Congrats! I love that species. Back in the late 80s to early 90s, I had quite a few clutches. I always had a good hatch rate. I wasn't successful raising any of them to adulthood though because their high sensitivity to vitamins, especially D3, wasn't fully realized.
I remember raising houseflies for them. At first, the babies did fine. Then I made the mistake of using powdered milk as part of the mix to feed the fly larvae. Big mistake! Even without using powdered supplements on the flies, the babies quickly developed edemas. I have little doubt that the D3 in the powdered milk was responsible. Feeding non-supplemented commercially bred crickets produced the same poor results. I highly suspect that the feed the suppliers used to raise their crickets had high levels of D3. Thankfully, good info on the dangers of D3 (and other fat soluble vitamins) is readily available today.
I'd love to give T. johnstonii a try again. I suspect I would do better with them now. My first pair of adults I ever had developed edemas, and I quickly figured out (pre-internet days) that stopping the dusting of the insects had positive results, at least for the adults. Unfortunately, I became too focused on pre-formed A due to the article by John Annis is the Chameleon Information Network newsletter. To his credit though, John mentioned D3 as a possible cause, but to my knowledge, a follow-up study on D3 wasn't conducted by him and the veterinarian he worked with in the vitamin A study.
In any case, little did I know that, in my experiences, the main culprit of organ malfunction/damage resulting in edema was too much D3 in the foods that were being fed to my feeders. I easily avoided edemas in other adults I purchased (mainly by limiting or eliminating the use powdered supplements), but the babies were more sensitive. I look forward to seeing everyone's progress in raising the babies. Good luck in raising the babies! Hopefully, I'll be able to afford some in the future. I remember buying johnstonii for only $50 a piece. As a teenager, especially, I thought that was a lot of money back then.
