Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Need help I have a female veiled and she is a little over a year old. I have a lot of veileds, and I have never had this happen before. She trys to shoot her tongue at food, but it only come out about one inch. I hand feed her every day. This just started to day. So I need to find out what this is right away. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks..... Scott..... P.S. I checked the inside of her mouth and it looks all good there's nothing wrong I can see.

Hi,

Luna (veiled) has done this sometimes and I, like you, got very worried. I ended up getting some houseflies (not wild caught) and she began to shoot at them. I find now that she will sometimes get lazy. I cup feed her but lately she will not go to the cup I have to hold it (and not look at her - LOL!) and I vary the distance that I hold it. I also give her something that flies a couple times a week to get her shooting - and believe me, she does! Far!

So, you may want to vary the distance, vary the feeder. Maybe not feed her for a day or two and hold her food farther away the next meal so she will be hungry and have to shoot far in order to get it. Tongue exercises!

IF none of this helps then there may be another problem. I recall when I was first inquiring about it calcium seemed to play a part. Hopefully someone else will comment as well.

lele
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0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 house geckos - Gaia & Tia (both MIA
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta
1.0 African Clawed Frog (for summer)
0.5 Mad. Hissers (for summer - all girls, no little ones, whew!)

Sometimes chams can injure their tongue muscle or even bite their tongue when it retracts. If this hasn't been a gradual loss of tongue control she might have over extended it and injured it. If it was a gradual loss of control it is more likely nutritional or getting too dependent on having prey close in a feeding dish. Has she laid a lot of egg clutches? Might be a vitamin/mineral imbalance or she is slightly more sensitive to a nutritional need than your other chams. Check your supplements and gutloads to see if they need updating. Get her some time out in full unfiltered sunlight. There are some articles on tongue problems on http://www.adcham.com and http://www.chameleonnews.com

Now this is something I am very familiar with, although the solution has been VERY elusive.

About a year ago, my make Jax staring doing this. It coincided with a temporal gland infection, but even long after the infection was completely gone, the tongue problem persisted. Everybody seems to have a different opinion as to why this happens. It's been attributed to micro-nutritional imbalances, injuries, lack of exercise, etc.

Currently, my Jax still has problems. I have tried EVERYTHING to fix this, and nothing has worked. I have tried stopping supplementation all together for three months (for possible overdose): no change. More supplementation for three months: no change. A very normal, recommended supplementation regimen: no change. Making him "work" for his prey: no change. I use the highest quality products I can get my hands on, and still no change. For the record, here are my setup specs:

-48"x24"x30" PVC -coated cage with plexiglass bottom
-Ficus tree, potted, with flat stones over soil
-various vines and sticks for climbing
-Habba-Mist set to mist tree every 3 hours
-morning hand-misting for 15 minutes
-Miner-all once a week
-Herptovite once every two weeks
-Walkabout Farms cricket gutload
-2 reptisun 5.0 tubes
-3 regular household tubes
-1 basking bulb, 40 watts
-75 degree ambient temp, 81 degree basking spot
-70% humidity
-crickets or superworms every other day
-14 hours sun, 12 hours dark
-gums and mouth juncture swabbed once a week with chlorohexadine

My Jax is absolutely gorgeous, with 1" orbital horns and a 1.5" rostral horn, perfectly shaped. He is above average size for a male, but not too thin and not too heavy. He has no infections, lesions or injuries of any kind. He is active, and "patrols" his cage freqently when not perched at the top of his tree.

I have lost all hope trying to correct the tongue problem. I just can't possibly see what I'm doing wrong. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.