Kinyongia boehmei

[MrCus]

Wow! 62 day gestation is very long. I have it occasionally happen with multituberculata as well. I think some say it is a biological delay by the female for some reason. Normally I have a 30 day gestation.

Hi
all of my female Kinyongias (boehmei, tavetana, multituberculata and vosseleri) had gestation duration of around 50-65 days. I think this is usual for this specias.

I also remember some information about temperature oscilation from another source. I believe it said that the temperature on a depth of 8 or 10 cm was 17 degrees C in the shade and 19 C in the sun. I can't remember where I read this though. I'll try to find it again.

This should be the same article from John Measey. He put some logger-probes next to the eggs where he found them and measured the temperature during the incubation time.
Incubation should be shorter than tavetana. My sources say about 6-7 months, while tavetana tooks longer.
Did they hatch already?

 

[Ferdy Timmerman]

Not yet, but I'm still confident. I took a photo of both clutches next to each other today. The clutch on the right is the first one and was laid exactly 8 months ago, the other clutch was laid about 3 months ago (these eggs only started growing last month by the way). I really wonder when they will hatch, if they do so at all... I'll keep you updated through this thread!

 

[raphael14]

beautiful chams and great pics

 

[Cainschams]

Those eggs look perfect!! Id put down money on them hatching!!

 

[Seeco]

Wow those are some beefy eggs. Can't wait to see some strong babies.

 

[spadefish]

Babies

Hey guys. Here are a few pics of my newly hatched boehmei babies. These photos show them at about an hour of age. There are five total. They are monsters and puttering all over the place.

 

[Thezillaman21]

Hey guys. Here are a few pics of my newly hatched boehmei babies. These photos show them at about an hour of age. There are five total. They are monsters and puttering all over the place.

nice babies , hey i noticed your from PA as well glad to see im not the only kinyongia keeper in pa. if u dont mind me asking what part of pa are you in?

 

[Ferdy Timmerman]

Great to see those hatchlings!! Mine are still in their eggs, but two of them (the one in the top left corner and the lower one in the middle in the photo) started sweating today

 

[Thezillaman21]

Great to see those hatchlings!! Mine are still in their eggs, but two of them (the one in the top left corner and the lower one in the middle in the photo) started sweating today

YAY little babies soon make sure to take plenty of pictures and keep us all updated. are these any more difficult for care for compared to k. multi?

 

[Ferdy Timmerman]

The temperatures are pretty similar for both species, but my boehmei's don't really like water. I can't remember exactly how my multi's responded when I misted them, but at least they drank a lot more than boehmei.

 

[Seeco]

I can't say but warm or even hot water really helps make them more comfortable (just make sure the mist is cooling down enough when it leaves the nozzle)

 

[MrCus]

my boehmeis drink normally. I just spray and they drink as every other species. I keep them at 16°C-22°C now in Winter.

 

[Ferdy Timmerman]

BAD news... The eggs were sweating for about 2 days and on the morning of the third day I decided it was taking too long. When I opened one up, there was a dead baby inside. I opened the next one and found another dead baby. It went on like that untill the last egg, which had a live baby inside. That one got out of the egg by itself after I opened it, but it still died within 24 hours. No F1 boehmei's for me... At least I have accurate data so I can look at what I think went wrong (vermiculite too moist I guess) and incubate the second clutch differently.

 

[coldbloodedAL]

Im sorry to hear that. Do you think it being too moist didnt allow them to pipe and get out?

 

[Cainschams]

BAD news... The eggs were sweating for about 2 days and on the morning of the third day I decided it was taking too long. When I opened one up, there was a dead baby inside. I opened the next one and found another dead baby. It went on like that untill the last egg, which had a live baby inside. That one got out of the egg by itself after I opened it, but it still died within 24 hours. No F1 boehmei's for me... At least I have accurate data so I can look at what I think went wrong (vermiculite too moist I guess) and incubate the second clutch differently.

Could you tell if they were fully formed neonates? My first clutch of K. tavetana started sweating early from having to add moisture to the vermiculite. Luckily only half of them sweat too early and the other half made it to hatch out. My problem was that I used too small of a container since there were only 10 or 11 eggs instead of 20+ like I was used to from panthers. The small container kept drying up a lot faster than the larger ones. Now I make sure there is plenty of vermiculite in a larger container to keep the moisture even if there are few eggs.

Sorry to hear the bad news.

 

[Ferdy Timmerman]

All babies were fully developed (see photo), though I found that some still had a pretty big yolk sac attached to their body. I guess the eggs absorbed too much water, resulting in the fact that the babies could not apply enough pressure to break/slice through the shell.
The water that I added a week before they started sweating was only a small amount. The substrate had't dried out a lot, but I figured I'd best keep the moisture level the same as before.

 

[Seeco]

Oh man

 

[Ferdy Timmerman]

Oh man

Any advice on moisture levels? What is your method for incubating all those multi's?

I've had this problem before with other species, though I wasn't around when those eggs were incubating (internships around the globe). I'm getting the idea that I'm overlooking something big and I'm dying to find out what it is...

 

[Seeco]

Any advice on moisture levels? What is your method for incubating all those multi's?

I've had this problem before with other species, though I wasn't around when those eggs were incubating (internships around the globe). I'm getting the idea that I'm overlooking something big and I'm dying to find out what it is...

I am big on cutting open my eggs:

https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/seeco/386-how-cut-open-egg.html

I am a believer of the theory that barometric pressure and the addition of moisture must correlate. The addition of an appropriate level of moisture alone should not be a problem if the babies are fully developed. That cham in the photo was obviously healthy. I think he just got mixed signals and stopped hatching.

 

[spadefish]

Geez, Ferdy. I'm really sorry about the babies. I can't really give you any advice on incubating them since I incubated mine in situ. They were buried in a group about 3-4 cm below the surface of the soil which is a mix of potting soil, dirt and pulverized coco fiber. I kept the enclosure the same temp and humidity as I do for the adults. Some days it rained harder than others and I didn't measure how much water I was spraying. But, it was a rare thing that water actually got to the eggs. The soil was not moist but it wasn't dried out either. I don't know if having the eggs essentially in contact with one another under the soil made a difference. The soil on top of them didn't seem to impede them much -- two were out of the eggs and one was clawing up through the dirt and another already out of the dirt when I noticed what was going on. I dug the rest up and they all hatched fairly quiklly after that. I did give on a little help as he seemed stuck in the egg. They are all (5) doing well at 12 days of age.

The second clutch were duds -- they were shriveled and there were no embyos at all in any of the five eggs.

I got the idea for incubating them in place from a documentary I was watching on Africa and it happened to include a bit on chameleons. Basically, I figured that the eggs get laid in the ground during the rainy season and then the babies have to dig out when the soil might be a bit hard. I figured if they could dig out of hard semi-dry soil, they could dig out in an exoterra. It was not quite a full moon and the barometric pressure was gently dropping the afternoon they hatched. But it was clear and realtively warm (50-ish F).

Hope your adults are up for trying again soon.