Prolapse at 3 months old Veiled

But even so, I would suggest that a less hasty analysis in in order:

In babies, the only prolapses I've seen were in chameleons that were fed primarily silkworms and waxworms in massive quantities. They were two seperate instances with two different breeders. Since they were not my animals, I was unable to verify the other aspects of their husbandry. Many breeders feed their babies as much as they'll eat, and prolapses are not common for them. I suspect the problem this pet store has is a combination of both large quantities of food, and a nutritional problem. It is possible that they are becoming constipated, resulting in impactions, which lead to prolapses.

At least now you are narrowing your experience of "overfeeding in babies" to being observations about babies fed massive quantities of "waxworms and silkworms". I abhor waxworms, and have never endorsed silkworms as a staple, both for other reasons. If there is a link as you claim, now there's more reasons, but I would not go that far yet. I do still abhor those food choices if they are staples. To still state that "large quantities of food" as being part of the problem is not born out by the results of those who have the wealth of experience in chameleons, which you note, but yet still cling to. I realize it is just an opinion, but in the earlier post you stated it more as fact, and now still pass it off, yet acknowledge that the bulk of the evidence in the hobby completely dismisses that link. Think about it.

Yes, it is "possible they are becoming constipated", but again, constipation in chameleons is poorly understood, and there is no link that colon prolapses trace back to impactions with any great frequency. I do think that there is a link to the female of the species, as my observations are that when it occurs in panthers, it is far more often in adults (90% by my observations), and that it is in females 90% of the time.

I trust that Chen's vet didn't just say "its genetics ....... bye", and if he/she did not explain the logic trail to that as a likely conclusion, then I would trust Chen would address any lingering concerns before leaving. On the other hand, if the vet was too short with him, or rude, it would be a good reason to move on. I don't believe Chen indicated that. He was just looking for more input on the diagnosis. My experience is that such a prolapse event in juvies is not common, and I have yet to hear or read anything anywhere where a causative husbandry agent has been identified. For all the dietary concerns, I would suggest it is just as likely to be a septic or poison situation in the enclosure (cleaning chemicals, etc) that is irritating or infecting the cloacal area. I don't mean to indicate that as a likely opinion, just that we have no historical record to point us in any direction, and it is of equal speculative value as your diagnosis. It is one that could be checked by doing cultures and cleaning, and would not reflect a possibly negative change in husbandry to test for, as changing teh food regimen would be.

With plenty of chameleons under my roof, one way to draw conclusions with such an outbreak, where genetics is a candidate, is to see if it is observed in similar yet unrelated animals in the same conditions. I suspect that the vet considered this, and may have only had limited feedback, but it is an extremely valuable diagnosis tool, and a true advantage in a herd environment. I have seen countless genetic anomalies, that would have been more difficult to label as such without the comparative opportunities that Ivan (Dr. Alfonso) and I have.

Chen,

Do you know what part of the cloaca are prolapsing (e.g. part of the reproductive tract, urinary bladder, colon)? Knowledge of this can help determine what the underlying cause may be. For example, a common cause of rectal prolapse in young reptiles is intestinal parasites. This is something that can usually be diagnosed with a fecal test and treated with appropriate anitparasitics.

I researched cloacal prolapse online in veterinary journals, publications, and forums as well as Mader's Reptile Medicine and Surgery (this text is regarded as bible of reptile medicine) and could not find any specific information about this being a genetically linked problem. Most cases were secondary to other underlying conditions. Having said that, when compared to other domestic animals, there has not been an extensive amount of research done in the area of reptile medicine yet, especially in the area of chameleon medicine! It could be that there are genetic predispositions to this problem that have not yet been described or researched. Like Jim said, I wouldn't write your vet off yet. It is difficult to determine the cause of a problem, especially one as complicated as this one has the potential to be, without doing diagnostics or tests, as well as lots of research about the husbandry and environment for these guys.

I wish you the best of luck in getting to the bottom of this.

-Julie

Howdy Chun,

Much of chameleon husbandry is a process of elimination and optimization. Removing sources of stress and optimizing environmental conditions like temps, humidity, hydration, foods, etc., allow keepers to zero-in on the true source of a problem. Once conditions are "perfect" (whatever that might be...) it may then be possible to track down the causes of unexpected health problems. The pet store may or may not be at fault for the prolapses but it is difficult to determine if there isn't a "control group" of your baby veileds located away from that store. Things are rarely optimum in a store environment and if it was the store's conditions that caused the prolapses I'd think we'd be hearing a lot more about babies with prolapses since there are hundreds and hundreds of stores with conditions that are likely to be worse or at least far from optimum .

