2 day old Jackson's with Chipped beak

[Reddogzz]

Olivine, my female Jackson's Chamelon just gave birth to 14 little ones! I noticed today that one of them has a chip missing off the tip of its beak/mouth. I can see the tip of its tongue though the chip. It is already catching food and drinking water, but I can't help but feel bad for it.

Will having a chip off its mouth missing make it more susceptible to URI's and other issues? If so what can be done?

I don't want to become too attached to the little one if its chance for survival is really low.

 

[junglefries]

Jacksons babies have been known to have some birth defects. It seems to rather be common. It is a dilemma for you to decide for yourself. Others have made their choices, live or die. Users will offer their advice and experiences, but ultimately you will have to decide. Is it serious enough to prevent it from suffering is what you have to ask yourself. I myself have had to do the unthinkable. Carlc is going thru it himself right now as we speak also. Good luck. Either choice is correct. You are human.

 

[Lovereps]

If that is his only problem, then he may be fine, perhaps with the need for a little extra water to keep the mouth moist.
It might be best for him to be raised in his own enclosure, though.
Here's how I raised my Jackson's xanths, if you are interested:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/help-128467/index3.html

As mentioned in the link, Josh's Frogs has excellent Hydei cultures, if you're looking for a good source.

Wishing you much success with your tiny new little eating machines!

 

[CarlC]

Congratulations on the new little ones! I have 21 jacksonii that were born last month. They are fun little eating and pooping machines!

I have the same issue but with a different species, Trioceros werneri. I've made the decision to put the deformed babies down. If werneri was an easier species to keep I would probably raise the babies as normal and just give them away as pets.

My goal with werneri is not to produce pets but to produce captive born animals that can be put into the hands of other capable keepers to help establish a viable captive population. Putting animals with known defects into a breeding program is wrong and just makes things harder down the road for myself and others.

Only you can make the decision on how to proceed.

Carl

 

[Reddogzz]

UPDATE: We are going to see if "chip" can survive I don't think it was a birth defect... If I was to hazard a guess I would say he fell from the top of the enclosure when he was born, because I found a matching dark chip at the bottom of the mother's enclosure. He seems to be the most active of the 14 and looks healthy aside from the chip. If he continues to do well, I will avoid mating him, just in case.

FYI this was totally an unexpected clutch/litter
We were going to mate Cpt. Jack Sparrow (male) to Olivine (female) but I wanted to wait until she was 6-9 months old before introducing them. Apparently she had already been busy before we got her. As soon as we found out, we separated her from the young immediately.

This is my first time raising young, but they are all alive so far. This is a summary of my setup:

For the enclosure, we have styrofoam with bamboo skewers inter-connecting like branches all set inside a clear plastic tub.

For food we bought 100 pinhead crickets, because I can't find anyone that sells fruit flies locally. The young chams have been catching the crickets and only 20 or so are left. I tried putting some honeydew melon and pineapple on the skewers to attract flies, but I have not had any luck. I don't like the idea of having to use crickets because they can bite during the night.

For water we are misting them with a fine mist 4-5 times daily, and using a syringe with a half drops of water at the end for each chameleon 3 times per day. They all seem to be drinking water this way which is lucky because we know that they are drinking.

Natural temp (same as in their enclosure) is 78-86 F
Natural humidity here is already 70-90%.
I am using a UVB bulb + natural sunlight from the window

Questions:

Any suggestions on catching fruit flies?

At what age should I separate the young from each other?

I just bought a Zoo Med Reptibreeze Terrarium 16x16x30, can I eventually put all the females together in that, and just separate the males into individual habitats or do I have to separate all 14?


As a side note that should make a few people laugh, if our male, Cpt. Jack Sparrow is put into one of the open air enclosures, he will lift the door with his tail or horns+hands, climb down some cloth chairs until he gets to the carpet, then he always makes a bee-line straight the bedroom where we had to set up a separate drip system and wall nets next to an Ethernet cable that he claims as his own. At first I was worried about him leaving poops, but he always goes in the same place off the side of the Ethernet cable onto a square of newspaper. I tried to make his enclosure more nature-like but no matter what I do, he loves being free in the bedroom to climb around. It has been like this for an entire year now, he hates all enclosures. He also prefers drinking from the shower (which is annoying) to the natural looking plant dripper.

