Baby Panther Hatched!

[Bri22j]

My little baby hatched last night. We had a fly culture going since October first and oh boy it’s been a day!

The fruit fly culture was all dead!

So drove 1 hour out of town this morning to get flys and then ordered another backup culture for pickup on Wednesday!

When the little one hatched he didn’t have his yolk sac anymore so I was thinking it’d be ready to eat. I got a little dish and added a cantaloupe and bananas to keep the flys on the tray which seems to be working.

At what point do they start to eat after hatching? I haven’t seen it eat or show interest in eating all day.

Also I have questions on the basking light? I know we don’t want to use it cause they dehydrate easily, but it seems like the little one wanted heat even though his cage temp was 72-77 without the basking light on. It stayed towards the top foliage of the enclosure today.

Here are some photos!

 

[elizaann2]

I know you don’t want a basking lamp. Babies get overheated and dehydrated easily.

@Camiezone can you offer assistance? I have no experience with hatchlings.

Congrats btw and best of luck to you.

 

[ChameoConnor]

Congratulations! I am just getting back on the forums, but I hatch a lot of panthers. You don't have to worry about a heat lamp for a few months. Sure, they'll look for sun, but they'll warm up without it, and its a too dehydrating while they're so fragile. You could raise the temperature a little if you can, but you don't need to. Its 73.6f in our hatchery right now (at 11pm in Utah). That's about as low as we let it go in the evening , but the hydration cycle is more important. It's best to not dehydrate them with a heat lamp.

Normally, by the time you notice a panther has hatched, they have no amnion or noticeable yolk sac (compared to Jackson's, for example). That is normal. They sometimes will eat fruit flies immediately. Sometimes it will take 3-4 days. I just make sure to offer them the option every day for when they're ready. They'll get hungry and figure it out.

panther babies hydrated and spray them often. We use foggers and room heaters to raise them to 85f/60% humidity during the days and let them hit 72f/90+% during the nights. You can go lower for adults, but its not good for the babies, in my experience.

I give them UVB right away, and monitor the temperatures and humidity closely.

That is a very healthy looking baby panther! Great job! You got this.

-Connor

chameochamleons.com

 

[elizaann2]

There is a really good podcast called the Panther Chameleon Podcast, this might be helpful for you as well. I'll share any website info if I can find any....I know there is something somewhere I just can't find it.

 

[elizaann2]

Found it!

https://chameleonacademy.com/panther_chameleon_podcast/

 

[Bri22j]

Congratulations! I am just getting back on the forums, but I hatch a lot of panthers. You don't have to worry about a heat lamp for a few months. Sure, they'll look for sun, but they'll warm up without it, and its a too dehydrating while they're so fragile. You could raise the temperature a little if you can, but you don't need to. Its 73.6f in our hatchery right now (at 11pm in Utah). That's about as low as we let it go in the evening , but the hydration cycle is more important. It's best to not dehydrate them with a heat lamp.

Normally, by the time you notice a panther has hatched, they have no amnion or noticeable yolk sac (compared to Jackson's, for example). That is normal. They sometimes will eat fruit flies immediately. Sometimes it will take 3-4 days. I just make sure to offer them the option every day for when they're ready. They'll get hungry and figure it out.

panther babies hydrated and spray them often. We use foggers and room heaters to raise them to 85f/60% humidity during the days and let them hit 72f/90+% during the nights. You can go lower for adults, but its not good for the babies, in my experience.

I give them UVB right away, and monitor the temperatures and humidity closely.

That is a very healthy looking baby panther! Great job! You got this.

-Connor

chameochamleons.com

I’m just getting worried the little one might not make it. It just sits up in its perch at the top of the foliage all dark. Doesn’t come down to eat or explore the rest of the enclosure.

I appreciate the tip about fogging, I have a screen cage and I’m debating on putting plastic up on the sides to keep the humidity in since I go in and mist often to keep it up. Which wasn’t a problem during the day before but the weather has changed here where I live. I’m trying to leave the little one be to adjust to the new environment so I don’t scare it.

I’m not using a heat lamp only the uvb and the enclosure temp where it resides is at 77 currently I keep my home at around 74 before the heat kicks on.

 

[elizaann2]

@MissSkittles I know nothing about hatchlings, can you provide some support?

 

[MissSkittles]

@MissSkittles I know nothing about hatchlings, can you provide some support?

Oh dear. I’ve never had any and only know what I’ve read here. I will venture a guess that your sweet little baby is staying at the top and dark in order to absorb heat and uvb, as an adult would. I would try to secure a small dish of some type (the little plastic containers feeders come in are perfect) to a mid or high to mid level branch and put a bit of mashed banana or something similar to keep the fruit flies at that spot. That way baby won’t have to go all the way down to the bottom for food. No handling, no heat light unless temps go below 72ish during the day and watch baby for things such as eyes closed during the day. I do know their yolk can sustain them for a couple of days or so. I would be a nervous wreck with a baby chameleon so I can easily tell you now to keep your husbandry as perfect as possible, monitor baby, enjoy the sweet cuteness, take lots of pics, but give baby some privacy time too and keep breathing...you’ve got this.

