Surprise Baby! I need advice, please.

[Cherron]

Last January, I purchased 3 baby bearded pygmie chameleons. I had 2 females and one male. One of the females died the day after I received them. The male unfortunately died just a few months later. So, I have had this little girl pygmie all by herself for about 14 months. Today, I mist her, and then open the top of her tank to clean the poop out and I find a baby pygmie! I was soooo shocked. I understand that chameleons retain sperm.. but for 14 months!?? I attached some pictures of the little guy. My question is.. should I move him (I just assume he is male.. he is too tiny to tell) to a seperate tank or leave them together? Also, I have no idea what to feed this tiny thing. I have no where to get fruit fly cultures as I have no credit card and even the tiniest crickets seem too big. I was thinking of maybe putting some banana pieces in to attract fruit flies and gnats? I have no clue! I have a lot of chameleon experince but this was my first stab at pygmies. Can anyone give me some advice?

 

[Nicodemayo]

congrats! what an awesome suprise! That 2nd photo is just mind blowing how small he is! Also keep an eye out for more. Chances are your female laid eggs in the enclosure a long time ago and theyve been incubating without you even knowing and i would guess theres more than one.

 

[Cherron]

Well, I just moved her from a 30 gallon high to a 10 gallon about 3 months ago.. so it couldn't have been that long! He is freaking adorable though.. does anyone know how much baby care differs from adult care?

 

[Dylan Dutz]

Really I dont know much about pygmies, but I would also like to say that there are probably more eggs/babies in there. I would search the cage a lot to see if there is. Also he/she is very cute And yeah I would go ahead and put a banana in the cage to atract fruit flies, it cant hurt to try

 

[sharkey]

petsmart (and maybe petco) carry fruit fly cultures in some of their stores. i would call ahead to see or you may waste a lot of time. i would specifically ask that who ever you talk to confirms that they have the cultures in the store and tell you how many vials are available (b/c they may think they have them when they really have sold out).

how do you/where do you get food for the mama? don't they sell tiny feeders - what ever it is that pygmys eat? that baby needs food soon!

 

[Kat77]

Yes, at least the PetSmarts by my house have fruitfly cultures. I hope you find some! Congrats, he is the CUTEST little thing! What an amazingly wonderful surprize!!!

 

[Cherron]

I sifted through the crickets for my other chameleons and picked out the littlest ones to give to him for now.. i haven't seen him eat yet.. i will have fruit flies but not until tuesday! What about ants? There are a million of them around there.. anyone ever try them for chams? Just the little light brown piss ants?

 

[Tygerr]

The chams probably won't eat the ants. They're very acidic. I guess they don't taste too good to them.

Also, I wouldn't want to purposely introduce ants to my chameleon enclosure - especially a pygmy one. The ants might end up carrying of your baby in the night!