Jackson chameleon gave birth to 3

[MXCham]

Hello....

My Jackson Chameleon gave birth to 3 stillborn babies early this morning. They looked fully formed and completely healthy but were not alive and never tried to get out of their sacs.

My question is: does three sound like a normal clutch? Everything that I have read says 10-50.... I was wondering if I should be expecting more.... or could she have dropped these because they were dead and still could posibly be gravid with more? She still looks pretty fat to me..... She gave birth to them at about 7 am and no more as of yet and its almost 3pm....

 

[MXCham]

Here are a picture of mom and another of one of the still born. If someone knows what happened please inform me.
Also, It is now almost 9pm and no more babies.... only the three... but please tell me by the looks of this picture (which was taken eight hours after she gave birth to the three stillborns..... does she still look pregnant to you????

Thank you.

Melissa

 

[Motherlode Chameleon]

If your female still looks gravid more babies could still be on the way. Is your female a Meru Jacksons or one of the two larger types. As Meru's normally produce smaller clutches.

 

[gary1621]

Aww bless, it's little tail is wrapped around its eye!

Sorry for your losses and i hope that if she does still have a few more in her they are healthy for you

 

[eisentrauti]

3 is possible for Trioceros jacksonii merumontanus. Their clutches are normally between 5-10 juveniles. But your female looks still very round. So there might be some still coming.
My clutch sizes were between 5-12.

 

[Miss Lily]

I remember reading on here that female Jacksons usually give birth early in the morning. I hope she produces some live little ones for you.

 

[MXCham]

Well it is the next morning at 9am here and I have looked through the cage and I don't see any more babies.... She still looks incredibly fat and she is still showing her gravid spots. I am thinking that she still has some inside her. Now I am wondering if she is egg bound....but, I thought they could only get egg bound if she was 'laying' eggs.

She is a small chameleon she is a dwarf type her total body length without tail is only about four inches. Would it help if I posted a picture of dad I will try to get a picture.

 

[BrokenTail]

Keep looking those guys are small. When my jackson gave birth I though their was only 3 but when I was feeding the mom I found some hiding in between the leaves and branches. By the way your female jackson is awesome, never seen one with 1 horn.

 

[eisentrauti]

Keep looking those guys are small. When my jackson gave birth I though their was only 3 but when I was feeding the mom I found some hiding in between the leaves and branches. By the way your female jackson is awesome, never seen one with 1 horn.

It's just a normal Trioceros jacksonii merumontanus female Merumontanus females have always one horn, jacksonii jacksonii 1-3 and xantholophus females have always no horns

 

[JaxyGirl]

Sorry to hear about your baby Jackson's...hopefully if she does have more they will be healthy...

 

[MXCham]

She gave birth again ... Now two days later from the first set of three that were all stillborn. We fond one inside the cage this morning but it was stillborn as well. She was acting funny last night she would hang upsidedown turn and then hang upsidedown in a different position then switch positions and hang sideways upsidedown .... I was wondering if we would be seeing babies this morning ....

I am also wondering of all that hanging upsidedown and switching positions was to filter out the baby that was dead and drop it.... Has anyone experienced this before?

 

[MXCham]

Update .... Another was born at 10am .... Making that a total of five stillborns ... Losing hope of any live births :-( ..... ....

 

[dartfrog]

Hi there,
Im so sorry to here about your babies, can imagine how sad you must be feeling. At least mum is managing to give birth to them, otherwise it would be such a worry incase of septicaemia or other complications. I have a female Meru Sophie who is also gravid (preety sure) approx 5 months, Im dreading she will have such problems as well. Ive everything crossed for you, really hope you get some little ones! Heatherxxx

 

[bradleymarky]

i watched a docu about these and the female drops them onto a branch and hope they stick (in the docu they did) i was wondering if they didnt stick to the branch, just a thought.

 

[eisentrauti]

i watched a docu about these and the female drops them onto a branch and hope they stick (in the docu they did) i was wondering if they didnt stick to the branch, just a thought.

They fall to the ground and hatch there
I had very similar problems with my first merumontanus female, she just beard slugs and to top that, she died after this. My fault was that I kept her together with the male, even in a very huge enclosure (80x80x120cm).
This was too much stress for her.
Till that I had now nearly 10 "clutches" of merumontanus and all where fine, all the females where strictly seperated from males and other females, without any visual contact to them.
From those clutches not a single one was bad, at two or three were some sick and very small juveniles but all others were extremely fit.

 

[bradleymarky]

my mistake, which ones am i thinking of

 

[eisentrauti]

my mistake, which ones am i thinking of

No, not a mistake The ovoviviparous ones try to put the the juvenile in the thin shell (sorry thats hard to discribe in a foreign language) at branches or leaves where they then start to get out of the shell. But sometimes the females aren't very carefully and some of the juveniles land on the ground

 

[MXCham]

Thanks for your comments the male was removed from the cage he has his own cage. I feed her calcium with her crickets and meal worms. She has a good mist going and I spray the cage two three times a day. She might have been stressed that is the only thing I can think of. The babies as far as I could tell were all healthy with all their parts and looked very developed .... They never left their sac's though. The egg sac seemed pretty tough and a bit guey/sticky she dropped them on a small branch or leaves below her ... I have heard that the dropping is what actually wakes them up to get out and if they don't get out then you can try to drop them again. But these babies I found too late they were very dead and no chance of life. I hope that we can try again sometime and see if her second clutch would produce live births but for now I am going to focus on her and make sure she is healthy again. She still looks like she might have one or two in her and still looks gravid but we will see in the next few days .... I don't have any hope for any live babies at this point. :-(

Melissa

 

[FFSTRescue]

I had a similar situation occur with my sternfeldi. She dropped 9 very weak neonates that couldn't emerge from their sacs, and I helped them out, but they died anyway. They were very premature and hadn't absorbed their yolk yet, so they had about 2 more weeks to go based on their size and the yolk sac. She still looks like she could be carrying more, so I don't know if she has an abnormally large clutch and had to drop some to make space for the others that are developing, or if she dropped them prematurely because she has an internal infection, so I have to decide whether I should wait or give her antibiotics, a radiograph is really the only way that may possibly give me answers because she is acting healthy and "normal".