Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just a couple minutes ago I found Lucutis, my 1.5 yr old male Veiled chomping on his own tail! His tail tip is now badly mutilated. Should I take him to the vet, or just put some neosporin or some other anit-biotic on it?? Of course this has to happen on a Fri evening, because now the vet is closed and I'm not sure if they are open weekends. I'll have to call them.

Why would he do this? He gets fed regularily, so I cant imagine he's hungry. Also, he is going through a shed right now. Might he have had some skin on his tail, and got carried away removing it? Gosh, I can't believe this has happened to my beautiful cham!

Any help much appreciated!

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The vet told me once to put iodine on my jacksons infected claw that came off. But I would be cautious of putting anything on it incase he desides to munch it again, then he might injest whatever you put on it. I would just try to keep it clean. I'm no expert by any means, hopefully someone else can help you out better. I hope he does OK. I'm interested to find out why a cham would do this.??????
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1.0 ambilobe panther chameleon
1.0 jacksons chameleon
1.0 pastel ball python
2 yellow belly sliders

This is most strange! The neosporin idea is a good one IMO. I used neosporin on a snake who had a severe wound on his head when we rescued him and it cleared it up quickly and left almost no scaring. It was right on the "nose" so he more then likely ingested some with no ill side affects. Chams are definitely more fragile how ever, maybe putting the neosporin on and then band aid to prevent him from ingesting it? The band aid might prevent him from further mutilating his tail as well. I would definitely take him to a vet though ASAP.

On Monday a vet has to amputate the tip of the tail.
In the meantime any iodine based application may be good. Tail chomping may be a warning sign for Kidney and liver disease!
Reason enough to have his blood analysed.

Good luck

Ingo

Ingo, you said.."Tail chomping may be a warning sign for Kidney and liver disease!"...can you explain this further please? I've never heard of that and I'd like to know more.

Agreed, I'd like to know more too as I haven't heard of this before either

I had the same thing happen to me. My experience was he first chewed off his tongue, then he started chewing his feet off. He later died after hand feeding it for six months. The vets that I talked to all had no ideal why this was happening. I hope you don't have the same thing happed that I did.

Hope all goes well,
Brett

how he does, I can't believe he did that, must be something really annoying him, I never saw one do this before. But had a collared maul another tails terribly. In my case the part that was dangling and mangled was very thin, and I used good sharp surgical CLEAN scissiors and removed it.

Use povodine iodine solution/ Benadine (sp.) several times a day. It will keep it from becoming infected. I agree a vet will have to take that dangling tip off. And look for a cause.

Sorry this happened, but he will always be amazingly beautiful, hopefully he can get the help he needs for this.

Let us know, how he is. Be waiting, I know how upset you must be over him
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PHEve / Eve

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Hello everyone, and thank you all for your responses!! I am sorry I didnt respond to them sooner.

I found out that my vet was open today so I called them early this morning. Unfortunately they were extremely busy and referred me to an emergency clinic.

The tip had to be amputated, and was stitched closed. They gave me a prescription of Endofloxacin (sp??) to give orally twice daily. They kept the tip in some sort of chemical that would preserve it, because I can't afford to do the biopsy right away. So, hopefully by next paycheck I can have them do it so I know what might have caused this.

Now he's back in his cage with the lights out and covered up so he can rest. I just really hope that he doesn't continue to chomp on it, or it becoming infected.

Thanks again for your responses, I really appreciate the support!

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He's resting comfy back at home in his cage. Any change since you posted this yesterday? Sure hoping all is well.

Remember to let us all know when they figure out why he did this, what may be the problem.
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PHEve / Eve

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