MoyaChan
Member
So I've decided to share my experience with my female veiled, Moya. I hope that it's going to help at least one cham out there.
So I've had her since she was 3 weeks old, she did amazing, grew like crazy, ate like crazy, hella strong. After a lot of researching I've found that keeping her temp relatively low and also not giving her too much food can prevent her from producing eggs or at least slow the process. I was going to go with that, but with the summer being incredibly hot I had no chance. Everything went great up until around october - november when she started to look big (no change of appetite or anything, still all healthy), and then got bigger and bigger. So I put a laying bin in the terrarium (I have a glass terrarium, about a meter high, on a table). She didn't show any interest but I kept it there, figured it was maybe too early for laying, checked on the soil every other day, kept it wet so she could've digged if she wanted to). Weeks passed and still no sign of wanting to lay, so I changed the soil (who knows, maybe she's just picky or what), put a plant closer, covered the terrarium, I tried everything that came to my mind but still no progress.
Then from one day to another she started to hold her belly on a rock-ish thing on the wall of the enclosure (pic attached). Then when she started not eating and I noticed that she couldn't get her tongue out properly I took her to the vet.
They took an x-ray, figured she had tons of eggs inside, and they said she should be able to lay them by then so she got a shot of oxytocin to help out a bit and also calcium for her tongue and the eggs. I took out the laying bin and filled the whole bottom of the enclosure with soil, had a plant in it too, covered it and everything, but even though the vet said that she could lay the eggs while on the way home, she didn't do anything until the next day. I called in, she got an other shot but still nothing. They said that we should wait a day more and then they're going to do a surgery.
So we went in (obviously no laying), I almost fainted when the vet said it's 30-20% of her not surviving the surgery or not being able to recover. Of course I knew it was risky but still, it was shocking to hear that from the vet.
We left Moya there for the day (approx one hour of surgery and then they kept her there to keep an eye on her and everything). When we went back to take her home she was like a tired little pancake, lost her colors, she was all yellow and with those huge stitches on her side. The vet said that she did great, she even drank since the surgery so I was really relieved.
They showed me what they'd gotten out of her, and it was... No words for that, I was just shocked. It was at least 20-25 eggs twice. Or to be precise, they weren't even completely formed eggs (so that is an answer to why she didn't want to lay). They said that she couldn't have layed them if we would've waited for a little longer, they were too many and she was low on calcium. (no MDB thankfully)
So we took her home and put her in the cricket-container with a few branches. (pic attached) They said not to put her in the enclosure because she wasn't strong enough so she might have fallen and also to be careful about the cut.
In the next few days she ate 2-4 waxworms and fortunately I could make her drink water with dissolved calcium. At first she did great but then we had a little bit of fallback with not eating and no poop so with the antibiotics she got some babyfood from the vet down her throat (horrible to watch, I couldn't). They said we could go back for more if she doesn't improve. I force-fed her for a week or two, gave her lots of calcium and water, and also after a week I put her back in her smaller starter terrarium, and got her a nice little ficus.
Thankfully after a while she got better and better, her tongue worked normal again and she was as active as ever. A few days ago I put her back in her big enclosure, and now she's shedding. Eating again (smaller crickets that are easier to digest and waxworms), huge poops, drinking,so basically she's back to normal. She's not as active as she was, I'm guessing it can be also because of the new place (she forgot she lived in it for more than half a year, how dumb...), and I'm hoping to get her even stronger. When she's on me, I feel like her grip is a little bit weaker than before but she never fell, climbs properly, no weird movements so probably I'm just paranoid. Of course if I mentioned it to the vet she would say I'm crazy, my little baby has such an attitude at the vet, they prepare a thick glove for holding her before we go in.
I also add a pic of how she looks like right now.
So this would be our story, any questions and comments are welcome, and thank you for reading!
