Big Surprise!

On May 12th I found a pair of very young quad quads looking as if they were thinking about breeding. Based on comments by experienced quad breeders, I did't expect them to breed for another six to ten months mnimum. Picture in the link below.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/what-heck-going-here-140921/

On May 23rd and 24th I found them breeding. Picture in link below.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/he-old-enough-141131/

I didn't expect eggs until mid July at the earliest. The female has been very restless for a few days so I gave her a laying bin covering the whole bottom of her cage. She was driving me crazy climbing on the screen trying to get out of her cage. With dogs, especially first-time mothers, they will often refuse to go in their whelping box when they are in pre labor.

This afternoon she laid 12 eggs. Twelve beautiful eggs.

Was I shocked. I felt a few eggs, but I would never have guessed 12. I'm used to palpating for puppies, so was really shocked. She just wasn't big at all. To be honest, I expected four or five max. Twelve!

Told you!

junglefries said:

Told you!

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I know, but 12 eggs? That is a huge number and they are not little eggs either. I just can't believe she could have hid them away from me so well.

The other thing is that they were laid only 5 weeks after I first witnessed breeding. I wasn't expecting eggs for a few weeks, thinking it took 8 weeks based on Tylene's blogs about it. Ten days before the first breeding I witnessed, I found them together looking as if they were about to breed or had just finished breeding. I guess they bred a lot earlier and for a lot more days than I thought.

Now I can only hope they are fertile. They look really good, nothing like the last batch (new import's second clutch from retained sperm) that has pretty much all gone bad.

My gracilior is still accepting the male as of yesterday, her ninth day of breeding. I had thought that they would only breed for a couple of days before the females start refusing. Obviously that's not the case, or not the case in my limited experience with two females.

Awesome! Maybe they bred before you thought they did! Good luck incubating

Chase

Congrats! Looking good from here.

I found it interesting that the two eggs on the bottom right in the picture were still attached by a 1.5" cord when I dug them up. It was quite tough, and if I had tried to break it I am sure I would have damaged the eggs. I cut them apart after I took that picture.

You are a grandma in the making!

Nick

jajeanpierre said:

I found it interesting that the two eggs on the bottom right in the picture were still attached by a 1.5" cord when I dug them up. It was quite tough, and if I had tried to break it I am sure I would have damaged the eggs. I cut them apart after I took that picture.

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Did you make sure the "cord" wasn't a sleeve that the eggs were in that may need to be removed? If it is a sleeve, there may have been a prolapse of sorts and possibly cause damage to her reproductive tract.

Fertile vs infertile: don't throw away until they have sunken in and molded. You will know without a doubt at that point, whether or not some are bad. They sink in and get all fuzzy wuzzy. Per mating, I have seen some males take 5 min vs 2-4 hours. I usually aim a camera and watch for the 'hookup' from another room, just to be sure.

GCash said:

Did you make sure the "cord" wasn't a sleeve that the eggs were in that may need to be removed? If it is a sleeve, there may have been a prolapse of sorts and possibly cause damage to her reproductive tract.

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No, they were buried and she was back up eating. When I dug them up they were attached to each other by a short thin cord, about the size of dental floss. They weren't attached to the mama.

junglefries said:

Fertile vs infertile: don't throw away until they have sunken in and molded. You will know without a doubt at that point, whether or not some are bad. They sink in and get all fuzzy wuzzy. Per mating, I have seen some males take 5 min vs 2-4 hours. I usually aim a camera and watch for the 'hookup' from another room, just to be sure.

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How many days are they receptive for? My gracilior has bred every day for now 10 days. I had just thought a couple of days, but that is based on reading comments about panthers breeding and these aren't panthers.

jajeanpierre said:

No, they were buried and she was back up eating. When I dug them up they were attached to each other by a short thin cord, about the size of dental floss. They weren't attached to the mama.

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Being unfortunate enough to have had to harvest eggs post mortem, I've seen the tract the eggs traverse the abdominal cavity through and am amazed at how thin the membrane actually is. It's not hard to see how things could easily get twisted and bound up. The membrane is completely transparent with no visible vascularization and so thin you wouldn't know it was there if it weren't for the eggs being connected. Much like you described. If its not this membrane, I'm curious what the material connecting the eggs actually is. Did it look like shell? Either way, I'd keep palpitations to a minimum just to be on the safe side. Good luck with everything.

GCash said:

Being unfortunate enough to have had to harvest eggs post mortem, I've seen the tract the eggs traverse the abdominal cavity through and am amazed at how thin the membrane actually is. It's not hard to see how things could easily get twisted and bound up. The membrane is completely transparent with no visible vascularization and so thin you wouldn't know it was there if it weren't for the eggs being connected. Much like you described. If its not this membrane, I'm curious what the material connecting the eggs actually is. Did it look like shell? Either way, I'd keep palpitations to a minimum just to be on the safe side. Good luck with everything.

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Below is a picture taken this morning of the two eggs that were attached together. The eggs were cut apart with scissors but the cord was not shortened and I just left it on the eggs. I originally put them in the vermiculite attached, which is why they were closer together than the other eggs.

When I picked up the first of this pair of eggs from the laying bin, the other came along. The cord was strong enough to hold the weight of the second egg. It is bigger than a hair, but definitely not as big as my description of dental floss unless it was a lot bigger because it wasn't dessicated as it is this morning.

Maybe all eggs are attached together like this to help them move through the reproductive tract and the cord is normally broken during/after laying. In bird eggs, there is a cord between the yolk and the outer membranes to keep the yolk suspended in the egg. I wonder if this is related. Even though birds lay a clutch of eggs, they make each egg and lay it before making the next.

Please let me know if you think this is something I should worry about. If I remember correctly, these two eggs were laid early to middle of the clutch based on where they were when I dug them up.

I can get a better picture of the attachment if you are interested. My phone didn't like white egg/black background. I just don't like mucking around with the eggs.

I don't think there's anything to worry about by the looks of it and on closer inspection, looks vaguely familiar. Maybe I have seen something like that back when I first worked with chameleons. I'd just file it away and not worry about it unless the female has future reproductive complications. As always, good luck!

jajeanpierre said:

How many days are they receptive for? My gracilior has bred every day for now 10 days. I had just thought a couple of days, but that is based on reading comments about panthers breeding and these aren't panthers.

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I assume yours are montane. From jax, I have seen them go for 7-10 days. My panther and veils usually 3-4 days of receptiveness. Virgin females are up to 7-10 days of receptiveness.

junglefries said:

I assume yours are montane. From jax, I have seen them go for 7-10 days. My panther and veils usually 3-4 days of receptiveness. Virgin females are up to 7-10 days of receptiveness.

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Yes, the quads are a montane species from the Cameroon. I have both the nominate species Trioceros quadricornis quadricornis and the sub species T. q. gracilior.

I know this is the 11th day in a row my gracilior pair have bred.

The eggs that were just laid were quad quad eggs. I witnessed breeding May 23 and 24. Eggs laid June 27. My understanding is that it takes about two months from breeding to egg laying. I just wasn't expecting eggs before July 12th, two months after my earliest observation of anything that looked like breeding behavior. On May 12th I observed the male on top of the female in what looked like either pre or post breeding posturing.

I believe that two months from breeding to laying is somewhat of an accepted time frame from the quad breeders. If that time frame is correct, my virgin pair were breeding for almost a month.

If the eggs are not fertile, I don't think you can use my time lines as anything other than an anomaly.