unexpected cage babies!!

[reptoman]

Our Spock girl Ahura pulled one over on me. I never found her eggs after mating her with Sulu so I assumed it was unsuccessful, but I have the 2nd and 3rd clutch incubating now so that was the first wrong assumption. We started seeing these guys in her cage last night so I quickly removed Mom and put her in a different cage. The one pictured is number 3! I checked her cage and laying bin several times when I thought she might have laid 8 months ago but there were no obvious signs at the time and I thought there was no way she would have room to lay in her plant but I was wrong again. The ones that have hatched so far are really strong and bright eyed!

 

[biffle]

That's a cool suprise! I need one of those right now.

Jason

 

[jannb]

What a nice surprise. Congrats Brian!

 

[deadhd5]

Congrats! I love these stories, and it seems I have seen a lot of these lately... maybe because of the time of year.

Are there any breeders who just intentionally leave the eggs buried?

 

[pigglett79]

How cool. They are so cute

 

[reptoman]

Thanks everybody!

I don't know of any breeder who leaves the eggs buried intentionally. Its too easy to incubate them in a medium like vermiculite or hatchrite to get a 100% hatch rate and really no benefit to letting the babies dig themselves out of the dirt. If I had not see the first baby yesterday these guys might have become prey but I hope I noticed in time to save them all.

 

[Seiryu]

Congrats on the unexpected babies!

How deep did she lay them and did you dig around to find the other eggs?

 

[reptoman]

Congrats on the unexpected babies!

How deep did she lay them and did you dig around to find the other eggs?

Thanks!
The planter is all of 5-6 inches deep and packed with roots so could not have been very deep. I have not removed the plant at this point. I am concerned about crushing the babies that are hatching but I may pull it out and see what I can find later this evening. My curiosity will get the best of me

 

[drcrossfire]

Awesome surprise! I almost had a chameleon.pull a fast one on me too.. looked all oveer the cage.. couldn't find her. Searched the chameleon room... Still gone. Where was she? Half way down her potted plant! I was shocked... theres like no room!

But I wouldn't dig them up if I were you for another couple weeks. Getting down.in there could screw with the orientation off the eggs and suffocate any babies.

I would love to see photos of the hole the babies dig out though... I've always wondered how.something so small.can dig.it's way out of.somewhere deep!

 

[FSchams]

This is awesome congrats one the babies. I have a question. You must have gave the plant lots of water during the incubation right? So the water did not cause the eggs to mold or go bad. I always thought the eggs would go bad because of the water. But then again it rains in nature so the eggs do get wet. Guess i was just a bit stupid lol

 

[erik775]

That's awesome congrats on the babies

 

[laurie]

Brian you just have too much fun. Magic babies crawling out of the dirt! It doesn't get much better than that. Keep the pictures coming, congrats and let me know how many hatch. How will you ever know then they have all hatched?

 

[reptoman]

Brian you just have too much fun. Magic babies crawling out of the dirt! It doesn't get much better than that. Keep the pictures coming, congrats and let me know how many hatch. How will you ever know then they have all hatched?

Thanks Laurie! I will very carefully take the plant out to see what is left for eggs and hatchlings. I dont think I can take waiting to find out and think I can be careful enough to not hurt any.

The question about water, I guess the plant has good enough drainage to allow water to get to the plant but not sit in the dirt long enough to ruin the eggs. This is a first for me so guessing mostly but that makes sense to me.

I will update with detailed pics as I remove the plant to extract the babies/eggs.

Thanks for all the replies!

 

[Kiwiflage]

That's so exciting! Congratulations!

 

[ataraxia]

Congrats!

Im going through the same thing. I had a female sneak one on me too but my dilemma is if they are ambilobe or tamatave... Thats what i get for rotating them.

 

[reptoman]

Congrats!

Im going through the same thing. I had a female sneak one on me too but my dilemma is if they are ambilobe or tamatave... Thats what i get for rotating them.

Hey John, That is why I only do Ambilobe

See the pics for some detail. I have more in the facebook page album at the link. We have 16 still in the egg with 4 well pipped (faces sticking out) and 5 spent egg cases. That leaves 2 unaccounted for out of the 21 total. I hope they are still digging out in the dirt somewhere and I will see them in a day or 2 but I think its more likely they did not make it.

The first pic is the exit hole for Dan. It was cool that I was able to find that so easily. I had to fill more light on the photo to get it to show up better but it was obvious once I saw the orientation of the egg cluster under the hole.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/...073741839.291375457582672&type=1&l=a31357214c

 

[Rottsko]

very cool and congrats to the babies brian. it's amazing how these tiny babies can be so strong and dig themselves out.

 

[maxttu]

How awesome is this! Congrats and I hope you find many, many more healthy babies!!

 

[Kerrek]

Had this happen a couple months ago had 23 hatch out in the first few days and then a month later 6 more hatched out. Its a fun surprise but you just hope mom didn't eat any before you found them.

 

[little leaf]

that is such a neat thing to happen, wish I had one of those chameleon fruit plants thanks for posting the pics, there are really cool - cute little babies too