Update thread for ChamBust/SpartyTessy's newborn Jacksons!

[SpartyTessy]

I am so glad to see this website. I just purchased a female jackson chameleon. I was told after I signed that she is pregnant. I have no idea how to house these babies when they come. My first jackson was very friendly, loved attention, didn't like to be misted so she would come up to the spray bottle open her mouth for me to spray it in her mouth, she would walk right into your hand if u were just arranging things in her cage. This jackson seems to not care much for handling. I have only had her a week (I don't believe she had been hand held). She has become some what better with touch. Could this be because she is pregnant? Also my other chame was always so lime green this one is never lime. She is a darker bland green is this because she is pregnant?
My question is how do I set up a cage for babies and do I get them out of cage as soon as they are born? I have researched some about feeding them flightless fruit flies and then when they are bigger move up to small crickets. I am worried about how to take care of them and how am I going to get rid of however many babies I have.
I will keep one so I can raise it from birth but the rest I will have to give away or sell.

Welcome to soon to be fatherhood. In adition to the info in this thread check out the one I created when she first started having babies. https://www.chameleonforums.com/tessy-female-jackson-having-babies-pics-88550/

It will have some info in there for you. You are on the right track trying to get everything setup before hand because trust me you will be glad the more prepared you are. There are some threads on here in creating baby bins for the youngins. you will want to make sure all of the temps are right before housing them. You will want to separate them right away after she gives birth. I housed them in a 12x18x18 cage and that is plenty of space for the 10 for now. I will give you some quick pointers

1. Make sure basking temp is no more than 80 and then 70's throughout the rest of the cage. Make sure and have a UVB light but no basking light is needed yet. It is ok for the night time temp to drop into the 60's.

2. Figure out something for the amount of water they are going to need with mistings. It is best to have a misting system and I mist mine for 10 minutes every 2 hours. Also make sure you have a dripper giving water all day. They dehydrate easily so this is VERY important.

3. You are going to need a TON of feeders. Each one will be eating 15 to 20 pinheads a day so you could easily go through thousands of feeders each week. Your best bet which is what I do is start your own cricket colony which is very easy to do. This way you always have the amount of appropriate sized feeders at all times. If not you will be spending a ton of $$ and going to the pet store every other day just for feeders.

4. Make sure the cage that half of it gets misted and half stays dry. This is how mine is setup and they really like it. This way you can setup your feeder cups on the dry side of the cage so the feeders do not drown as they drown at the tiniest drop of water. It is best to get a live plant in the cage. That a long with a good amount of sticks for them to climb on so they do not walk all over eachother. Plus a live plant will help with humidity. You will want the humidity to remain between 70 to 90 RH. Again make sure to get an accurate reading of the temps and RH levels.

5. you will want to free range some of the feeders and also have some in the feeder cups. I started off mine with tiny pinhead crickets. Some of mine will only feed on the crickets that are free ranging ignoring the ones in the cups. You want to make sure that all get a chance to feed so you will need to closely monitor them. Some will try and hog all the food so you may want to separate out some during feeding time. if not then they may starve very quickly and by the time you notice some are not eating it may be too late.

Most of this info I have provided is in my other thread I started and provided a link for.

Oh and as far as the color when they are not stressed they should remain a green color. If they are showing darker colors like black and brown then most likely she is stressed. She can be stressed for a number of reasons but most common is temperature and humidity is not right but can be a number of things.

 

[ChamBust]

I am so glad to see this website. I just purchased a female jackson chameleon. I was told after I signed that she is pregnant. I have no idea how to house these babies when they come. My first jackson was very friendly, loved attention, didn't like to be misted so she would come up to the spray bottle open her mouth for me to spray it in her mouth, she would walk right into your hand if u were just arranging things in her cage. This jackson seems to not care much for handling. I have only had her a week (I don't believe she had been hand held). She has become some what better with touch. Could this be because she is pregnant? Also my other chame was always so lime green this one is never lime. She is a darker bland green is this because she is pregnant?
My question is how do I set up a cage for babies and do I get them out of cage as soon as they are born? I have researched some about feeding them flightless fruit flies and then when they are bigger move up to small crickets. I am worried about how to take care of them and how am I going to get rid of however many babies I have.
I will keep one so I can raise it from birth but the rest I will have to give away or sell.

Welcome to the forums...and congrats on your soon to be chameleon fatherhood. Your anxieties are normal and natural. Give her some time to adjust to her habitat...at least a month, if not two. My girl Kiwi took a while to come around. At first, she was always stressed and scared. Within a couple of months, she settled in quite nicely, and is currently healthy and thriving.

Since yours is pregnant, she will be a little more stressed/on edge than other female chams. Fergie was pretty antisocial/unfriendly in the weeks leading up to her birth...figured she was about ready to pop, so gave her all the space she needed. She would stay in the exact same spot all day, prob cuz it was uncomfortable to move (keep in mind she gave birth to 21 babies!) After she gave birth, she was back to normal...now she's back to her active, mobile ways.

For starters, try to get a cricket colony going...even if u think she's still a few months off (SpartyTessy knows a thing or two about that). Also, get a mealworm colony going asap (they're the easiest).

Other than that, use the forums to your utmost advantage! Looking forward to seeing you around

 

[ChamBust]

The babies are exactly 4 weeks old today! Still going 16 strong...haven't lost one in at least a week, possibly due to some adjustments I've made that I wanted to list:

-Less sun, more shade. We leave them in the sun until around 9 or 10am, them move them to the patio for the majority of the day where it's a lot cooler. I believe one or two of them couldn't handle the heat, plus it's the dead middle of the summer here.
-New drip system. We modified it to slowly drip on one side, and constantly stream on the other. In hindsight, misting 3-4x/day wasn't entirely effective because most of the time, they drink by licking the vines/leaves. With this new system, they almost always have access to water (I believe a couple may have died due to dehydration)
-Free ranging the pinheads. I have some in a cup, then I throw some into the plant/dirt, then spread a few more throughout the cage. The cup alone does not get all of their attention, so I've noticed this to be more effective.

I guess that's it. But yeah, not really worried about the 'sweet 16' that's still left. A couple of them are a bit on the smaller side, but I saw them both eat today, plus they're still energetic, wandering around, etc. I would be very surprised if any more died at this point, but I guess you just never know.

 

[tverbos]

Can any of you help me on how to put pics up so maybe one of you or both can tell me if Camille is truly pregnant.

 

[ChamBust]

Can any of you help me on how to put pics up so maybe one of you or both can tell me if Camille is truly pregnant.

I'll send you some instructions to your inbox

 

[ChamBust]

Babies are officially 5 weeks old...unfortunately, we lost another one. Woke up to find a half eaten baby (ants) so wasn't sure if it passed overnight to get hit by the ants early in the AM or what. I do know that most, if not all of the babies looked fine the day before. All were awake, actively moving, healthy...not sure what to say at this point. I have so much going on at the moment. These babies weren't meant to be...when we adopted "Fergie" in the first place, we were doing a friend a favor.

Now we're at the point of getting rid of most of our chams due to the rising cost of upkeep and maintenance. We have 4 adults and 15 babies, and at the moment I'm not even sure if we can keep any. I'm thinking we can get a colony of crix going but it's so much time and effort that will coincide with everything that we currently have going. We never thought raising chams would be so much work! We've had them for over a year but I think just one chameleon would be about right for us. That way, we can give it the time and energy it deserves. I love the little guys to death but it's just one of those choices that need to be made.