Jackson chameleon babies

[Chamdog]

Hi All,

About 4 months ago I purchased my first pair of Jackson's chameleons at a reptile show in NH. Things have been going very well and from what I read here my chams are doing good. This morning I went in to check on them and to my surprise there were 5 babies in the females cage. Although I do have enough stuff to make up another small cage I do not know anything about very young Cham care. Can you help me with the must do's like do I separate them from the mother right away or am I safe for a little while. Any and all recommendations are welcome, thanks for all the help. I post some pics ASAP.

 

[laurie]

If you want any live babies, get them away from Mom as fast as you can. She will most likely eat them.

Care for them is a cage that can be a butterfly keeper, a screen cage, or worst case, an aquarium . You will need fruit flys, and pinhead crickets or other very tiny crickets. They need to be misted often to keep the humidity up. Make sure they are not standing in water. If they are in a solid bottom container, put paper towels on the bottom.

That will get you started. On the left side of the screen you will see Care Resources. Open that and you will get to a care sheet for jacksons.

Congratulations

 

[Chamdog]

If you want any live babies, get them away from Mom as fast as you can. She will most likely eat them.

Care for them is a cage that can be a butterfly keeper, a screen cage, or worst case, an aquarium . You will need fruit flys, and pinhead crickets or other very tiny crickets. They need to be misted often to keep the humidity up. Make sure they are not standing in water. If they are in a solid bottom container, put paper towels on the bottom.

That will get you started. On the left side of the screen you will see Care Resources. Open that and you will get to a care sheet for jacksons.

Congratulations

Thank you, I removed the mother. I have an empty 18x18x30 reptibreeze that they are now in. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, I will go through the care sheet you recommended.

 

[kplatvoet]

This helped me - I got my baby really young from a similar situation -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKTbUaOQ0aA

Carl C had a easy fruit fly recipe in another thread - for feeding

Cultures are easy to make with supplies from the grocery store for under $10. All you need is potato flakes, cheap small bottle of vinegar, coffee filters, yeast and some rubberbands. Clear plastic juice or tea bottles work in a pinch.

Pour out some potato flakes into a bowl, pour a 50/50 mix of water and vinegar on to the flakes and mix well. The mixture will thicken up once the potato flakes absord it all. Put 1"-2" of the mixture in each bottle. Add a pinch of yeast to each culture. Crumble up a coffee filter and put it in the bottle. Add some flies from your existing cultures. Cover the bottle with a coffee filter and rubberband. If you keep them in a warm place you'll see larva in a week or two depending on which species you have. Every 2-3 start new cultures so you have a steady supply.

You can add things to the mix to make it more nutritious like finely ground bee pollen, brewers yeast or honey powder. Just go easy with how much you add.

 

[Camsofcali]

That's funny

Same thing happened to me about 10 years ago. I got a male and two females jacksons sent to me from Hawaii and one of them had babies within a month. From what I here it's really common to buy gravid females because they're more often then not kept it group enclosures before being sold. Have fun and good luck!!!

 

[Muddyfeet]

Damm I really wanted to go to the Manchester reptile expo.. Sigh figured ok most likely would be 99% balls and leos.. no loss big Bummer! I would have been really tempted to snatch up a gravid Jackson, and they had pigmys there too..

You do have them in separate cages right?? I ask as I keep seeing "pairs" for sale housed in cages.. even at more experienced reptile specific stores..

Separate the babies.. simple sterlite tub with lots of plastic plants, paper towel to absorb the misting, and a UVB strip across the top, piece of screen as a cover, can make a short term enclosure for now.. you may not even a basking light as in my house in NH the heat from the UVB fixture warms up the small enclosures I have set up as a hospital cage (for a male) to 85 on the one end, and the house thermostat is set at 65 at night..
Not as much temp gradient as I like, but ok for now.. but the humidity is good, and I am hand misting..

Good luck!

 

[Muddyfeet]

Make sure your FF culture is set well, and solid.. Made one up first time as a local store always has big ones.. Used the repashy super fly.. I did not get the thickness right.. all the flys stuck to it... OPPS.. Try again

FYI a bit of a drive but if you get desperate.. no one near you has any .. ZooCreatures in Plastow NH about 35-45 min drive north of boston generally ALWAYS has FF cultures.. and tiny crickets as they sell dart frogs, and have lots of hatchlings of various species.. just call ahead just in case if you are making the drive they are out on occasion on some stuff..