r/Chameleons

Hey everyone, this is ChameLeon Kennedy, the veiled chameleon. My brother bought him on a whim at an expo and I think it was bad idea. Kennedy, for a lack of better words, is a complete asshole. The only reason I'm holding him in these pictures is because my mom is upgrading his tank. He hisses, he bites, he puffs up, he shoots his tongue at your face. He's just deathly afraid of people and I feel so bad for him. He also has some shed stuck to his crest I believe and I don't know how to help. Can someone with more experience please give some advice? I want to help him, even if he stays spicy.

We feed him every other day, with dusted crickets and dubia roaches. He has a heat lamp and a regular light, I believe. I'm not sure. He's about a year old and we're hoping to upgrade him to a 4x2x2 mesh enclosure in the near future. Humidity isn't great right now.

My chameleon, Mango, is very sick. We took him to the vet bc we thought he may have a respiratory infection. They said that they couldn’t tell if he did, but they gave us antibiotics and told us to get “Critical Care” powder. We have been giving him the antibiotics & critical care for 4 days now. But he just seems to be getting weaker.

We changed his UVB bulb the day before we took him to the vet, to see if that would help, but it hasn’t. They didnt say he had MBD since his limbs look fine. But his grip is getting weaker everyday. His eyes are extremely sunken in bc he is dehydrated. And his colors are looking super pale. He hasn’t ate in exactly one week & wont drink water on his own. We were giving him water with a syringe, but have stopped since he is already taking in alot of liquid from antibiotics and mixing the critical care powder with water. We are now afraid of giving him too much liquid.

THIS IS NOT HIS NORMAL CAGE. Just the cage we brought him to the vet in. His cage is the standard 4ftx2ftx2ft. With lots of plants & branches. His humidity levels & temps are same as always. We have had him for just about 2 years now & he has never had any issues before. We also have a female who receives the same care & she is perfectly fine. We just don’t know what else to do to help him 😢

Posting for friend
Veiled Cham - Female - 1.5yr old
Symptoms:
Bulging eyes - they go down instantly when misted or water drops on her head
Vision is fine she can see and move normally
Hunts and eats normally
No behavioral changes or any changes
Enclosure:
4'wide 2'deep 4'high
(2) 24" UVB T5.0 @ 10" away above mesh
(2) 75Watt basking bulb
Heavily planted with pothos/rubber tree/grape vines
Diet:
Dubia roaches dusted with vitamin a 3x week
dusted with calcium without d3 2x week
fly larvae
waxworms as treats
Water glasses always available (doesn't seem dehydrated) occasional misting

Anyone have experience with this or is it vet time?
Both eyes have the same bulge

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everyone being chill and educating me the proper way.Mr.Pascel is very appreciative

I posted this photo last night along with some context which i'll reiterate here

I work at petsmart & i was worried about this guy because he was gaping pretty consistently during my last two shifts (last night & monday night) in multiple areas of his enclosure, away from the basking light, near it, etc. I know gaping can point towards possible respiratory infections. When I came in last night aswell, his eyes I thought were looking a little sunken in, he was also been consistently dehydrated & refusing drip feeding water but i have seen him drink very surprisingly from a bowl.

Today he was taken to the vet & all they came up with was that they agreed he was dehydrated and that was it. Obviously I'm not a vet but I've spent a lot of my free time studying multiple different types of reptiles, chameleons being top of that list & I'm just not confident that's the only issue?

Info on enclosure: his basking area was reading at close to 90⁰ & the basking light is only in the far left corner but our temp things are the dial ones which are very inaccurate & i cant find our temp gun :( but no other chameleons have had any temperature issues in our enclosures.

Our husbandry is definitely not 100% correct but knowing all that I do, I try to make it the best I can while still following petsmart standards.

Long story short I come for advice, am I overreacting? Is the vet right? Is there other reasons they can display gaping thats not RI, temp regulation & defensiveness (i know what that looks like & it's not that)?

Also, he's currently in a glass enclosure & i dont know how it's set up but i'm getting my co worker to take a picture for me in a few hours & I will be moving him to a mesh enclosure in our isolation room tomorrow morning!