 

[Bri22j]

Oh dear. I’ve never had any and only know what I’ve read here. I will venture a guess that your sweet little baby is staying at the top and dark in order to absorb heat and uvb, as an adult would. I would try to secure a small dish of some type (the little plastic containers feeders come in are perfect) to a mid or high to mid level branch and put a bit of mashed banana or something similar to keep the fruit flies at that spot. That way baby won’t have to go all the way down to the bottom for food. No handling, no heat light unless temps go below 72ish during the day and watch baby for things such as eyes closed during the day. I do know their yolk can sustain them for a couple of days or so. I would be a nervous wreck with a baby chameleon so I can easily tell you now to keep your husbandry as perfect as possible, monitor baby, enjoy the sweet cuteness, take lots of pics, but give baby some privacy time too and keep breathing...you’ve got this.

Okay I will try that tonight. I’ll see what I can find for a dish It was hatched without a yolk sac so I was expecting it to be hungry right away. I did put fruit in it for the flies to stay together. I was just wondering why it wasn’t looking for food yet. I wanna make sure it grows up big and strong. Thank you all for the advice!

 

[MissSkittles]

Okay I will try that tonight. I’ll see what I can find for a dish It was hatched without a yolk sac so I was expecting it to be hungry right away. I did put fruit in it for the flies to stay together. I was just wondering why it wasn’t looking for food yet. I wanna make sure it grows up big and strong. Thank you all for the advice!

I believe the yolk sac is usually fully absorbed before they exit their egg, but it sustains them for a couple of days after they exit the egg. I imagine it’s a big job to hatch and enter the big scary world, so nature maybe gives them a couple of days to adjust and to not need to hunt for food.

 

[Bri22j]

Oh dear. I’ve never had any and only know what I’ve read here. I will venture a guess that your sweet little baby is staying at the top and dark in order to absorb heat and uvb, as an adult would. I would try to secure a small dish of some type (the little plastic containers feeders come in are perfect) to a mid or high to mid level branch and put a bit of mashed banana or something similar to keep the fruit flies at that spot. That way baby won’t have to go all the way down to the bottom for food. No handling, no heat light unless temps go below 72ish during the day and watch baby for things such as eyes closed during the day. I do know their yolk can sustain them for a couple of days or so. I would be a nervous wreck with a baby chameleon so I can easily tell you now to keep your husbandry as perfect as possible, monitor baby, enjoy the sweet cuteness, take lots of pics, but give baby some privacy time too and keep breathing...you’ve got this.

I put a food dish higher up in the enclosure. I also added plastic siding to help keep the humidity up as well.

The little one seems to be moving a lot more since I put up the plastic as well, now it’s almost night time. Hopefully I’ll see em eat tomorrow

Again thank you for all the advice! I’ll keep yall posted!

peep the little guy climbing the top of the screen lol

 

[BleuSaphir]

I hope they thrive

 

[Camiezone]

Careful, you can easily get addicted to babies, lol.
Welcome to the forum, and congrats w the little baby.

I find that the cheap under cabinet LED light bars work really great w the young ones. Provides some more light and just a slight amount of heat, enough to warm them alittle more but not dehydrate them.
What st are you in?
What's your watering schedule?
You definitely have to get pinhead crickets as well. And get different types of fruit flies. They usually come in 2 different sizes. Naturally u want the tiny ones (forget their names)

did u by chance look inside the egg after it was out?
Did it come out on its own or did u assist alittle?
How long was it in egg?

I know that's a million questions, but need it to give you my 2 cents of advise

 

[Bri22j]

Careful, you can easily get addicted to babies, lol.
Welcome to the forum, and congrats w the little baby.

I find that the cheap under cabinet LED light bars work really great w the young ones. Provides some more light and just a slight amount of heat, enough to warm them alittle more but not dehydrate them.
What st are you in?
What's your watering schedule?
You definitely have to get pinhead crickets as well. And get different types of fruit flies. They usually come in 2 different sizes. Naturally u want the tiny ones (forget their names)

did u by chance look inside the egg after it was out?
Did it come out on its own or did u assist alittle?
How long was it in egg?

I know that's a million questions, but need it to give you my 2 cents of advise

I have a led plant light in the enclosure that it likes to hang out under a lot when it’s had enough uvb.

I live in Wisconsin we just started getting colder weather this week.

I have a mist king that mists at 8:00pm, 12 am 5 am for a 1.5 min intervals. I leave a fogger on at night as well. I also mist when the humidity drops below 60% which is an additional couple times a day.

I have 2 fruit fly cultures going, one is the big ones I had to get in an emergency cause my last culture died and I got the small ones today. I’ll go ahead an order pinheads to pickup on Wednesday next week

I did check the egg it is completely empty no yolk sac left behind. It did have some white stuff attached to it when it did come out.

I did assist a little since it opened the egg weird (opened the top not the end of the egg) and we assumed it lost its egg tooth and couldn’t open it anymore.

We got the egg in May at a reptile convention with a hatch date of October 1st. It didn’t start to sweat until November 17th, piped around midnight the 18th and hatched on the 19th in the evening.

