Jackson pregnant? Possibly giving birth soon??

[ChamBust]

Hey guys, so I have a wild caught Jackson Chameleon that we think is most likely pregnant and possibly even giving birth soon...we got her a little over 2 months ago, and she already seemed possibly pregnant back then. I know my way around Jacksons fairly well, but have no prior experience with pregnant ones. So could someone help me out and confirm whether or not our suspicions are right? And if so, how any way to estimate how soon? What are the signs I should be looking for? Also, she's in a spacious 48x24x24 cage but we have smaller cages in case that might be better for when she does give birth? I've attached some pics I literally took about 15 minutes ago. Any comments and suggestions would be more than welcome, thanks!

 

[Miss Lily]

Wow! She is stunning! She is rather large, isn't she?! I remember my friend describing her female Jackson as a 'tennis ball with legs' just before she gave birth, lol! I've never bred them myself, but I do know that they give birth fairly early in the morning. From videos that I've seen, she will wander around the cage dropping babies as she goes. The sac they are born in is sticky and they will stick to whatever they land on, the membrane ruptures and the baby crawls out. Sometimes they don't emerge from the sac though so you may need to drop them onto some foliage yourself to help them out of the sac. Hopefully someone who has bred these little sweeties will offer more specific help to you!

 

[DekuScrub]

looks prego to me, heres mine.

ive asked these guys before. and apparently it just pretty much happens with no warning, i asked if coloration changes or behavior. according to other members sometimes they will lose appetite but thats pretty much all you get.

i get where your coming from. ive had mine since november and she was caged with the male for two weeks with the individual i bought them off of, and before that god only knows becuse the owner previous had them caged together as well.

im used to breeding veileds and panthers, i made one attempt with a CB jacksons female before and she ended up retaining the babies and inevitably died.... no one really had an answer for me as to why that may have happened. only thing i can figure is i may have been giving her a nutritional/food overload. when i sliced her open after she died the babies were very large. they may have gotten too large to be passed and continued growing essentially crushing her organs.

so ive been a bit paranoid about this girl. and have no idea how long shes been gravid.

 

[ChamBust]

Thank you for the responses...yes lily, she is rather large...much larger than our other female xanth, who I was planning on breeding with my two males. At this point, the 3 of them are around 1.5yrs old and are nowhere close to Fergie (our prego xanth pictured above). So for now, I'm just relieved that she most likely won't give birth this week since we'll be rather busy. Thank you for your comments, I definitely will try and lay out some type of foilage for the babies. And btw, monty looks like he's growing into quite the looker =)

Deku, how old is ur female? She's about the size of my kiwi, who is about 18 months but I'm scared to bbreed her cuz of her size...keep us posted with your pregnancy please!

 

[DekuScrub]

not sure. the guy i bought them off of had very little information for me.

probably around a year and a half to two. maybe a bit younger, the male is on the small side as well. just cant tell with the WCs if you dont get em when theyre juvies.

i hope she does well, the last female i tried to breed, the cb, was a tad smaller than her even still, supposed taht could have attributed to the failed pregnancy as well

 

[ChamBust]

Deku, I've heard to wait at least until they're a year to a year and a half before you attempt to breed them, but that may be more of a rule of thumb since age doesn't necessarily mean they'll be of size...seems like they don't grow as big/fast in captivity as they would when out in the wild. One factor is that their diet is much more controlled in captivity, as opposed to the wild where they could just eat and eat if they really wanted to and in the right environment.

That being said, sounds like you believe your female to be close to 2 years, which sounds about right but her size may be questionable. I'm none the wiser though, cuz after my girl Kiwi made a year, she was receptive so I decided to give it a shot. I actually stopped them half-way through (I know, call me a tease but more like I wussed out), but that was a few months ago (maybe back in Jan?). The funny thing, is she hasn't been receptive at all since then and I'm starting to wonder if she may also be pregnant. Here's a couple of pics I took of her almost 2 weeks ago...again, you be the judge

 

[DekuScrub]

lol thanks for the concern with age, i purchased her gravid. i separated them immediately and never attempted a session.

yeah she does look a bit smaller than both of yours. but its hard to say without a ruler or frame of reference.

