Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Cant type too long of a message, I'm busy supervising the introduction of my male henk to my two female henks... wish me (and them) luck!

Jared
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With great power, comes great responsibility.
-Ben Parker

Therehe goes getting all shakey... ok, well she's a big girl, hopefully she'll know what to do. finger crossed
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With great power, comes great responsibility.
-Ben Parker

didn't go well again. He is still way too anxious to mate, and the girls... not so much. Sound like the human world at all? lol! So I put him back in solitary confinement and accepted that I may need to wait a few more months.

Anyway, this leads me to question my methods. Is this just normal? I mean, should I just let him chase around the girls until they give in or he gives up? Or can that be dangerous? He seems awfully determined, and even violent (the tail twitching and charging is a littel freaky when done by a normaly very calm lizard) Or should I do as I have, and seperate him, and let the girls grow up more (they are now just under a year) before reintroduction? Or maybe even intrordoduce him in sessions, slowley acclimating them to eachother presence? i just feel bad for him, he must be so "pent-up" if you know what I mean.

Any ideas would help.

Jared
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With great power, comes great responsibility.
-Ben Parker

i would continue to wait. you dont want to breed your girls too early. its tough waiting it out, but much better in the long run. also, if you havent already, try to put their enclosures side by side so they see one another, hopefully that will help the male from becoming overly anxious the next time you reintroduce.
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-Mike Martin
North Carolina

FALLS ASLEEP, the female could resume the FUN, but Males run out of steam, So THERE !

I hope your females will be more receptive in a couple more months. They will be a bit older.
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PHEve / Eve

Contact PHEve

Age is really not as much of a concern as weight is... I would not breed a female unless she is at least 50 grams and that's on the low end... usually my breeding females are between 60 and 70 grams... even having one top out at 90 grams (maybe the first documented case of Uroplatus obesity)... haha
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Ben

I'll hold off reintroduction untill they get up into that safe breeding weight Ben pointed out (thanks man, your girl is the wildest huntyer ever, LOL!... She takes 1' dives regularly... and never misses!)... Right... weighing them...ooops, haven't done that since I got them. I really need to start takin better records in general. I know it helps catch trends I might miss otherwise, and that can save an animal's life. So, what do you guys regularly record, and how often do you weigh/meassure?

Thanks for all the advice again!

Jared
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With great power, comes great responsibility.
-Ben Parker

yeah my one breeder female died last week. she was having a hard time for about two months. all of a sudden she went down hill in like a couple days. she was egg bound and her large intestines were all blocked up with female cricket ovipositors. her liver seemed pretty fatty(it had white patches on it)and the eggs inside were fertile. i have a bunch of pics of it but i wont be able to get them on the comp any time soon. My point was that i think that these leaftails might be like chameleons with their egg developement. i know that with the veiled chameleons, if you feed them[females] a whole lot while they are developing their eggs, they will produce more than the average amount of eggs but each egg will be smaller(which can be good or bad,depending on your motives). the downside of the above average egg production is that the female[chameleon] will get burnt out and die after only a couple of clutches and the babies that hatch will be a whole lot smaller. i had my female henkels for about 2.5 years and she was 9.75in with a short tail when she died. She layed a couple duds and a couple fertile eggs the first year i had her. but going into the second breeding season[in my posession] i fattened her up and she was real dense and heavy, about 1.75 times heavier than my 9.75in male. her first egg was huge and the second one was retained and reabsorbed into the body. she laid the shell and it came out elongated like the one that "eve" posted a pic of. she layed a few eggs since then but she never really came around back to normal since she started laying this year. i dont know but i think that i fattend her up too much coming into this breeding season. im not sure if any of you other guys have seen this in your animals, or maybe it was just my female. i ll get those pics on her as soon as i make a trip to raleigh.