dropped eggs

[mary prefontaine]

My female cham is gravid and i took her to the vet today for a checkup, and make sure she was gravid. Well while she was climbing up my arm, she jumped off and tumbled to the floor and 10 minutes later dropped an egg on her carry box floor and then another one after i put her in her cage. Did this happen due to the fall? will these eggs survive? and will she continue to drop all her eggs instead of going down in her sand box? i covered her cage in hopes the quiet will encourage her to go to the bottom and lay in her sand box, but so far no go. Should i be worried?

 

[Dez]

I have had a female drop several eggs before eventually laying her clutch normally. The ones she dropped before hand went bad.

Its hard to say if the fall had something to do with it.

Leave her in with her laying bin and give her privacy.. She may lay eventually on her own

 

[reptoman]

I've had a gravid female drop all of her eggs in the first clutch and was able to save around half of them. If you get them into vermiculite or hatchrite quickly they may be ok. Not sure why mine had such a hard time with that first clutch but she made it to 4 years old and laid many infertiles after the first 3 fertile ones. One thing that seemed to work for her was putting wet moss over the dirt of her laying bin and laying a chunk of wood over that. I put the moss in a plastic bag and ran hot tap water over it and placed it loosely over the dirt after she was sleeping. She finally dug uynder the wood and laid in her bin the next morning and was fine for a good while afterward. Hope your girl gets past this and moves on. Always stressful waiting for a female to lay her eggs and get back to normal again.

 

[mary prefontaine]

thanks everyone

This is so stressful for both me and my female lol. she is still dropping them in the sand below her branches. she did however come down once to start digging a hole but never finished. or placing any eggs in there she did however lay them on top of the sand above ground. I am not doing anything but peeking on occasion and i saw the hole where she had tried to dig.I think this whole ordeal is just too confusing to her and me lol. I placed a blanket atop her cage and just peek in on occasion to try and save any eggs she may lay. so far there are around 9-10 eggs. and shes still pretty fat so there will probably be more. If i get one or two hatchlings ,ill be happy. How long do they lay for? as it has been around 10 hours so far. How many could she lay? And if i put them in the vermicilite withing 1 hour, will that help? I placed them in a small dinner container with a lid and placed 2 -4 small holes in it. so far the humidity is building up in there and im keeping the eggs below the cage in the dark cabinet. the temps around 75 degrees so far.

 

[Dez]

The whole egg laying process can take 1 day or as many at 3 days.

Panthers usually lay 25-35 eggs....but I have had as many as 43 (thars the record) and as little as 11

Chameleons. Breeding is very stressful.

You worry about the female when she lays and that she will do alright.
You worry about the eggs while they incubate..if they are too wet or too dry

After 8 months

You worry about the babies when they start to hatch if the can get out of the egg ok
You worry about the babies when they do hatch because they are so tiny and fragile when born.

Hope everything goes ok for your girl.

 

[reptoman]

I think as long as you get the eggs before they start to dry out and have major dents showing in them they will be ok. My female that dropped her eggs did so over the course of 5 days. I would come in after work and grab what I could find and put them into the egg bin. The ones that were severly dented had dried beyong hope and did not hatch. Out of 22 that were dropped I had 9 healthy hatchlings. Her following fertile clutch was also 22 eggs but she laid them after adding the moss and the small log. If she gets in her branches to sleep at night you should try the wet moss idea. I got it at petco for around $5. Hope she does ok.

 

[mary prefontaine]

ok well all is done

My female ended up dropping around 12-15 eggs and then also laid another 10-12. I didn't even count them lol i just rushed to put them in the vermiculite before they dried out. But i did separate the dropped eggs from the laid eggs. and i dated them. I only hope the laid batch vermicilite is not too wet, and i just put a finger dent in the soil and then placed the eggs in each dent covered them slightly and hope for the best. should they be covered completely? the humidity is good in there and it is raining in there so to speak with the humidity being so high. i put 2-4 small needle sized holes in each container lid. i have them in a drawer for now to keep them dark. i also have a heating pad, but i'm not using it unless the temps drop a lot in here. right now its around 75 in the drawer. From what i understand this is going to be a 6 month process? im trying to be sure i am ready with cage once they hatch. any suggestions would be helpful. (my first time). Now im worried about my this girl. Im so used to her being much fatter lol. But she is eating ok so far.
Thanks again everyone. and ill let you know how it goes when hatching time comes.

 

[mary prefontaine]

she seems to be doing well

i see she seems to be doing well after laying. shes starting to gain weight again and i sprayed and covered her food with lots of calcium, hopefully she will live a long healthy life. If i decide to do this again, i will wait at least a year. thanks for everyones help through this process. I do have 1 more question about the eggs though… do they need to be totally buried? i put a dent in the vermicilite and laid the egg in there and partially covered it, is that ok?

 

[reptoman]

i see she seems to be doing well after laying. shes starting to gain weight again and i sprayed and covered her food with lots of calcium, hopefully she will live a long healthy life. If i decide to do this again, i will wait at least a year. thanks for everyones help through this process. I do have 1 more question about the eggs though… do they need to be totally buried? i put a dent in the vermicilite and laid the egg in there and partially covered it, is that ok?

Glad to hear she finally laid in her laying bin. Partially buried is fine for the eggs. Be prepared for her to lay another 2-3 clutches of fertile eggs about a month and a half apart. She may also continue laying infertiles after that for a while. See the videos for an example of what I use for my baby bins. Screen cages are not easiliy done with hatchlings since you cannot contain the pinheads and fruitflies they need for food for the first 3-4 weeks. I recently switched to all plastic plants to make it easier to clean the bins out. Hope this helps!

http://youtu.be/z8FM0kmP7J8
http://youtu.be/NbUlgkh92_I