06-11-2005

As a follow up note, Bertie’s appetite is back to normal. He’s been eating 2 or 3 adult size cockroaches a day (dubias and lobsters) and had a successful shed. His weight is a little low at 114 g, but is up from it’s low one week ago of 110 g. I don’t think I mentioned that 21/2 weeks ago he had a vitamin b shot which helped to increase his appetite almost immediately following. Needless to say, I am very relieved he’s on the mend.

05-23-2005

Bertie is doing much better. I’ll try to spend more time explaining it later, but in short the Baytril and the Cimetidine have healed him. I’m going to step up my disinfecting routine to prevent future bacteriological infections, and hope for the best.

Here is his second blood panel results.

05-02-2005

I am worried about my pet chameleon, Bertie. He hasn’t been his usually chipper self.

Sections

• Chameleon Emergency
• Husbandry
• Photos
• Conclusion
• Comment

Chameleon Emergency!

Bertie seems to be in an overall weakened state. He has the following symptoms:

• Loss of appetite
• Lying on his stomach
• Weak grip
• Infrequent pooping, usually weekly when in shower
• Red crystalline urates between the whitish and the green part of his stool

Over the last week and a half, I’ve seen him eat only once. That was today, and it was a very small cockroach. He also sits on his stomach more now than he used to. See the picture below, taken today, after his vet trip.

{gallery [operation_bertie]}

He was lying on his stomach for a little while. He generally seems weak, which I’ll go into more detail below.

Besides his general weakness, and lack of hunger, I’ve also only seen him poop twice in the last week and a half. Once was Saturday during his weekly shower and once was today, at the vet.

Saturday’s stool had dark orange crystalline between the urates and the feces. I’ve noticed this before now, but it went away for a few months. I began giving him Pedialyte, thinking hydration may be the issue.

I took the feces to a vet on Saturday. They tested for parasites and found none.

I took him to the vet today (Monday). She took some blood. She also noticed that he had a weak grip. I’ll get the results of the blood work tomorrow. Until then, I’m supposed to see if he can eat any bugs on his own. If not, I need to feed him some meat based baby food using a syringe. I don’t want to do that.

I’ve provided some husbandry information below, in case it is an environmental thing.

If you have any suggestions, please comment on this below.

Thanks so much!

General Information

Species: Furcifer Pardalis
Locale: Ambilobe / Sambava Morph
Origin: Captive Bred, Pam’s Chams
Age: 11 months

Husbandry

1. Cage
• 2′ x 2′ x 4′ screen enclosure.
• Solid plastic floor with no substrate.
• Opaque plastic sheet hung on 2 sides. To keep up humidity levels
2. Cage Furniture
• 1 Hibiscus Plant, 3 1/2 ‘ tall
• 1 ficus benjamina, 2 ‘ tall
• 3 bendable vines, 2 medium size and 1 small
• Hibiscus reaches top of cage, Bertie can get within 12 ” from top
3. Lights, Temperature, and Humidity
• 1 Reptisun 5.0 in two bulb flourescent tube fixture, 11 months old
• 1 Vita-lite full spectrum tube flourescent, in the same fixture as the Reptisun
• 1 100W incandescent approximately 20″ away from Basking area. For heat.
• 1 Full spectrum compact flourescent. For more light.
• 1 100w Ceramic Heater. To keep his basking spot warm
• Sunrise is at 7:00 am and Sunset is at 8 pm
• Max Temperature at basking spot is 90 F
• Minimum Temperature is 68 F at night
• Humidity < 90% and > 40% on average it is 50%
4. Hydration
• Automatic misting system
1. Sprays water 30 minutes a day, twice a day at 9:00 and 3:00
2. I use tap water
3. Water is heated to 93 F exiting the mist nozzle, cools quickly after it exits the fine mist spray nozzle
• Little Dripper. Drips water treated with 8 drops of Reptisafe water conditioner. Drips water onto hibiscus leaves.
• 2.5 cc’s of water dripped directly into mouth via an oral syringe daily
• Occasionally I will substitute homemade Pedialyte electrolyte solution for the water in syringe
• Ultrasonic “cool mist” humidifier on 3 x a day for 1 hour at a time, piping mist into his cage via pvc pipe
• Weekly showers given. Will give for 20 minutes, until my hot water dies. I occasionally use the misting setting, which he doesn’t really like, but gets the bathroom really wet. Usually I use the most gentle waterfall setting.
5. Food
• I offer him all types of food. However, lately he’s been ignoring almost all of it. He ate for the first time in a week today, 1 baby cockroach. I prefer to feed him primarily gut loaded crickets and silkworms, with the occasional roach or butterworm. However, he isn’t interested in any of these lately.
• Crickets. I feed crickets www.cricketfood.com cricket feed. I usually feed him 4 week old crickets or older.
• Silkworms
• Butterworms
• Superworms
• Mealworms
• Lobster Roaches
• Waxworms
• Free range the worms
• Place the crickets and roaches in a plastic dish
6. Supplements
• Every other week, I will dust my crickets with Rep-cal with D3 (pink bottle)
• On alternating weeks, I’ll dust my crickets with Rep-cal without D3 (green bottle)
• Once a month, I will dust my crickets with Miner-All I with D3.
• Lately, since he’s been uninterested in crickets or any other food, he hasn’t been getting his supplements.

Pictures

{gallery [setup]}

Above you can see some general shots of the cage. Notice how there is no substrate.

{gallery [more_more_setup]}

Some more of my setup pictures. You can see how I disinfect the cage without hurting Bertram. Also one of my rat’s nest (there are more). And one of my hydrometer/thermometers.

{gallery [hydor]}

Above you can see the heater that gets the mister water to the low 90’s F.

{gallery [feeder_containers]}

Here are a couple feeder containers. Notice how the roach containers has some slimy stuff on the sides. That’s vaseline. It keeps them from getting out and my landlord happy.

{gallery [more_feeders]}

Here’s where the bugs take up residence. A real “cricket inn”. Also you’ll se a picture of a silkworm that pupated into a moth. Pretty cool, huh?

{gallery [roaches]}

Some roaches in their home. One is giving birth to more roaches. Oh boy!

Conclusion

So there you have it. The only things that are suspect to this setup to me are the lights, which are 11 mo old. Otherwise, I think ol’ Bertie has it pretty good. If you have any suggestions of things I can do to improve his chances, please let me know.