That being said, many experienced veiled breeder/keepers suggest that veileds are wired a bit differently than many other species of chameleons in that they do often eat to excess, meaning that they will eat so much, so often that they are prone out-grow their skeletal growth rate and are suseceptable to supplementation related health problems like MBD because of it. Is that the problem here? Maybe - maybe not... Again, it's elimination and optimization. Maybe there is an underlying "genetic" defect that would have otherwise gone undetected, but it may be amplified by what might be a veiled's pre-disposition to over-eat. If you had control over the situation, you could reduce the food levels a substantial amount (50% or more) and maybe try to break them up into 2 or 3 groups and feed those groups at different rates and see if you can get correlation between food levels and prolapses. Supplementation would be another variable to into... Following established husbandry parameters goes a long way towards tracking down the cause(s) of the problem.

Hey, what we are calling genetics might even be traceable back to something like incubation temps... Once again, it falls back to optimization and elimination.

Heck, bloodlines might even show heavy inbreeding without your knowledge .

Many good points, and I have to agree completely with the idea of some format that would mimic "control groups", "test groups", etc. This incident reminds me of the rumor that "ficus cause eye problems in chameleons", where someone once associated "eye problems" in chameleons, a common symptom of most chameleon maladies, to ficus trees, a common plant used in the hobby. The sap of many plants are irritants, and I am not downplaying that, but the likelihood of chameleons getting it into their eyes is minimal. There are also over 50 varieties of ficus found in Madagascar. If the experience of the hobby was that there was a noticeable increase in eye problems with ficus, that was then reduced using other plants, then there might be a link. But no such correlation exists, based on thousands of observations.

In this prolapse case, the volume of food has been listed as possible, and inferred as almost likely in other posts. Perhaps you cite it only as an example of a procedure to follow:

If you had control over the situation, you could reduce the food levels a substantial amount (50% or more) and maybe try to break them up into 2 or 3 groups and feed those groups at different rates and see if you can get correlation between food levels and prolapses.

.... but I would insist to the reader that there is a wealth of experience raising veileds in captivity, where free-ranging and readly available food was always present, and no such prolapse syndrome occured. If this were a cause, it would have been seen many times already. While I would encourage any hobbyist to make a list of possible causitive agents when a problem is observed in a group of chameleons, I would then implore them to use an elimination process based on the experience available, and in this case would say that the volume of available food is easily dismissed. I believe the vet gave a fair evaluation of the possibilities.

I also want to elaborate on an observation:
.....

many experienced veiled breeder/keepers suggest that veileds are wired a bit differently than many other species of chameleons in that they do often eat to excess, meaning that they will eat so much, so often that they are prone out-grow their skeletal growth rate and are suseceptable to supplementation related health problems like MBD because of it.

There is no doubt that rapid growth in captivity can lead to MBD related problems, and this is not limited to veileds. In that respect, I have to disagree that they are "wired differently". We would likely agree that rapid growth is possible in the wild, especially if it is a good "bug" season. We would also agree that MBD is rare in the wild, if not unknown. Mother Nature gets it right. What happens too often in captivity is that the chameleon is getting 100% of some of its nutritional needs, while coming up short in others. This could be what you alluded to as "supplementation related health problems", which would exist for all captive chameleons. Could be artificial light, poor calcium supplementation, etc. As one example, I know from observation that animals grow faster, all other things being equal, if exposed to real sunlight. Take two sibling chameleons, and offer both all things equal except one is indoors under artificial light, the other outdoors. The indoor one would be where I would expect a slower growth rate, or possibly more of a disjunct between skeletal growth rate vs all other tissues, showing MBD symptoms. Put another way, Mother Nature has it in balance, and the hobbyist does not. As a matter of logic and experience, I would suggest that it is always better to fix what is deficient, rather than try to seek a balance by reducing other things. If not, then it too easily becomes a situation of fixing one problem while creating two more. As you mention, the key is to always try to "optimize", as once we put an animal in captivity, the equation is out-of-balance, and it is not easy to figure out where, much less decide what the solution is to find the balance again. I could write pages about the possible influences here, ranging from poultry growth hormones in chicken feed fed to crickets, to UVB light in the wrong part of the UVB spectrum, to just plain lousy gutload.
In the end, at least for now, with these animals seeming to be so inconsistent, my own experience is to strive for optimal (Mother Nature in a good year), expect much trial and error for each hobbyist situation, and seek the anecdotal experience of others ! And watch out for "wive's tales".