snitz427's experience with Kinyongia boehmei

My female Lucy was gravid when I acquired her. She was quite small, and I was unsure if she was gravid. Her coloration and activity level were not much different then her regular activity. She laid 9 fertile eggs, which are currently incubating (as of 9/2020). Eggs were laid on 5/18/20 and are expected to hatch around 12/18/20.



Update: The first egg cracked open on 12/6 - just shy of the 7 month mark. I did not notice any "sweating" or warning signs in advance. The first baby's tail was exposed first, no its head. Still waiting on it to emerge, which it is hopefully able to do successfully on its own. The other eggs have not yet hatched as of 12/7.

Update 12/8: Its been 2 days since the first egg cracked up, and the chameleon is still alive, but still "tail out." Half of the eggs have shrunk in size over night. They lost half their size in about 18 hours, telling me that babies will be on the way soon.

Here you'll notice the eggs at the bottom left, which have shrunk in size and are about half the size of the others. I did not notice the "sweating" on the eggs, but that is what is happening here. The change in size happened overnight.



Here you can see the size of the first egg that cracked open, compared to the others, with the tail still hanging out.


The first egg that cracked open, tail first.



Update 1/28/21

All 9 eggs hatched and the babies are just over 1 month old. The babies were placed in a large storage tote with a screened front / lid, some plants, and a structure made out of bamboo skewers. After 3-4 weeks, I began separating the babies into smaller, individual bins with a screened front and roof. I opted to use a coco earth substrate instead of paper towels, along with live plants and real (very fine) branches. I let the branches reach only half way to the top of the container, for fear of getting too close to the UVB fixtures, as well as to avoid injury due to them climbing the screen w/o a fully screened side to easily climb back down. The babies seem a bit insecure with the shorter branches so I will be adding more plants and branches, allowing them to screen climb, but giving them plenty of routes to get down.

The babies are eating Turkish Glider FFs, which are smaller and reproduce much faster than hydei. I am supplementing every other feeding with calcium & bee pollen, and will do some research on introducing a MV and D3, but will be doing so extremely cautiously.

At 1.5 months, they are all going through their first shed (at least, the first I've noticed), and have grown a bit, but are still incredibly small. Initially, most babies look like small females, with bright green bodies and red heads, however, I'm starting to see some variations in patterns when they are in contact with each other... but it is still too soon to gauge the sexes.


Update 5/27/21

The babies are almost 6 months old and have begun going off to new homes. All did well and are seemingly very healthy. 8 females and 1 male, poor guy! All were raised in individual setups after the first month, and very much preferred it. One pair (that I dubbed "the twins") were kept together a bit longer due to not having enough space for 9 enclosures. They were both female and got along w/o fighting, but they did annoy each other by climbing on each other. They were eventually split up but I still refer to them as the twins. At this age, I'm still feeding most of the same items. silkworms are a staple, along with baby mantids and phasmids. Trying to introduce dubia, but it is so difficult due to their lack of activity. Had better success with dubia tong feeding than cup feeding. Fruit flies are still offered (Hydei) as a quick and easy feeder, but also a very active feeder and different variety. I would keep them as a staple, even for adults. Plus, they can be used to gutload the mantids.