MeruJack
Avid Member
Wow, do I have babies! Thirteen days ago one of my Mt. Meru girls gave birth to 6 babies. Then, today, my sole jacksonii jacksonii female gave birth to 17 babies. Luckily, I had suspected that three of my females might be gravid so I read up on everything I could here on the forums regarding the care of Jackson's babies. I even planted three 12x12x18 inch terrariums in preparation. The third female that I thought was gravid recently "gave birth" to about 9 infertile "eggs." Like I said, I have been reading up on everything I can find regarding the care of Jackson's babies and have changed several aspects of my husbandry in order to obtain a higher survival rate than the expected 20%. I have decided to use glass enclosures (6 Meru in one and, since one female ended up not giving birth, I split the 17 jacksonii born today into the remaining 2 enclosures). I have decided to plant the enclosures in organic soil and cham-friendly plants. The Meru babies have a 25 watt bulb on for the first 5.5 hours of the day to bring up the heat after a nightly drop into the mid-60's. They have an older UVB light 12 hours a day. It usually stays between 72 & 76 degrees with humidity usually between 60 & 80%. I am also feeding them differently. One of the forum members wrote about putting a cup/colony of fruit flies in the baby enclosure each day so that the babies have access to food all day long. I have plenty of fruit fly and bean beetle colonies currently in bloom. Each day I choose a bean beetle colony, remove the lid and replace it with a second lid with a hole in it, stick a dowel in the hole and put the whole colony into the enclosure before I leave for work at 7:30 am. When I get home at 4:00, I remove the bean beetle colony which still has beetles trickling out and up the dowel. I water the enclosure and add a good helping of fruit flies for dinner. Lights go out at 6:30 pm. So far so good with the Meru babies. They started eating and drinking the first time I fed them which is an improvement over my old method for care. Then I came home from work today to find the jacksonii jacksonii babies. I have had the mom for about 6 weeks and knew that she was most likely gravid the minute she emerged from the box she was shipped in. She was black when I got home. I removed her from her enclosure until I had removed all the babies and sprayed her enclosure. I put her back in and added some crickets and she greened right up. Luckily, I have a three-day-weekend starting tomorrow so I can keep a close eye on them for a few days.
Merumontanus
Sibling rivalry already
Merumontanus
Merumontanus
Merumontanus
Jacksonii jacksonii
Jacksonii jacksonii
Jacksonii jacksonii
Jacksonii enclosures
Jacksonii jacksonii mom today
Merumontanus
Sibling rivalry already
Merumontanus
Merumontanus
Merumontanus
Jacksonii jacksonii
Jacksonii jacksonii
Jacksonii jacksonii
Jacksonii enclosures
Jacksonii jacksonii mom today