Ps. If anyone didn't know, this whole thing costs a fortune, and very risky, but in our case, it was well worth it. And at least we won't have any more egg problems (I can imagine that she's feeling a little less girly without her ovaries and everything) and it will, they said, also boost her lifespan a little. Quite fortunate
So I've had her since she was 3 weeks old, she did amazing, grew like crazy, ate like crazy, hella strong. After a lot of researching I've found that keeping her temp relatively low and also not giving her too much food can prevent her from producing eggs or at least slow the process. I was going to go with that, but with the summer being incredibly hot I had no chance. Everything went great up until around october - november when she started to look big (no change of appetite or anything, still all healthy), and then got bigger and bigger. So I put a laying bin in the terrarium (I have a glass terrarium, about a meter high, on a table). She didn't show any interest but I kept it there, figured it was maybe too early for laying, checked on the soil every other day, kept it wet so she could've digged if she wanted to). Weeks passed and still no sign of wanting to lay, so I changed the soil (who knows, maybe she's just picky or what), put a plant closer, covered the terrarium, I tried everything that came to my mind but still no progress.
Then from one day to another she started to hold her belly on a rock-ish thing on the wall of the enclosure (pic attached). Then when she started not eating and I noticed that she couldn't get her tongue out properly I took her to the vet.
They took an x-ray, figured she had tons of eggs inside, and they said she should be able to lay them by then so she got a shot of oxytocin to help out a bit and also calcium for her tongue and the eggs. I took out the laying bin and filled the whole bottom of the enclosure with soil, had a plant in it too, covered it and everything, but even though the vet said that she could lay the eggs while on the way home, she didn't do anything until the next day. I called in, she got an other shot but still nothing. They said that we should wait a day more and then they're going to do a surgery.
So we went in (obviously no laying), I almost fainted when the vet said it's 30-20% of her not surviving the surgery or not being able to recover. Of course I knew it was risky but still, it was shocking to hear that from the vet.
We left Moya there for the day (approx one hour of surgery and then they kept her there to keep an eye on her and everything). When we went back to take her home she was like a tired little pancake, lost her colors, she was all yellow and with those huge stitches on her side. The vet said that she did great, she even drank since the surgery so I was really relieved.
They showed me what they'd gotten out of her, and it was... No words for that, I was just shocked. It was at least 20-25 eggs twice. Or to be precise, they weren't even completely formed eggs (so that is an answer to why she didn't want to lay). They said that she couldn't have layed them if we would've waited for a little longer, they were too many and she was low on calcium. (no MDB thankfully)
So we took her home and put her in the cricket-container with a few branches. (pic attached) They said not to put her in the enclosure because she wasn't strong enough so she might have fallen and also to be careful about the cut.
In the next few days she ate 2-4 waxworms and fortunately I could make her drink water with dissolved calcium. At first she did great but then we had a little bit of fallback with not eating and no poop so with the antibiotics she got some babyfood from the vet down her throat (horrible to watch, I couldn't). They said we could go back for more if she doesn't improve. I force-fed her for a week or two, gave her lots of calcium and water, and also after a week I put her back in her smaller starter terrarium, and got her a nice little ficus.
Thankfully after a while she got better and better, her tongue worked normal again and she was as active as ever. A few days ago I put her back in her big enclosure, and now she's shedding. Eating again (smaller crickets that are easier to digest and waxworms), huge poops, drinking,so basically she's back to normal. She's not as active as she was, I'm guessing it can be also because of the new place (she forgot she lived in it for more than half a year, how dumb...), and I'm hoping to get her even stronger. When she's on me, I feel like her grip is a little bit weaker than before but she never fell, climbs properly, no weird movements so probably I'm just paranoid. Of course if I mentioned it to the vet she would say I'm crazy, my little baby has such an attitude at the vet, they prepare a thick glove for holding her before we go in.
I also add a pic of how she looks like right now.
So this would be our story, any questions and comments are welcome, and thank you for reading!
Ps. If anyone didn't know, this whole thing costs a fortune, and very risky, but in our case, it was well worth it. And at least we won't have any more egg problems (I can imagine that she's feeling a little less girly without her ovaries and everything) and it will, they said, also boost her lifespan a little. Quite fortunate
