

Ill start feeding the crickets more greens and see if that helps. i noticed this droopy-ness after i got 1000 count crickets from a reptile show and not Petsmart like i normally do, any relation?

any recomendations for the vitamin powders? can i get those are local pet stores or is it an online order thing?

another ?, i keep a heat light on at night, a purple bulb, drops the temps to about 75 at the bottom of the cage. I keep my house at 70 degrees and thought that might be to cold for him. do i even need a heat light for night time?

thank you so much for the help, i see your name around here alot helpin out!

forgot...yeah he has a UVB light thats on top of the cage, going through screen...no glass or plastic

You said..."i noticed this droopy-ness after i got 1000 count crickets from a reptile show and not Petsmart like i normally do, any relation?"...it could be something to do with it....then again, it might have nothing to do with it.

You said..."any recomendations for the vitamin powders? can i get those are local pet stores or is it an online order thing?"...I use Rep-cal's herptivite. I don't know where you live so I don't know if it would be available in a local pet store. You can order it on line though. (I don't have an address though.)

You said..."i keep a heat light on at night, a purple bulb, drops the temps to about 75 at the bottom of the cage. I keep my house at 70 degrees and thought that might be to cold for him. do i even need a heat light for night time?"...they can go quite a bit lower than 70F at night without any problems....so, no, you don't need any heat on him when your room only goes down to 70F.

You said..."thank you so much for the help, i see your name around here alot helpin out!"...you are welcome for the help. I have been keeping chameleons for over 20 years (don't think about how old that makes me, please!!) and other lizards even longer than that. I don't have all the answers and likely never will, but I'm always glad to help out when I can.

I picked up some Rep-cal Herptivite tonight, how often should i dust with this?

today when i tried to get him out of his cage he ran to the back, got real brown, and wouldnt let me near him...any easier approach to getting him out? or should i just keep at him? dont want to stress him out...after while he looked like this...

yet still wont come out..

You said..."I picked up some Rep-cal Herptivite tonight, how often should i dust with this?"...I dust with it twice a month.

You said..."today when i tried to get him out of his cage he ran to the back, got real brown, and wouldnt let me near him...any easier approach to getting him out? or should i just keep at him? dont want to stress him out...after while he looked like this.."...he looks quite healthy. Veiled chameleons are known to not like to be handled. Some will accept handling, but most won't. At best, they look at you as a safe perch or a way to get out of the cage. I always leave it up to the chameleon as to whether it will tolerate being handled or not...and tolerate is what I mean. You can try hand-feeding it. Sometimes it helps to allay its fears.

I have two males and neither of them is very prone to handling. The larger one who is just shy of a year now will hiss and bite. He is in a 2 ft by 2 ft by 3 ft cage. The older one will let me handle him but will begin to attempt to mate with my hand after a few minutes so I prefer not to handle him. He is around two years now and is in a 5 ft by 3 ft by 30 inch cage. I seem to find that the larger the enclosure, the easier it is to handle the chameleon in it, or at least to put my hand in the cage without agression from the animal.

he has gotten a little better with me handling him, just has to be on his terms haha. had to start hand feeding him, and lots of work trying to get him not scared of me.