Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey All,
This is my first time posting and I'm sorry that you guys haven't heard from me in the Cham forum sooner. I'm mostly a snake girl. A friend of mine has a pair of Veiled Chameleons and the female just laid some eggs yesturday. She put one of the laying buckets in there without really knowing to do so, just some common sense from her I guess. Anywho, the female has laid a clutch of eggs. She said it looked like she laid 20-30 eggs. I'm pretty sure that they are fertile, because she did see her mating with the male, but I haven't seen the eggs for myself. Now comes the hard part, incubation. How should she incubate these eggs? I was thinking of getting my friend a Hovabator incubator. Is this good for Veiled Cham eggs? If so, which kind of Hovabator, with the fan or still air? Any type of home made incubator I can help her rig up quickly? I'm sorry for this last minute post, but my friend or myself have no experience in actually breeding herps, even though I've kept a variety of herps over the years. I would like to give her some advice and see if she can actually hatch these out. Any info would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Cathy
-----
Cathy Hrusa
poetichusky@hotmail.

~My Ever-growing herp Collection~
1.0 Albino Green Burmese Python
0.1 Green Het for Albino Burmese Python
1.0 Het for Albino Ball Python
0.1 Bearded Dragon
0.0.3 Normal Leopard geckos
0.0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko
0.1 FL Cooter
1.0 Sunburst X Blue Veiled Chameleon

Hi Cathy - I'm sure that others will comment as well, but in the meantime check out this article. I do have to say I am curious about your friend's effort to mate them but not knowing what to do once the eggs were laid - not meant as a judgement.

lele
Eggs: laying to hatching

-----
0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 house geckos - Gaia & Tia (both MIA
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta
1.0 African Clawed Frog (for summer)
0.5 Mad. Hissers (for summer - all girls, no little ones, whew!)

Thanks for that awesome site Lele. Honestly, I didn't know that her Chameleon was gravid or that she even had the pair together till she mentioned the eggs. I had advised her to house them separately so that they wouldn't stress each other out or mate, but I guess she didn't heed my advice. Now that she has eggs, I want her to do right by them and try to incubate them properly.
-Cathy
-----
Cathy Hrusa
poetichusky@hotmail.

~My Ever-growing herp Collection~
1.0 Albino Green Burmese Python
0.1 Green Het for Albino Burmese Python
1.0 Het for Albino Ball Python
0.1 Bearded Dragon
0.0.3 Normal Leopard geckos
0.0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko
0.1 FL Cooter
1.0 Sunburst X Blue Veiled Chameleon

I don't think she was even trying to breed them, although keeping them housed together would make it inevitable I guess. She did keep them outside in the summertime, when it was nice and hot here. I'm thinking that the natural sunlight and environment triggered them to breed or at least helped it along. Any ideas on that? I don't have personal experience with breeding herps as I've said, so I could be wrong. But, I know that light cycles are important when breeding snakes. I dunno, just a thought on it. I would love to hear comments about it. Is it easy to breed Veileds? Also, I haven't been over her house to take a look at the eggs, so I don't know for sure how healthy they are, but she did lay a nice size clutch of almost 40 eggs, my friend said after all was said and done.
-Cathy
-----
Cathy Hrusa
poetichusky@hotmail.

~My Ever-growing herp Collection~
1.0 Albino Green Burmese Python
0.1 Green Het for Albino Burmese Python
1.0 Het for Albino Ball Python
0.1 Bearded Dragon
0.0.3 Normal Leopard geckos
0.0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko
0.1 FL Cooter
1.0 Sunburst X Blue Veiled Chameleon

Cathy,

Chams are great at hiding symptoms of ill health and they are very easily stressed. So even if she thinks the two of them together was OK - it is not. Now that the female is gravid she definitely needs to have them separated - the stress on the female could cause some real problems for her. I have never bred Luna (1.5 year old veiled) and don't plan to, she has laid two infertile clutches and one of the biggest concerns (fertile or not) is calcium intake. Take a look at Melisondra's post on this forum re: Aurora. it is likely her cham will need a c-section which is quite risky - and she did everything right.

What sort of setup are the chams in? Howlong has she had them and how old are they. Do you know what here feeding regimen is?

I could go on but I would urge you to urge your friend to come to the forum and post. This way we can see just what her setup is, food, temps, humidity, gutloading, feeders, supplementaion, general health, etc. - you get the picture. Is there a reason why she has not come to the forum herself? Does she have online access? Here are a couple more articles from Cham News. One on nutrition for the gravid female and and another or different incubation for diff species.

lele
cham news

-----
0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 house geckos - Gaia & Tia (both MIA
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta
1.0 African Clawed Frog (for summer)
0.5 Mad. Hissers (for summer - all girls, no little ones, whew!)