 

[junglefries]

Operation Smile
Sounds like all is turning out for the better. The trick will be for him to adjust his aim with the tongue. My Nosy Be lost temporary use of his during shipping, but decided he liked manually hunting once he regained use of it.

 

[Reddogzz]

Day 10, the one with the chip had an white bump a few days back (likely an abscess) it came right off without any reaction from the chameleon. It seems to be fine so far.

One of them came down with an eye infection that got out of control really fast. We have been giving them drops of water individually (and misting) so we get a good look at each one three times per day at least. So this one's eye went from looking normal to swollen shut within 4 hours (it was possible it was infected but still looked normal I suppose... its hard to tell when they are so small). Tried to use a tiny syringe to flush the eye with water, making sure not to blocking its breathing, but since it was swollen shut it didn't help. It died 30 min later.

Another has a broken leg, we will have to see if it can heal naturally. I have separated it into a different enclosure from the others. I will try hand feeding it or using carnivore care, because I don't want it to get hurt further by trying to catch feeder bugs. Since there were 14 little ones, the broken leg probably happened from another one knocking it off a branch. I will keep you guys updated on how this plays out.

What is the survival rate on newborn jackson's, 90%? 70%?

 

[Lovereps]

Success rate depends on the health of the mother during her time being gravid and then on the care they get . It can be as low a zero or as high as 100%.

As I'm sure you've seen, baby chams housed together constantly step on one another indiscriminately.
This is why they are best raised individually but most people don't do that.
A good alternative is to divide the chams into 2 (or more) enclosures, which will minimize the number of times each gets stepped on.
It also decreases the number of chams that each is competing against to get the food.
Little grippy toes--and their very pointy toenails--go directly onto delicate eyes.
This can result in eye irritations and infections.
Sorry to say but in trying to help the one with the eye problem you may have accidentally drowned him.
The eye socket has a connection to the sinuses and the nostril is a fraction of an inch away from the eye.
Flushing the eye with plain water will not combat germs to prevent infection.
At the first sign of any eye trouble, while my Jackson's babies were housed together, I would saturate a Q-Tip with http://m.cvs.com/mt/www.cvs.com/shop...jtt_v_menu=exp
OR have also used this one by Bausch and Lomb
This Bausch and Lomb solution is made with the same ingredients called Sensitive Eyes Plus http://m.cvs.com/mt/www.cvs.com/search/_/N-0?pt=global&searchTerm=Sensitive+Eyes+Plus&un_form_encoding=utf-8&un_jtt_searchCVS.x=19&un_jtt_searchCVS.y=10
and very gently touch it to the eye.
The reason to use either of these is that their ingredients do not irritate the eyes, which some preservatives in other solutions do.

 

[Djturna4thakidz]

Don't you think 6-9 months is early to introduce them?

 

[Lovereps]

Don't you think 6-9 months is early to introduce them?

I completely agree.

For the health of the mother and the health of the babies she will bear, you should hold off breeding until the female is a year or older.

 

[Djturna4thakidz]

I totally agree!

 

[Reddogzz]

The mother was 4 months old and pregnant when I bought her from the store

:-/

 

[Lovereps]

We were going to mate Cpt. Jack Sparrow (male) to Olivine (female) but I wanted to wait until she was 6-9 months old before introducing them. Apparently she had already been busy before we got her. As soon as we found out, we separated her from the young immediately. [/ QUOTE]

No one is blaming you for her current condition.

What Djturna4thakidz said was the result of the comment of yours above, indicating that you thought 6-9 months is old enough to breed.
It is better for both babies and mother if you hold off until she is at least 1 year old.

 

[Reddogzz]

Oh, I see, so a year is best then?

 

[Lovereps]

Yes.

Because the mother will have done most of her own growing after a year, she can produce strong, healthy babies and she can stay healthy herself.

Since you like Jackson's , you might find this article by Kent Manchen interesting http://www.chameleonnews.com/10JulManchen.html