Baby Quad pics!

[ferretinmyshoes]

They were kept in 18x18x36" screen cage with three sides wrapped in plastic with large bushy ficus under UVB light only. Mistking went off 4-5 times a day. Humidity stayed 50-70%. Temps at top were around 80 (from the basking lights of the cages next to theirs) but lower down around 77. At night tried to cool them down but unfortunately this time of year didn't get it down past 74 most nights. I was actually considering getting a window ac really just for them to last through the summer. But I wonder if that was a big part of their downfall. Was feeding dusted fruit flies and 1 week old crickets. Hopefully yours fare better.

 

[Motherlode Chameleon]

My condolences Dayna. What do you think happened? Have you got any idea (to low of humidity or bad food)?

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

 

[ponders]

Dayna,
I'm so sorry. They hatched against all odds, and I was hoping they would make it too.

 

[MelissaB]

I'm so sorry they didn't make it.

 

[pamnsam94]

Sorry to hear that you lost them Dayna. Temps might have been a (the ?) problem, but having had my share of bad experiences, along with a good dose of good experiences with baby quads and other species, I wonder about how much preformed vitamin A the mother received prior to and during the time she was gravid, in addition to what her overall health was like during that time.

I'm convinced that some of the babies I lost, especially when I would lose an entire clutch in such a short period of time, was directly related to the female not receiving enough preformed A during the time she was developing eggs. I'm very wary of the supplements that contain not only vitamin A but those that combine it with D3, because, in my experience, D3 seems to be more problematic in contributing to organ malfunction (resulting in gular edemas) than is preformed A.

Even though I had read about the study which showed that providing some preformed vitamin A resulted in a much higher hatch rate in panther chameleons, and even though I had read both articles in the Chameleon Information Network at the time they were printed (the second of which concluded that preformed A was not the whole answer in why many keepers were experiencing edemas with their chameleons, especially montane species, but that D3 might be a more likely culprit; a follow-up controlled study was never conducted by the author, John Annis, at least to my knowledge), the fear of overdosing my chameleons on preformed vitamin A so overwhelmed me that I avoided it almost entirely.

It took many years, but I finally came around and started consistently using preformed A on my breeding sized females, a single drop from a gel-tab once a month. Ever since, when I've been consistent in providing that, I've had much better results, not only in the percentage of eggs that hatch but in the survivability of the neonates.

I'm not saying that the health of the mother or a possible low level of preformed A in her system is the reason you lost your babies so suddenly, it may not even be part of the answer, but it is worth considering. The neonates may have been doomed from the start even though by outward appearances they seemed fine, active and eating well. Just a thought.

Perry

 

[GCash]

Sorry to hear that you lost them Dayna. Temps might have been a (the ?) problem, but having had my share of bad experiences, along with a good dose of good experiences with baby quads and other species, I wonder about how much preformed vitamin A the mother received prior to and during the time she was gravid, in addition to what her overall health was like during that time.

I'm convinced that some of the babies I lost, especially when I would lose an entire clutch in such a short period of time, was directly related to the female not receiving enough preformed A during the time she was developing eggs. I'm very wary of the supplements that contain not only vitamin A but those that combine it with D3, because, in my experience, D3 seems to be more problematic in contributing to organ malfunction (resulting in gular edemas) than is preformed A.

Even though I had read about the study which showed that providing some preformed vitamin A resulted in a much higher hatch rate in panther chameleons, and even though I had read both articles in the Chameleon Information Network at the time they were printed (the second of which concluded that preformed A was not the whole answer in why many keepers were experiencing edemas with their chameleons, especially montane species, but that D3 might be a more likely culprit; a follow-up controlled study was never conducted by the author, John Annis, at least to my knowledge), the fear of overdosing my chameleons on preformed vitamin A so overwhelmed me that I avoided it almost entirely.

It took many years, but I finally came around and started consistently using preformed A on my breeding sized females, a single drop from a gel-tab once a month. Ever since, when I've been consistent in providing that, I've had much better results, not only in the percentage of eggs that hatch but in the survivability of the neonates.

