103 Eggs for Christmas!!

[Miss Lily]

Lily spent the last few days digging and this afternoon she came back up to the branches so I checked where she had been digging.

I couldn't believe it when I counted 103 eggs!! This seems to be way too many! Poor little girl - she only looked 'eggy' for the last few days and she didn't get really big and lumpy looking either! I am amazed that she had that many eggs in her!

I know that this is probably too many for her to be laying, but I was wondering if there is an average clutch size?

Lily is a veiled chameleon about 14 months old and it was her first clutch. She wasn't mated either.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Tiff

 

[Ryan Jarosek]

Whoa, get your credit card ready or start saving now. I just had a panther lay 45 and two months earlier lay 41. Huge for a panther.

That is way to big of a clutch. You can reduce the size by reducing the amount of food she intakes.

How much are you feeding her now?


Edit : Never mind about the money I see you said the clutch was infertile.

 

[Miss Lily]

Thanks for the reply! It has been a struggle to get her to eat anything for a while - in fact she didn't eat anything at all for almost 2 weeks about a month ago. It suddenly got cold here in the UK and I realised that she wasn't warm enough so I raised the temps. She only ate minimally then for a few days and then stopped again in the last week.

She didn't look enormous to me so I am just so shocked that she laid this many!! She's not a very greedy girl either - she won't even eat a waxworm if she's in her 'not eating' mood, so I don't think that she was particularly overfed anyway.

 

[SSimsswiSS]

First clutches can be bigger, it seems.

That has to be a record! Triple dig-it

I had 2 year old veil lay her first clutch @ 82 eggs. She was a big girl ( as big as most males ) and laid them with ease. Her second batch of eggs laid at 3 years old was a more reasonable 48. And this last fall she laid for a third time at four years old a total of 30 eggs. Like clock work, I can always count on her to lay annually between Oct. 15 and November 15th.

 

[RachelRiot]

Stupid question here but how often do they lay? Is it only once per year? I also have a female veiled.

 

[tryme]

wooooooooooah thats all I can say.

 

[BocaJan]

You should limit their food and keep their temps a bit on the low side. I have read from someone here that doing that can prevent them from becoming gravid with infertile eggs. That said, I don't know how often they will become gravid if kept warm and fed a lot. I haven't had a female lay infertile eggs yet and I try to keep my daily temps under 75 and nights about 68. I keep my basking bulbs about 8 inches from the top of the cage and the temp there is about 85. Enough to warm them but hopefully not to clutch infertiles. Just my 2 cents.

 

[boothy]

on another forum i read that 105 eggs have been layed by a single adult female veiled chameleon and 95 or 97 of those eggs hatched and survived to adult hood so thats a hefty clutch if you ask me, its on repticzone , Jonas77 is the one who bred and hatched the babies but still i hear you 103 is alot and takes alot from your female , i would be feeding tonnes of crickets and a good wack of calcium to up her levels and like Ryan said start feeding less like 6 or 8 crickets a day with say sundays off and lower her temps to this also helps in decreasing the amount of eggs made by a female and she should lay a smaller clutch next time

 

[SoCaliSon]

Holy Cow!!! Time to spoil that girl... She must be pooped!

 

[SSimsswiSS]

Stupid question here but how often do they lay? Is it only once per year? I also have a female veiled.

Each female is different. I've had a girl lay every 3 months, and she looked like she laid every 3 months at the end of the year "wore out". Lots of thing come into play. Mating, temps, lighting, food, etc. If kept indoors, and in their prime, I'd say 2 times a year would be the average. Most of my Veil girls live outdoors and have a annual deposit.

 

[boothy]

sorry forgot , female veiled chameleons can lay a clutch of eggs anywheres from 80-120 days apart and lay 20-100 eggs 40-60 is the average for a female veiled , there populators of there species thats there job to make as many babies as possible , when i first started out breeding my female veiled she layed 3 clutches the first yr and then 3 clutches the next yr and then 4 clutches the yr after so its possible they could have 3 or 4 clutches in one yr who knows maybe 5 its a possibility

 

[Miss Lily]

Lily Update

Lily is back to her normal happy self today - all she wanted to do was be out to sit on any shoulder that she could find!! She's such a sweetie!

I was expecting her to look really dehydrated after laying but she actually looks fine - just thinner with a bit of a saggy belly!! I guess that will shrink back in time. She certainly feels lighter today. She's eating again and drinking too so that's encouraging!

I saw her bum down in the hole on the 23rd and she finished filling in and came up at about half ten that night. Yesterday morning she was back down digging again before I had chance to dig up the eggs! I guess she could smell them and thought she had to bury them more! She only started behaving normally again after I removed them.

I could have done without the extra stress at Christmas!! They sure pick their moments!! Love Lily to bits though and can relax and enjoy her again now that its all over!

I was extra worried as Lily is my first chameleon and it was her first clutch, so I didn't know what to expect!! I certainly didn't expect 103 eggs!!

 

[jannb]

Hello!
Check out this blog under the Raising a female veiled section. It has some great info on how to keep her from making clutches of eggs at all. I have been using this method with my female and so far it works. Jann
http://raisingkittytheveiledchameleon.blogspot.com/

 

[summoner12]

sorry forgot , female veiled chameleons can lay a clutch of eggs anywheres from 80-120 days apart and lay 20-100 eggs 40-60 is the average for a female veiled , there populators of there species thats there job to make as many babies as possible , when i first started out breeding my female veiled she layed 3 clutches the first yr and then 3 clutches the next yr and then 4 clutches the yr after so its possible they could have 3 or 4 clutches in one yr who knows maybe 5 its a possibility

Cycling a female that many times a year will ensure a short life span. You shouldn't encourage this.

 

[Miss Lily]

Found another egg!

Lily actually laid 104! I found another shrivelled up egg when I emptied her laying box at the weekend. I've refilled it and put it back in her cage, ready for round 2!!