Eggs!!!

[stapleton33]

While we've been keeping our chams almost entirely on a budget (i.e. in bird cages with poked-hole drippers, $5 Wal-Mart money trees, and lighting systems completely supplied by Lowe's) our veileds, Kraken and Keallach, which we've raised almost entirely on the collective wisdom of this forum, have made more chams! Kraken laid FORTY-THREE fat white eggs in the bottom of a cardboard moving box half-filled with sand. they are in the closet, and she is on a break. will be sure to keep you all posted on the progress... here's some pix of her and the sire just before she gave birth, and then pix of me digging out the eggs last night. thanks to everyone who's helped us along this far!

(we're thinking of buying a hova bata (sp?) just to keep the temp and humidity steady - your thoughts? also, i wanted to donate some to the tulsa zoo - it was always my favorite part to see the hatchling herps there - anyone have any advice? the responses here have always been SO helpful. thanks again.)

 

[Nicodemayo]

Congrats on the eggs but please remember, when those eggs hatch, more times than not, a budget isnt possible when it comes to raising them, and i hope you considered this. I would just stick the eggs in a closet that remains anywhere from 73-80 and is dark.

 

[Dsignrguy]

yeah, save the hovabator money for food for the babies. put the eggs in a cheap homemade incubator(dig through the forum and you'll find the info on how) in a dark room/closet as close to the core of the house as you can find(closer to the core, the more constant the temp should be).

 

[Julirs]

A couple of thoughts-these chams are now only 6ish months old? Way too young too be breeding(intentionally). Eggs are very taxing on calcium supplies to young females, and this shortens their life span. Make sure you are supplementing her regularly to help her build back up. You don't want to incubate those eggs like that on sand. You also do not want to move the eggs much after initial placement after being laid (don't roll them over). Placing them half buried in vermiculite that is moist enough that you can barely squeeze a water drop out of in a plastic shoe box type container with 2 very small holes poked in the lid near the ends works well for most. If you have a closet with temps that Nico suggested that also works well for incubating.
Start saving your money now (or donate almost all of the eggs to the zoo). Do you guys really want to know what it cost me to raise all 69 baby Veileds that are now 5 months of age? I still have about 15 of them! It creeps me out to even think about it! Anyways from what I can see you chams are pretty and healthy, so take care of mommy there!

 

[stapleton33]

we started out on a budget because we had just moved to the USA. now we're a little better off. i think we could handle raising the offspring, but i don't think it's what we'll be doing, as most of them will be gifts. having another 43 mouths to feed was actually a surprise. when we started out with 2 babies we only had the one enclosure. as things progressed we got larger enclosures until just recently when we finally could afford two seperate ecosystems (finding room in the budget for the enclosure, plants, watering systems, an array of lights and non-stop trips for food was tricky, doubling it had to wait!). lo and behold, a month or so after seperating, she's blue and yellow and roaming the floor, so i knew she was either knocked up or just doing that "chameleon period" thing. (what the hell is that caled anyway?) we still don't know if the eggs are fertile. is there a for sure way to tell? untill a couple hundred days go by, i guess we'll just have to keep hoping. by the by, she's all kinds of back to normal as far as diet and activity. i'm very proud of her speedy recovery from a monster of a clutch. thank you all again.

 

[chameleonneeds]

Congrats.
If the eggs are infertile they will be yellow or off coloured, soft, small and after a while should grow mold.
But Julirs is right the new babies are definetely not going to "fit your budget".
Crickets and and fruit flies are going to come at a huge cost.
So start saving money or breeding your own crickets.
What you should do is get some crickets to breed, get their eggs to hatch and you should have about 1000 pinhead crickets every 2 weeks.
For fruit flies get a jar put some fruit slices in it and leave it outside in the shade then when you are happy with the amount of flies in the jar just take the lide and close it up the try releasing them into the young chameleons enclosure or cage.

Good luck.

 

[boothy]

spend the $50 on a hovabator incubator , cant go wrong with them at this time of yr , i find home made incubators have to be built pretty good and your going to end up spending about $50 on making one so you my as well buy a havbator from lllreptile, they keep temps from fluctuating all over and have a way higher success rate then home made incubators, dont get me wrong some home made ones are sweet and work superb but for your first time i would reccomend the hovabator