Reptile & Amphibian Forums

as my jackson's horns are growing longer it seems like the top two ones are growing crooked. do any of you notice this and how can i fix it and is it bad. i've seen some pretty bad picters of crooked horns and just didn't want this to happen

Crooked horns are not bad, per se. I might worry if it was syptomatic of a husbandry problem. Just out of curious (and as a wild hunch0: with what do you supplement and gut load? And how much & how often?
Ed

I don't think you can really do anything about it. Check to see if he spends time pushing against the screen trying to get out. Rubbing the growing horn might bend it. Crooked horns are very common. I just see it as giving some unique character. If you are giving well balanced nutrition during growth (check your gutloads and look for any way to improve it) it should not be a problem and might be hereditary. To compare your gutload the the "experts" check the recipe on http://www.adcham.com

for supplement i use miner-all indoor formula once a week. and i gutload my crickets with kale and flukers farms food.

Hi there,

In the past couple of years, we have bought/bred/raised/sold hundreds of jackson chameleons. We have seen many variations in horn shapes and sizes.

Each male has initially straight horns (in the babies) and most females have a small set of horns. Over the course of the 5-7 months of initial growing to sub-adult stage, the horns remain quite straight. It seems that as they are getting older than that, they sometimes change course.

Granted, we have several breeder males with very straight horns - but then we have a couple with not-so-straight ones.

While shedding, the jacksons will rub the horns on twigs and leaves (males and females). This is mainly to shed the skin on the face. In many cases the tiny horns of the female disappears with this process. In some cases I think the male can alter the shape of one or more horns with rubbing too.

Only once did we see a jackson with a severely crooked preocular horn (above the eye), and the vet decided to trim the horn and allow it to regrow so it would change course. This worked - but it certainly is not recommended unless the crooked horn threatens to impair vision or worse.

On some pre-adult jacksons, we see a downward tilt to the preocular horns - this is really not unusual. On a few sub-adults we have seen a strong curve upward of the rostral horn - this cannot be altered by any means we are aware of.

These horn variations give your jackson its own uniqueness...
For more info on jacksons, visit this website:
http://www.geocities.com/chamjacksonii/

Hope this helps,
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