Egg question

[ChameleonGuy686]

So my female panther chameleon just laid eggs a few days ago and I feel pretty comfortable with everything except for how often to moisten the hatch rite, I’ve read not to moisten the eggs directly and seen some say moisten the hatch rite every 2 weeks and some say you don’t have to touch it the whole time the eggs are waiting to hatch so any opinions would really help! Thanks in advance!

 

[kinyonga]

I just asked in your other thread if she laid… (then deleted it when I saw this post).

 

[ChameleonGuy686]

My other thread was prior to them breeding, now she has laid eggs.

 

[kinyonga]

How may eggs did she lay? Did she fill the hole in and tamp it down?

 

[ChameleonGuy686]

She laid an astounding 35 eggs and yes she closed off her hole completely. I only have a 60 watt bulb on her and she was fed about every other day but only 2 or 3 bugs usually crickets but an occasional super worm, horn worm, Dubia etc mixed in while she was pregnant but in hind sight probably could have cut back on the feeding. I was worried about her not being calcified enough so I wanted to make sure she had plenty to prevent MBD.

 

[kinyonga]

I wouldn’t worry about feeding her a bit too much while she was gravies…she needs a lot of nutrients, especially for fertile eggs.
The time to start the “diet “ is just after they lay the eggs…feed well for about two feedings and then cut back…however…once she’s producing the eggs again, because she was bred, she will almost certainly be producing more fertile eggs so you don’t want to keep her on the diet because she will again need the nutrients for the eggs.

 

[ChameleonGuy686]

Those were my thoughts exactly, thanks for the reassurance. And ok I’ll do that, I can expect her to lay again in approximately 4 months?

 

[kinyonga]

She may lay sooner than that….so make sure the egg bin is in her cage.

 

[ChameleonGuy686]

I put the lay bin back in after I got the eggs out just in case for whatever reason she wasn’t done. But to the original post, do you know how often I should moisten the hatch rite?

 

[kinyonga]

I have never used harchrite…and I don’t want to give you wrong information…so I hope someone else replies to you for that.
all I can tell you is that you don’t want the substrate to dry out.
This should help…
https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/adding-a-bit-of-water-to-hatchrite.75587/