 

[xanthoman]

assuming its a healthy clutch, usually, but not always, they will look like a football stuffed full of marbles. so there would normally be marble like bulges visually obvious, if it gets like that you are probably <6wks out.
if its an under developed or less than healthy clutch then they may not show at all or even come early.
they often stop eating, about a week-10 days before birth, sometimes they stop drinking a couple of days before, there is usually some other subtle changes in behavior a day or 2 before as well. imo, more often than not, they will usually birth in the 6am-11 am range

imo it would be a good time to order a hydei culture and some culturing supplies so you can keep a continuous culture going until they birth.

imo a 10q aq (or large exo-terra) is a good starter container. jmo

edit; ok i wasnt able to view the pics when i posted earlier, but now that i have, i would say she is likely gravid. as for when due, thats a little harder to ascertain. imo a $20 digital scale and weekly weighings, probably a good idea.
if you bought her as a recently imported wc then it would probably be helpful to try to determine the closest you can to the date you actually got her. its likely she was impregnated sometime in the 6 weeks prior to getting her. if she had been impregnated significantly sooner, there would probably be less doubt as to her gravid state.

since imo, the most common gestation is between the 6-1/2-7 month mark, so based on the above assumtions then i would say she would most likely be due about 5- 5-1/2 months from the date you got her, but imo, thats just sort of a wild guess based on a fairly common scenario.

imo, considering she is wc , probably a good time to do a fecal, most wc have pathogenic issues and if you have to treat, then probably better to do it now than wait (depending on several factors) anyway, just my thoughts. jmo

 

[pwerfulyifu]

species question

Hi, im fairly new to owning a chameleon. ive had this one for about a week and the store that i got was a pretty legitimate reptile store. they told me that it was a female jackson's but from the other pictures that i've seen it looks nothing like one. also i think it might be gravid or pregnant or however you call it. she's eating fine but not alot. maybe like 2-4 crickets a day, and sometimes she will skip a day's meal. also she hangs around the bottome...sometimes but not too often and will sleep around the bottom too. but when i say bottom i dont mean ground floor, but like around the pot of the plant. please help!! thanks.

 

[chamlover]

I absolutely love the jacksons..I have numerous ones at the moment and have had several females come in gravid, which is quite normal..I have found that they indeed do give birth in the early morning..I generally check on them shortly after the lights go on and then the misting system goes on about 2 hours later..At which time i check them again and feed them. This is the time i usually find all kinds of little critters climbing all over the place..Do not place her in a smaller cage..She must have at least 2 feet to drop them or the sacs do not rupture..I have only had 2 babies where the sac did not rupture, which i found about 3 hours later..My husband, VERY carefully tore the bags and one baby did survive..Good luck. And have plenty of food handy..And just a personal observation: I've found that the babies do much better when kept in very small numbers..They tend to stress more than panther or veileds. After the first week or so, i seperate them into groups of 2 or 3 per cage..Some that are more aggressive i actually put them in their own enclosure..

 

[ChamBust]

Thanks for all the help everyone...seems like the unanimous consensus is that yes, she is pregnant, but that she won't be due for a little while. Which is great, since we just recently placed an offer on a house to purchase so our budget is tight. Overall, I definitely intend of going through with the following:

-Purchasing a scale. I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but weekly weigh-ins definitely seem in-line
-Order a hydei culture...or possible start my own from scratch. Actually, doing this on my own should be easier than ordering since I live in Hawaii.
-Start putting together multiple baby lairs. Sounds like they thrive when separated into smaller groups, and I want to be more than prepared when the time arrives.
-Take Fergie in for a fecal...although I may hold off until I'm entirely sure's gravid. Reason being is given her size and appearance, I have no reason to believe she's not currently thriving.

I guess that's it for now...thanks again for all the help, and I will provide an update if/when I confirm our suspicions. I'd be pretty excited about Jackson babies, but hopefully the timing works out with the probability of our upcoming move/relocation and financial strains.

 

[KarmaChameleon1337]

For cheap places for the little ones I've seen people have rows of those plastic containers, you can probably find it on Youtube. Goodluck!

 

[ChamBust]

Karma, I was actually thinking I'd put about 3-4 per container? To my knowledge, no reason to separate them for the first 3-4 months (although correct me if I'm wrong of course). I'm hoping I won't need more than about 4 containers. Either way, I will search around youtube for ideas for sure, thanks!

 

[xanthoman]

Hi, im fairly new to owning a chameleon. ive had this one for about a week and the store that i got was a pretty legitimate reptile store. they told me that it was a female jackson's but from the other pictures that i've seen it looks nothing like one. also i think it might be gravid or pregnant or however you call it. she's eating fine but not alot. maybe like 2-4 crickets a day, and sometimes she will skip a day's meal. also she hangs around the bottome...sometimes but not too often and will sleep around the bottom too. but when i say bottom i dont mean ground floor, but like around the pot of the plant. please help!! thanks.

not sounding overly promising. i recommend you fill out the help form in its entirety,and post in the health clinic. jmo

 

[SpartyTessy]

Did she ever have her babies?