33 apparently non-viable eggs...

[Julirs]

Carla-my Veiled female laid 78 eggs on 10/23(70 are viable and look fantastic!). Tonight she laid what I thought would be a retained sperm clutch, however all 33 eggs seem very soft, mis-shapen, and small. My guess is that they are all not viable. I put them all in incubation just in case. I feel bad the poor girl went through all that work for nothing.

 

[kinyonga]

Congrats on the eggs!

That's typical of retained sperm clutches.

You might want to control her diet so she doesn't lay such large clutches....its supposed to be hard on them/wear them out sooner.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Our female veiled laid 48 eggs on 10/15 and 58 eggs on 12/29. I want to try the lower temperature/less food program on her, Kinyonga. She's a big girl, though, and I'm not certain how much food would be appropriate. Right now she eats about 3 medium silkworms and 3 crickets.

I don't want to hijack Julirs thread, though, so I will post separately.

 

[Julirs]

Our female veiled laid 48 eggs on 10/15 and 58 eggs on 12/29. I want to try the lower temperature/less food program on her, Kinyonga. She's a big girl, though, and I'm not certain how much food would be appropriate. Right now she eats about 3 medium silkworms and 3 crickets.

I don't want to hijack Julirs thread, though, so I will post separately.

I'm glad you hijacked-I was going to ask the same question!

 

[Chase]

I'm glad you hijacked-I was going to ask the same question!

Those are big clutches. My Bearded dragon layed 1 clutch with 32 eggs. All were infertile.

 

[kinyonga]

Starting right after they lay a clutch is the best time to start to control the clutch size because you know where she is in her cycle.

I feed the female well for a couple of days after she lays the eggs....and water her well too, of course! I then cut back on the food a bit (I would try between half and 2/3rds to lower the clutch size)...and a couple of days after that I cut the temperature down as indicated. You don't want to starve her...just don't over feed her. This should slow the clutch size down.

Now, since yours were mated, I would expect another fertile clutch or partially fertile clutch from retained sperm. You will have to decide if you want more babies or if you want to give her a rest. If you don't mate her again when she is receptive again, then you will likely get a clutch that has some fertile eggs. If you mate her the next clutch will, of course, likely be all fertile eggs.

Now...once she is working on this second clutch, I start to feed them more again because the number of eggs should be set then and she will need the nutrients to keep herself and the eggs healthy. I also put the temperature back up.

To stop her from laying eggs completely, you will need to cut her food further than you would to just lower the clutch size. I wish I could tell you exactly how much to lower it by but its slightly different with each female...so you have to experiment a bit. If she starts losing weight then you have cut her too low. (I don't actually weigh them, BTW.)

Good luck with it!

 

[Julirs]

Thanks for the information. This clutch she laid last night was a retained sperm clutch, she laid her first clutch in October, and they were not together again. So, I feed her well for the next several days, and then reduce what I feed her? What would be your temperature ideals? I don't want to breed her again for maybe a year.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Thank you, Kinyonga. We will begin the decreased diet now, and lower temps this weekend. Here are a couple of photos of Matisse, taken yesterday, when we removed her from her cage for a weigh-in.

Oh, well, I never did start the separate post, so I will just hijack this one. Besides, Kinyonga has answered all my questions here. Thank you, Julirs and Kinyonga. I think we will try to allow her to do her retained-sperm clutches and then take a break from it. We really like her. She's a witch, but incredibly feisty and robust. We try to disturb her very little. When she was gravid with her first clutch we placed a shield around her cage to give her total privacy. She's such a panic! This second time, though, she was more relaxed, spending most of her time sitting on a horizontal vine and watching the world through her screen door.

Oh, and she hates everyone, except Guido . She's crazy about Guido (pictured in our avatar). And, of course, the feeling is mutual.

 

[kinyonga]

Julirs said..."So, I feed her well for the next several days, and then reduce what I feed her?"...I only do it for two or three feedings...and they get fed every second or third day...then I cut back a bit.

You said..."What would be your temperature ideals? "...it varies from winter to summer. What I do is keep a basking light (60 watt) on the male's cages but not on the female's when I'm trying to keep them from reproducing. Both male and female cages have two fluorescents....one UVB and on normal fluorescent.


gesang....Matisse is a nice looking female with obvious female chameleon attitude!

I hope you both have success at controlling their reproduction! Just don't go overboard on the cutting down...it takes some adjustment to get it "right".