Preparing to breed and looking for advice.

[Lpsouth1978]

I have just purchased a young sub-adult BB Ambilobe female (should be here tomorrow) and plan to breed her with my male in a few months. I am just looking to get all of my research done well in advance. I think I have got the breeding and laying parts down. The incubation is what I need info on.

I have already been doing a lot of reading and have seen a lot of people saying that you do not need an incubator, but I am still thinking that I will get a Hova-Bator to make it a easier to manage temps. The real question is what temp I should keep them at, what is the best temp for top hatch rates?

I am looking at purchasing the deli cups, vermiculite, and incubator soon. Would it be beneficial to also get a battery backup to keep it running if power were to go out for an hour or two during the winter?

Also, any other info, advice, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jastate09]

I've always used the closet method and have temps around 76. What are the deli cups for?

 

[Lpsouth1978]

I've always used the closet method and have temps around 76. What are the deli cups for?

The Deli cups are for holding the eggs during the incubation process. It seems like the most common thing sold for this purpose. The are small, cheap, and fit easily in the incubator.

 

[Saldarya]

#1. Tupperware containers are just as good as the deli cups.
#2. The biggest thing you need to be prepared for when breeding chameleons......................................................................................................................

How will you feed the 20+ hungry babies????

IMO, this is the biggest challenge people face when trying to raise a clutch and end up having to spend a ton of money of buying feeders online nearly weekly to keep them fed.

If you plan to have any success, you need to have a plan for this.

HTH,

 

[Reyphox]

I use tupperware as well and perlite as the medium to place the eggs on. Feeding them is definitely the hardest part. I start them of on fruit flies which are easy enough to breed. Usually have at least five strong cultures going for every 10 chams. I also start breeding tonnes of crickets and superworms colonies. I try to time the colonies so that at 1 month I have crickets ready sized proportional to the baby chams. Same with the supers!

 

[Norcal55]

I have just purchased a young sub-adult BB Ambilobe female (should be here tomorrow) and plan to breed her with my male in a few months. I am just looking to get all of my research done well in advance. I think I have got the breeding and laying parts down. The incubation is what I need info on.

I have already been doing a lot of reading and have seen a lot of people saying that you do not need an incubator, but I am still thinking that I will get a Hova-Bator to make it a easier to manage temps. The real question is what temp I should keep them at, what is the best temp for top hatch rates?

I am looking at purchasing the deli cups, vermiculite, and incubator soon. Would it be beneficial to also get a battery backup to keep it running if power were to go out for an hour or two during the winter?

Also, any other info, advice, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Congrats on your new female and your future breeding! It sounds like you have some time until your female is old enough to breed so there is no hurry in getting your supplies. It is exciting so I totally understand Just a few quick pointers from my experience
I would advise using a good tupperware type of container. I find that keeping all of the eggs together in one container is best especially if it's your first clutch. When I have had eggs from the same clutch in several deli cups they tend to hatch out over several weeks. It will be much easier to feed the babies when they hatch out at the same time. A 1-2 week old is so much larger than a newborn and will be beyond Fruit Flies.
If you intend on breeding your own feeders start now it cant hurt. You can raise them up and feed your adults and get the process down.
My temp ranges for eggs have done great from 68 to 74 and this would be fine without an incubator. My closet temps have dipped as low as 64 with no issues at all. I did try an incubator out for the last 6 months and stopped using it because the temps got too high and that concerned me more than low temps.
Make sure your female is well fed and old enough prior to breeding. A good lay box is a must and I always make sure my girls have privacy when ready.

Good luck and have fun!

 

[Lpsouth1978]

Thank you all for the feedback! I will look into getting an appropriately sized tupperware like container for them. It also sounds like I will not need an incubator, which is fine with me. I do keep my condo at about 70 degrees year round, it sounds like this will not be a problem when incubating the eggs.

I have quite a while to really prepare and research before breeding. I want my girl to get to at least 60 grams and hopefully closer to 75 grams before I breed them, which could be 5-6 months yet. We will see, she is eating like a pig!!! I have given her 40+ small dubia everyday for the last week and she has only left 2-3 each day. At this rate she may grow FAST.

As for my plan to feed the hatchlings, I already have a LARGE dubia colony consisting of more than 200 females and 60 males as well as countless mixed sizes. I should have a second colony started in the next 6-8 months. I have also looked into starting about 40 fruit fly cultures about 3 months before the eggs are due to hatch. I have looked at doing 20 Melanagaster and 20 Hydei. I figured this would allow me to start with the Hydei, then mix in the Melanagaster, and eventually start mixing in dubia, crickets, and supers.

 

[deerharvester]

You don't 40 fruit fly cultures, that's a lot. At least for 1 breeding pair. You will never have more than 2 clutches to feed fruit flies. I just got into bean beetles (from Nick barta). And I love them. I try to breed crickets on a 2 week offset, and I use a hovabator for them. It's a lot of work, but it's very exciting watching them grow. Good luck, and it sounds like you're heading on the right track.

Scott