Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my veiled chameleon is acting strange!! She stays on the bottom of her tank and has a hard time getting back on her vines. She also falls over trying to get back up. I really don't know what the problem is!!? If anyone knows what's going on please let me know.
Thanx, sharon

No one here can help you. This cham is seriously ill and needs a cham-experienced vet immediately! If/when the emergency is over, get back to us with info on your husbandry (lighting, gutloading, caging, temps, hydration duration and method and we can help solve the (probably) husbandry-related issues causing the problem. But what you describe is a serious, acute problem tyhat needs immediate intervention by a vet.

From the description it sounds like your cham has MBD metabollic bone disease. It comes from a lack of vitamin D3 from supplementation and UVB lighting you should take him/her to a vet immeadietly, and in the mean time buy some calcium supplement w/ vitamin D3 and a mercury vapor light for a basking bulb.

It could justy as easily be kidney or liver damage from over-supplementation. Only a vet and a proper blood panel can tell you. Of course, if you've never given the cham proper UVB lighting or had other basic husbandry flaws that might give a hint. But dosing him with Ca & D3 could easily kill him faster if that's mot the problem. And in my experience, overdosing on such thinngs kills more chams than MBD these days. Bur again, only a vet can tell.
Ed

Sharon,

When you say she has a hard time getting up her vines; Do you mean that she stumbles? She has trouble using her legs? She can't hold on?

Is she heavy from eggs?

I don't want to send you on an emergency run to the vet if shes really full of eggs and is just having trouble moving about...

Let us know.
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Joe
- www.silkwormfarm.com-