Lowenz Trioceros
New Member
Hi everyone, new to the forum. My name is Jennifer and I'm located in Northern Alabama.
I've been keeping chameleons for a month and currently have 26 Trioceros Ellioti. (YES, you read that right. NO, I'm not a troll and NOPE, I did NOT intend/ask for/want to have double digit quantities of chameleons in roughly four weeks.)
Long story short, after months of researching the needs of various small chameleon species and a few years of experience with dart frogs and various geckoes both wild caught and captive bred with very small scale reproductive success, I set up 3 bioactive, live, densely planted glass and screen enclosures, got 5.0 UVB, full spectrum LED lighting and 25W basking... let the plants grow in and took the plunge with two females and a male Tricoeros Ellioti. I intended to *eventually*, *some day* breed them. (Experienced keepers start laughing now)
The females were shipped to me gravid... ... ... I knew to to brace for babies with them being live bearers and started scrambling for supplies. 5 days later, the first female had 16 babies. The second female (who we didn't realize was gravid) produced 9 more about two weeks later. (SURPRISE!!!!) So, yeah. That's been... uh... something. Lost one little one to respiratory issues at 1 week old, and one of them at 2 weeks for unknown reasons. I suspect some sort of internal issue because he/she (I'm still no good at squinting at tiny chameleon nether regions!) always acted a little slow and sort of "off" compared to the others. He/she was eating and growing and looked fine one morning and was gone by evening.
As I manage to get enclosures set up, they're moving out of my densely planted bathtub with rigged up lighting and into individual housing. Small, bioactive enclosures with a mix of reptisun 5.0 and arcadia fixtures, various full spectrum LED lights, etc. Got housing set up for 20 of them so far. Only THREE MORE to go haha. Everyone is eating well - thanks to the darts and micro geckoes there's ready cultures of various types/sizes of fruit flies, bean beetles and rich gut loaded pinhead crickets with a light calcium (without D3) dusting. The feeders free range, so I'm sure some of them have dust, some don't by the time they get chomped.
The three adults are settling in - I have a sneaking suspicion that the female who had 16 also had stored sperm as she's looking decidedly plump around the middle again. The adults have gotten to try various roaches, silkworms, very small hornworms, crickets, hydei fruit flies, house flies and waxworm moths. They seem to eat everything and definitely have different personalities.
One female (Momma Cass) is super laid back, always a nice green unless she's basking and actually crawled on me the other day while I was trimming plants in her enclosure and then sauntered back in. She eats everything, from a hand, from a bowl, off a branch in her cage, doesn't matter. She's pretty chill about being misted and seems unfazed by exploring the plant stand in the room and also unfazed by going back.
One female (Missy) is obviously/stressed by people. When she doesn't realize you're in the room she turns a happy green with her light side stripes... if she spots you, she will turn to brown and black before your eyes. Sometimes she rushes at the opportunity to leave her cage and explore a standing house plant and will turn a "relaxed" green... other times she goes almost black and gold and gapes, swivels, etc and wants to stay in. She's not interested in hand feeding... the closest she will get is to pick a dubia off that's climbing on a chopstick held in your hand. She definitely isn't big on interaction so, we make sure she eats, her poops look good and enjoy the few peeks we get of her sitting in her home looking relaxed.
The male (T.S.) seems to be the least happy of the three. He is still spending a lot of time on his screen cage top and in general spends a lot of time in stressful colors (browns, greys, etc) we've moved him twice each time to a more secluded/remote area. He's currently got solid walls on three sides and fake plants stuck to the front door to give him even more visual cover. Hopefully we can figure out how to make him happy. His poops show he's hydrated, the feeders disappear from the bowl and we try to leave him alone as much as we can.
I have a day job, and with so many little mouths on top of that I'm not sure how often I'll be able to get on here, but I have enjoyed reading and searching around a good bit. So yeah, that's me and my general situation. Chameleons should come with a warning label!!
I've been keeping chameleons for a month and currently have 26 Trioceros Ellioti. (YES, you read that right. NO, I'm not a troll and NOPE, I did NOT intend/ask for/want to have double digit quantities of chameleons in roughly four weeks.)
Long story short, after months of researching the needs of various small chameleon species and a few years of experience with dart frogs and various geckoes both wild caught and captive bred with very small scale reproductive success, I set up 3 bioactive, live, densely planted glass and screen enclosures, got 5.0 UVB, full spectrum LED lighting and 25W basking... let the plants grow in and took the plunge with two females and a male Tricoeros Ellioti. I intended to *eventually*, *some day* breed them. (Experienced keepers start laughing now)
The females were shipped to me gravid... ... ... I knew to to brace for babies with them being live bearers and started scrambling for supplies. 5 days later, the first female had 16 babies. The second female (who we didn't realize was gravid) produced 9 more about two weeks later. (SURPRISE!!!!) So, yeah. That's been... uh... something. Lost one little one to respiratory issues at 1 week old, and one of them at 2 weeks for unknown reasons. I suspect some sort of internal issue because he/she (I'm still no good at squinting at tiny chameleon nether regions!) always acted a little slow and sort of "off" compared to the others. He/she was eating and growing and looked fine one morning and was gone by evening.
As I manage to get enclosures set up, they're moving out of my densely planted bathtub with rigged up lighting and into individual housing. Small, bioactive enclosures with a mix of reptisun 5.0 and arcadia fixtures, various full spectrum LED lights, etc. Got housing set up for 20 of them so far. Only THREE MORE to go haha. Everyone is eating well - thanks to the darts and micro geckoes there's ready cultures of various types/sizes of fruit flies, bean beetles and rich gut loaded pinhead crickets with a light calcium (without D3) dusting. The feeders free range, so I'm sure some of them have dust, some don't by the time they get chomped.
The three adults are settling in - I have a sneaking suspicion that the female who had 16 also had stored sperm as she's looking decidedly plump around the middle again. The adults have gotten to try various roaches, silkworms, very small hornworms, crickets, hydei fruit flies, house flies and waxworm moths. They seem to eat everything and definitely have different personalities.
One female (Momma Cass) is super laid back, always a nice green unless she's basking and actually crawled on me the other day while I was trimming plants in her enclosure and then sauntered back in. She eats everything, from a hand, from a bowl, off a branch in her cage, doesn't matter. She's pretty chill about being misted and seems unfazed by exploring the plant stand in the room and also unfazed by going back.
One female (Missy) is obviously/stressed by people. When she doesn't realize you're in the room she turns a happy green with her light side stripes... if she spots you, she will turn to brown and black before your eyes. Sometimes she rushes at the opportunity to leave her cage and explore a standing house plant and will turn a "relaxed" green... other times she goes almost black and gold and gapes, swivels, etc and wants to stay in. She's not interested in hand feeding... the closest she will get is to pick a dubia off that's climbing on a chopstick held in your hand. She definitely isn't big on interaction so, we make sure she eats, her poops look good and enjoy the few peeks we get of her sitting in her home looking relaxed.
The male (T.S.) seems to be the least happy of the three. He is still spending a lot of time on his screen cage top and in general spends a lot of time in stressful colors (browns, greys, etc) we've moved him twice each time to a more secluded/remote area. He's currently got solid walls on three sides and fake plants stuck to the front door to give him even more visual cover. Hopefully we can figure out how to make him happy. His poops show he's hydrated, the feeders disappear from the bowl and we try to leave him alone as much as we can.
I have a day job, and with so many little mouths on top of that I'm not sure how often I'll be able to get on here, but I have enjoyed reading and searching around a good bit. So yeah, that's me and my general situation. Chameleons should come with a warning label!!
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