I'm not saying that the health of the mother or a possible low level of preformed A in her system is the reason you lost your babies so suddenly, it may not even be part of the answer, but it is worth considering. The neonates may have been doomed from the start even though by outward appearances they seemed fine, active and eating well. Just a thought.

Perry

While we're on this subject, what are your guys thoughts on pregnancy induced edemas? Could it be a sign that they do need to supply a higher level of these vitamins to their young, to an extent that the mother's body(at least in montanes) can barely handle the elevated levels themselves? I have a werneri female that I know when she is gravid by the collar she gets and as soon as she gives birth it goes straight back to normal.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

I used repashy calcium plus, which has decent levels of preformed vit A, twice a month on my others and once a month on my montanes. I'm pretty sure when I got her I gave it to her every two weeks a few times first too. So I don't feel like that was a major deficiency. Congenital defects are always a thought when there are babies that fail to thrive. I lost a small percentage of my Panther babies back when I had those deposited the rest doing wonderfully. But with these guys I really do wonder if I just couldn't get it cool enough at night for them. The first one wasn't even a week old though and was so very active and eating ravenously then had acute death so I doubt temps had a big role with that one. I don't know. Depressing regardless.

 

[pamnsam94]

I used repashy calcium plus, which has decent levels of preformed vit A, twice a month on my others and once a month on my montanes. I'm pretty sure when I got her I gave it to her every two weeks a few times first too. So I don't feel like that was a major deficiency. Congenital defects are always a thought when there are babies that fail to thrive. I lost a small percentage of my Panther babies back when I had those deposited the rest doing wonderfully. But with these guys I really do wonder if I just couldn't get it cool enough at night for them. The first one wasn't even a week old though and was so very active and eating ravenously then had acute death so I doubt temps had a big role with that one. I don't know. Depressing regardless.

Since D3 is often offered simultaneously with preformed A, as it is with either the LoD or the regular formula of Repashy's Calcium Plus, I've always wondered just how much of the preformed A is metabolized since D3 and preformed A are antagonistic towards each other.

I once tried to figure out the concentration of vitamin A in an average single drop from a vitamin A gel-tab and seem to recall it was quite a bit higher than the vitamin A concentration in the Calcium Plus products. Even when Calcium Plus is used to dust feeders twice a month, I'm thinking the amount of usable vitamin A is less than what the chameleon receives through a gel-tab drop once a month. Although I can't provide hard data, I've offered varying levels of vitamin A to my quads (within reason) and in most instances edemas did not develop. With D3 however, the range of tolerance hasn't been nearly as high. I only mention this because I'm wondering if offering more preformed A by itself (not in conjunction with D3) might have resulted in greater viability of the neonates.

 

[pamnsam94]

While we're on this subject, what are your guys thoughts on pregnancy induced edemas? Could it be a sign that they do need to supply a higher level of these vitamins to their young, to an extent that the mother's body(at least in montanes) can barely handle the elevated levels themselves? I have a werneri female that I know when she is gravid by the collar she gets and as soon as she gives birth it goes straight back to normal.

Maybe pregnancy induced edemas should be a subject for another thread, but I'll briefly comment. I've wondered about them too, but more specifically, I wonder why I really haven't experienced them with my gravid females while so many other keepers do.

Since vitamin A is used by or transferred to the developing eggs, is it possible that, for those keepers who use beyond a certain amount of D3 in powdered form, the D3 causes organ malfunction, albeit slight, which then causes the edemas?

Once eggs are laid, the female wouldn't need as much preformed A, so I think more would remain in her system as opposed to going to the developing eggs. Under that scenario, it seems that the greater concentration of preformed A that the female should have might counteract the harmful effects of elevated D3. In other words, the preformed A to D3 imbalance would be corrected once the eggs were laid and the edemas would disappear as long as no permanent organ damage occurred.

Since I'm extremely cautious of using D3 in powdered form, preferring instead for my chameleons to manufacture their own, perhaps that's why my gravid females very, very rarely have ever had an edema. Just wondering. So much for my "brief" comment.

Perry