I did fill its feeder with flies again and I know this was probably not good but I brought it to where the feeders were and it showed no interest in eating again. Climbed back up to the top of the screen and is now hanging up on a leaf.

The flies keep falling out of the feeder to the bottom I’m not sure what to do about that I feel like it’s a big waste since I haven’t really had time to get a producing culture yet.

 

[Camiezone]

Your doing great, and your setup looks really nice. I'm so happy to see that you obviously have researched and taken great advise from knowledgeable care takers too many use fake plants, which are just awful, useless and bacteria growing platforms. Yours are all real, kudos on that.
Don't stress too much about the eating, it will eat when hungry. Just keep having food avaliable all the time. Most babies won't eat when looked at, only way to know, is keeping eye out for little tony black poops w white tip. Fruit flies love strawberry and mandarin slices. Just Kay some on a tiny lid, the clear ones salsa etc come in.
Put feeder station up high, u can even have multi feeding areas. Babies eat almost all the time which is great. Make sure water can't reach food areas, or u will drown feeders.get the crickets asap. Get alot. Pin heads die very easily and fast. Make sure to light dust w supplements. Which kind of supplement do you have? Only D vitamin 2x monthly.
Does your plant light emit red light? Color light will damage eyes. What uvb are you running? High five on having linear fixture.
Babies LOVE screen climbing, total normal behavior.
Neonates (newborns) aren't very active in the first few weeks, the curiosity and roaming doesn't really begin until about 1 month old.
Your doing great, take deep breath, pat on the back.
Don't run fogger in daytime, the humidity should only be high at night when lights are off.
When u mist, it needs to be drying out doing the day. Just try mimicking nature. Doing day the sun dries everything, at night the dew moisten and leaves droplet of water onto of leaves. Those are what they drink. My mentor is petr necas. Look him up if you'd like, he's very knowledgeable

Ofcourse bill strand, jonathan@paradalis, fran@framschams, gingero,
muchadoaboutchameleons.com and everyone you already are on contact w here on the forum are solid reliable sources as well.

 

[Camiezone]

Oh BTW do you know if it's a boy or girl? What's the name? If u don't know sex yet, send sone pics from side angle w tail straight, n ill try to help

 

[Bri22j]

Your doing great, and your setup looks really nice. I'm so happy to see that you obviously have researched and taken great advise from knowledgeable care takers too many use fake plants, which are just awful, useless and bacteria growing platforms. Yours are all real, kudos on that.
Don't stress too much about the eating, it will eat when hungry. Just keep having food avaliable all the time. Most babies won't eat when looked at, only way to know, is keeping eye out for little tony black poops w white tip. Fruit flies love strawberry and mandarin slices. Just Kay some on a tiny lid, the clear ones salsa etc come in.
Put feeder station up high, u can even have multi feeding areas. Babies eat almost all the time which is great. Make sure water can't reach food areas, or u will drown feeders.get the crickets asap. Get alot. Pin heads die very easily and fast. Make sure to light dust w supplements. Which kind of supplement do you have? Only D vitamin 2x monthly.
Does your plant light emit red light? Color light will damage eyes. What uvb are you running? High five on having linear fixture.
Babies LOVE screen climbing, total normal behavior.
Neonates (newborns) aren't very active in the first few weeks, the curiosity and roaming doesn't really begin until about 1 month old.
Your doing great, take deep breath, pat on the back.
Don't run fogger in daytime, the humidity should only be high at night when lights are off.
When u mist, it needs to be drying out doing the day. Just try mimicking nature. Doing day the sun dries everything, at night the dew moisten and leaves droplet of water onto of leaves. Those are what they drink. My mentor is petr necas. Look him up if you'd like, he's very knowledgeable

Ofcourse bill strand, jonathan@paradalis, fran@framschams, gingero,
muchadoaboutchameleons.com and everyone you already are on contact w here on the forum are solid reliable sources as well.

The care sheet I received said to wait on supplements till 2 weeks old I plan on purchasing the multivitamin a calcium soon.

Also the grow light has mostly blue light. The image shows the spectrum

UVB light is a T5 HO it’s not a 24” light I do plan on upgrading that at some point.

 

[Bri22j]

Oh BTW do you know if it's a boy or girl? What's the name? If u don't know sex yet, send sone pics from side angle w tail straight, n ill try to help

I do not know if it’s a boy or girl yet haha I have one with the tail straight. I’ll try to get more

 

[Camiezone]

Darn I forgot to send the reply I'd written, it was long too. N now it's gone. Oh well

I'm pretty sure you got a baby boy. Need so look at more pics to be sure. How's it doing?
Does your plant light emit any heat? The white led strips produce some heat, not alot, but they really love it. Lean sideways to absorb as much possible, it's the cutest

 

[Bri22j]

So far so good he’s moved around in the enclosure a lot today. I think I see a poop or something on a leaf not sure if that’s what it is? I hope the little guy is eating when I’m not watching. I still see flies moving in the container from when I fed yesterday. but I’m on poop lookout