Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My Veiled Chameleon is sick, need urgent assistance please

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this, I hope you can help me out with any knowlege you may know about how to help me resolve my problem.

I purchaced my Chameleon at an Expo on July 9, 2005. He has been eating great and was doing awesome till a month ago when his heating bulb burned out. I bought a different bulb and it was worthless, didn’t give off enough heat. Then I finally found the original type bulb he was doing well with before. Even though I have his cage back to normal, his appitite he used to have of eating 2-4 worms is now 1-2 every 3rd day sometimes longer then that. Since I cannot get him to eat from my hand barely, I placed his food in a little dish, but now another problem comes along... sugar ants. I cleaned out his cage and the ants still return. And another problem that I recently found on Aug 29th. My Chameleons right eye is completely shut. He itches it and won’t eat. I’m very troubled by this and I know there has to be something I can do to cure this. My question is what is the cause of this and what can I do to cure and prevent this from progressing to much worse.
Synergy Marketing

Hi, I'm still fairly new to having veileds but maybe I can help you a little.

My two young chameleons- one now juvenile I guess- both seem to only have been interested in crickets. I have tried feeding them worms but them seem to enjoy the hunt a little more than just stationary food. So maybe give some variety to the diet?

And about a week after getting my second chameleon- I was giving him drops- and he moved to grab a cricket (my trick to give him his drops, while he is chewing ahah) and bumped his eye against the dropper. His eye puffed up slightly and he wouldnt stop itching it. What was most odd was that he would scratch his eye on MY HAND! And he is not a touchy feeling chameleon if he can avoid it lol. But within about a week his eye had begun to clear up a little. But during that time he wouldnt open his right eye and would constantly scratch at it like he was shedding or something. He occassionaly has issues with his eye- some nights he even sleeps with it open O_o. But your chameleon might have gotten some debri in his eye- possibly substrate or something like that. The vet had said that the gentle tear drop Visine- would help calm chameleons eyes... but I am wary of that advice because they seem so much more delicate than human eyes.

Wow- I wrote a novel here aha, hopefully you will have found something in here of help though!

Ellen

Ellen,

Thanks so much for helping me out with some advise
It gives me hope that it's possibly something as petty as a little debre or whatnot that could of got into his eye. I was worried it could be much more serious then that. This morning I woke up to mist his cage and seen his right eye that was shut these past couple days open a little. Of course it's closed back up again. The day I noticed his eye was shut was the day I took him out to hold him, and yes he also tried to rub his eye on my hand

I been worried about sticking crickets into my lizards cages. Just because I've had bad experiences with them before. I lost a baby bearded dragon because of that. I had put at least a dozen pin headed crickets into my bearded dragons cage, and the next morning I awoke and checked out my lizards and seen the crickets devoured 1 of my dragons. I was so hurt. I had no idea crickets would eat lizards! Since that, I am very cautious about putting crickets into my lizards cage. I think for my chameleon, I would have to put very few in there and watch him over carefully. But yes, he needs a variety of food. I have some silkworms coming in.

The Visine thing, I dunno heh. I would agree with you on that. Doesn't seem safe to put something like that into a reptiles eye. Reptiles are so sensitive. I will soak him in some warm water today and kinda put some water onto his shut eye so he can get some type of moisture in there. I think that would work safer then the visine.

I really appreciate your help It's great to have people online to share thier experiences and expertise on reptiles. Your help is very appreciated! Thanks again Ellen for your time and efforts

~Lisa