Is Sally ok?

Question
Hi Thea, i'm emailing you tonight with a heavy heart. I bought my husband a Yemen Chameleon roughly 6months ago. She was great. Healthy, active and everything. We didn't handle her much (almost never) because she seem to not want us to. My husband feeds her every day, and gives her the calcium and vitamins every other day. The person we bought Sally from explained to us how to properly care for her and feed her and such. She gets worms (mostly super worms) and her crickets. Now over the past week, she's been digging, laying in the dirt and seeming very limp. When we checked on her today, we noticed she is turning a pale yellow and she seemed to regurgitate every now and then. We mist her enclosure often to make sure she has enough moisture, but for some reason tonight, she was actually drinking from the spray bottle! My husband and i would spray it gently towards her mouth and she'd close her eyes, and swallow. I'm extremely worried about her. This is our first Chameleon and we don't know of any herp vets anywhere near us, plus we are moving in a week! I don't know what to do about Sally. Is there any information you might be able to give me that might give an explanation about what wrong with our poor Sally? Please let me know ASAP. Thank you very much for taking the time to help us.

Answer
Hi Tanya, It really sounds like she is egg bound. It doesn't sound like you were made aware that female veileds regularly produce eggs even without a male. Complications are rather common I'm afraid. Ironically, being a well-fed captive animal adds to the problem. The generous diet that they get in captivity results in much larger clutches (number of eggs) then they would normally have in the wild state and this can lead to problems. The lack of a suitable nesting site  to bury the eggs is also a contributing factor. Females will "hold" the eggs while they search for a spot resulting in complications. If you were not warned that she would likely produce eggs you would not be aware of the need for a nest site or recognize what the digging behaviour signified.

She really needs veterinary intervention at this stage. The common treatment is a shot of the hormone oxytocin which helps to induce egg laying. These are two links that will help you locate a herp vet near you. If there is a zoo near you you may be able to contact their vet and lastly even a compassionate dog and cat vet who is willing to phone consult with a herp vet may be able to help you. I'm hoping for a good outcome for Sally. Keeping female chameleons rather then males can be a source of heartbreak due to this very situation. Good luck.

http://www.arav.org/Directory.htm

http://www.herpvetconnection.com/