Reptile & Amphibian Forums

For no reason that I can figure out my nose be suddenly became ill. He goes to shoot his tongue and yesterday it came out about 2 inches, today its a bit better and is about 4 inches. HE has also been randomnly closin gone eye then re-opening it. I have showred him and put him in the sunlight for several hours yesterday and he crawls around just fine. This AM i got him to eat about 5 small silkies and I dusted the hell out of them with Mineral and Repcal D3, then as he was chompig I sprayed his mouth full of water. He has always been the timid of my 3 chams and I always worried about his water intake so I am guessing its a case of dehydration, though the past few days he has taken in much more water then ever before. I have noticed the eye rubbing thing and it was after a recent shed so I thought maybe he had some debris left in the eye, the shower helped but he still opens and closes it frequently. The tongue thing sounds like MBD but I am not sure how this could be possible. He has always been the slow and dopy cham of mine and he is now around 9 months old and looks great in color. I remember my Veild did the tongue thing once and then it never happened again. If I had to guess at the eye issue its that my UV lights are very powerful and he may at some poin thung upside down directly under the light and stared at it too long. I cut back the times on it to 1 hr at a time 4 times a day. It emitts 140 microwatts UVB at 30 cm so they dont need to be on all day.

Here is my set up:
Mysitc lamps for UVB
RepCal Herptivite 2 days a week
Repcal Calcium with D3 2 days a week
Mineral-O- 2 days a week
Three 15 min misting sessions a day
Crickets are gut loaded from a hand made food that cost me a totla of 80 bucks. Here is the recipie. (will last about a year so not too bad on the price) http://www.adcham.com/html/husbandry/gutload.html
Basking temps are around low 90's

At this age I think you can cut back on the amount of dusting (vit and calcium) you are doing. Vitamins to once a week and calcium (of either type) 2 times a week. Does he have any chance to shoot at free flying insects like houseflies? Most chams love a chance to shoot, and it will help keep his tongue muscles in better condition. Sometimes they do injure their tongues by overshooting, but if he's always fed out of a bowl he could be losing some of his control. I feed most of my insects out of a bin of some type so I can keep better track of what is eaten and keep gutload and dusts on the feeders, but I try to have some free flying food like flies in the cage too, to give a chance to stalk and hunt.

Than you very much you raise a good poin tand I think what happened was that they were shootign the side of the see thorugh cups with the crickets. I am going to tape the sides so it isnt transparent and I have added a stick inside the cup so the crickets crawl up it and they pick them off.
I doubled up on the supps the past 2 days and today I just got home and he shoots his tongue like normal. One eye still blinks here and there but not as much. I wonder what the hell caused this and for it to come and go so soon. There may have been something in the water, I am not sure of anything at this point. I really think it was slight dehydration.

I like your setup. Did you make it yourself ? if so what kind of materials did you use I wanna make one similar for my panther.

Thanks

Doug

Yes I made all of it. Took 2 months and still I tweak it daily. All Poplar wood, helmsman sealer and mahgony red stain.