baby cham... not eating/drinking

[pneumatika]

well... i don't even know if it's a panther or a veiled... coloring suggests female panther. i had breeding pairs of both and moved the trees around a few times... had tons of eggs... this is the ONLY one that made it. all the rest weren't fertilized or went bad.

checked the box and there he/she was. REALLY small... but i have nothing to compare it to.

eyes don't seem to be open. never seen him/her eat/drink. today i gently pried the mouth open and put some water on the tongue. temp is about 80 during the day on the bottom of the cage... 70 at night. using a uva+heat lamp during the day, ceramic heater at night... not using uvb atm.

tons of flightless fruit flies in there, misting 2x a day and paper towel on the bottom instead of a substrate.

very clumbsy little fellow... will climb around sometimes... stays in one spot a lot and then BOOM burst of energy and moves around a bit.

so... any chance i can help this guy? any suggestions? is force feeding a fruit fly a terrible idea? is forcing bits of water a bad idea? eyes are sunken in, so i'm assuming dehydration is also a factor.

help!

also, eggs were not incubated at any special temp, room temp since i found them.

here are the eggs i found in october... some might be veiled, some might be panthers... no clue how long they were in the soil before i found them. the ones on the left went bad or were bad already, the rest on the right just recently went bad... all except for this little fella!

i have no cham breeding experience, done crested geckos, though. so be nice.

 

[Lancecham]

SOmetimes weak baby chams are unable to open there eyes at all.
Have the eyes been open at all? How old is it?
Forcefeeding babies is pretty stressful on them.

 

[pneumatika]

about a week old...
well... i guess i will just do the water and maybe that will increase overall health and appetite... i *think* i saw the eyes slightly open at one point but not positive.

 

[pssh]

Do you keep veileds and panthers in the same cage? How do you now know what species they are? Do not force water into it's mouth as it is likely to aspirate.

 

[pneumatika]

not the same cage... i swapped the plants around a few times and didn't realize they were nesting in there...

so what is your advice then?

 

[pssh]

To just mist and feed as you would. If he isn't meant to make it, he wont make it. Some babies just aren't strong enough. Do you have any more pictures?

 

[BocaJan]

It is not unusual for babies to not eat for a few days after hatching. It is a lot of work to come out of the egg. Also, as long as your misting it will slurp up water even if you don't see it do so. I would be more worried about the eyes not being open. If it doesn't open its eyes then I'm thinking it won't last. It may be too fragile.

 

[OldSkoolxReasons]

Unfortunately if he cannot/will not open his eyes there isn't much else you can do for him when he is so small. Just mist him and have at least a couple fruit flies in there incase he does open his eyes and start hunting. Was there any yolk left when he hatched? A lot of those eggs look very good and fertile to me, but obviously there are some pearly white infertiles also. Did the eggs just deflate and dry up or did they deflate and mold. I suspect some of those eggs might have went bad because of the crispy dry substrate. The substrate is suppose to be moist. Good luck, I hope he pulls through


justin