Reptile & Amphibian Forums

If you dont remember my previous posts here is the "short and sweet" version.

Yoko mated New Years Eve (dec 31 '05) and i marked day 30 (jan. 30 '06) on my calendar for the month to be on egg look-out. she never laid, but continued to eat, drink and act like normal. i never removed the egg laying chamber...just in case....i was begining to think either she was a dud or the male was "shooting blanks" HA.

Well for the past two nights she was down in the egg chamber digging away! And today she finished and i dug up 45 eggs! are these fertile eggs? (they are big and white) even if she laid them 18 days past the 30 day mark? is this normal for some females to be late?

also, i noticed some of the eggs have yellowish/orangeish spots or blemishes on them. what does this mean? and 5 of the eggs are really teeny teeny with a paper-thin "shell". moving them i thought they would break in my hand. are these infertile ones?

also, can i dust a layer of athletes foot powder over all of them for preventative measure? or only if mold develops? thanks.

Ray

I guess I should have looked at this message first. Some of the eggs may not be good. Keep the ones that look good together and put the ones with the orange spots and thin shells further away from them because they will probably mold. The ones with the thin shells are probably not good. A viable egg has a bright white sheen to it from calcium which strengthens the shell. I would not put the Althelte's foot powder on until they mold. Two months is a long time for her to hold the eggs but not abnormal. It really depends upon your girl. One Veiled girl that I had usually went 2 to 2 1/2 months from the time she mated. She would go down in the egg laying chamber and toss some dirt around then go away and not come back for another two weeks, only to repeat the process. Once I saw her sitting one the edge of the egg laying chamber looking like a bag of marbles I knew she was close but she could still stretch it out another two weeks. Just make sure the digging substrate is ready for her once she is finally ready.

I'd forgotten that she hadn't laid the eggs yet. I'm glad that she finally did!

45 eggs is quite a lot. I'm happy when mine lay about 2 dozen.

The tiny ones you mentioned likely aren't...but I would leave them in the incubator until you are sure anyway.

Laying the eggs late wouldn't likely be a reason for them to be infertile...it would more likely be the timing of the mating relative to where she was in her egg-producing cycle. Not all veileds lay the eggs at the exact mark of 30 days. I have known of lots that are later and earlier than that.

Not sure what to make of the yellowish/orangeish spots or blemishes on them...but I expect that they are not good. Again, I would keep incubating them until I was sure.

I wouldn't dust the eggs as a preventative measure for fungus. (Remember the old saying....you don't fix what "ain't" broken?)

I hope that some of these will hatch for you...after all the waiting you have been through....of course you aren't done waiting yet! Its a long wait for most chameleon eggs to hatch!
Good luck!