BABY UPDATE....WITH PICS!!!

[MeruJack]

My Mt. Meru babies turned three months old yesterday and my jacksonii jacksonii babies are about 2.75 months old. They are now all in individual Exo Terra glass enclosures. The older babies are in 8" x 12" enclosures and the smaller, younger babies are in 8" x 8" enclosures. Each enclosure has a single pothos, philodendron, or small schefflera with twigs and dowels and a paper towel substrate that I change every weekend. They are eating homegrown Dubia & silkworms as well as bought 1/8-1/4" crickets and a few Hydei fruit flies. I feed and hand mist them twice a day. The room temperature is about 75 degrees during the day (the enclosures are about 3 degrees warmer) and 65 degrees at night. The enclosures are lit with ReptiSun 2.0 tubes. The babies are doing GREAT and are starting to show their adult greens and yellow side stripe. Enjoy the pics!

 

[jpowell86]

Well done!! I'm enjoying the enclosures you have for them.

 

[Dave Bolamperti]

They all look healthy nice wall of Chams
Dave

 

[Lathis]

Can't... breath... too much... CUTENESS! Seriously, you need a disclaimer on the excessive levels of adorable in this thread.

 

[KLowery88]

Wow they're looking great!

 

[alphakenc]

Ur enclosure shelf is like my wine cellar very nice n neat,I will take that second row top Right .....year of 2016.

 

[Chachi]

You have done a beautiful job! I'm so glad for you. I would be a nervous wreck. I couldn't go to work if I had all this going on. Lol How do you breeders keep your food on the plants and not on the floor or somewhere else they aren't supposed to be?

 

[MeruJack]

You have done a beautiful job! I'm so glad for you. I would be a nervous wreck. I couldn't go to work if I had all this going on. Lol How do you breeders keep your food on the plants and not on the floor or somewhere else they aren't supposed to be?

The enclosures are small enough that the babies can get feeders from anywhere in the enclosure. I also have a twig or a vine that leads from the floor to the plant in case the baby ends up on the floor and since they can't climb up the glass sides. However, some babies have mastered the art of climbing the foam background! Another way to keep the feeders within reach is to add a piece of fruit or carrot for them to feed on while they wait to be consumed. When I fed the babies mostly fruit flies I put a wedge of orange inside a very small container and dumped the flies on the orange. Now that they are eating mostly silks, Dubia, and extra small crickets, I add a small carrot for them to feed on. The carrot works great for all three feeders AND it's a whole lot less messy than the orange!


Above is a feeder cup in action. I attached it to the side of the glass enclosure with a pair of super powerful magnets. The photo on the right is how I fed the babies when they mostly ate fruit flies. I would need to clean the cups out once or twice a week and add a new piece of fruit. The short wooden dowel provided a path for the feeders to make their way onto the plants and into the line of sight of the babies. Now that the babies are older and eating larger feeders, I don't need to use the cups. I use a piece of carrot and just dump the feeders onto the single plant in each enclosure and the babies actively search for their prey.


[Silks on carrot (above); female Mt. Meru 3 months old; 8" x 12" Exo Terra]

 

[MeruJack]

Can't... breath... too much... CUTENESS! Seriously, you need a disclaimer on the excessive levels of adorable in this thread.

It's amazing to see all the different colors and patterns they are displaying! They are each individuals in appearance and behavior. And ALL are SO SO SO CUTE!

 

[MeruJack]

They all look healthy nice wall of Chams
Dave

Having them in individual enclosures makes it easy to check the white paper towel substrate for poo to know who is eating & drinking well and who is kind of scrawny and might still need some smaller feeders (fruit flies) or an extra feeding of flies to get enough calories. I use bright yellow electrical tape attached to the front of the enclosures to let me know who is especially small or who to watch for dark stress colors. One of the babies was especially dark for a few days and then I realized s/he could see one of the adult females. So I blocked the view and now the baby is looking nice and green instead of blackish-brown. The multiple smaller enclosures mean more work and more feeders but it's so much easier to keep track of the individual babies so I think it is very much worth it. (I know I am being a bit long-winded in some of my replies but I am hoping that this info might help other keepers of these fragile babies.)

 

[Chachi]

Having them in individual enclosures makes it easy to check the white paper towel substrate for poo to know who is eating & drinking well and who is kind of scrawny and might still need some smaller feeders (fruit flies) or an extra feeding of flies to get enough calories. I use bright yellow electrical tape attached to the front of the enclosures to let me know who is especially small or who to watch for dark stress colors. One of the babies was especially dark for a few days and then I realized s/he could see one of the adult females. So I blocked the view and now the baby is looking nice and green instead of blackish-brown. The multiple smaller enclosures mean more work and more feeders but it's so much easier to keep track of the individual babies so I think it is very much worth it. (I know I am being a bit long-winded in some of my replies but I am hoping that this info might help other keepers of these fragile babies.)

You aren't long winded. It's such good info. I hadn't thought about luring. I tried to hang a piece of screen on the glass so they could crawl up. Don't laugh. I thought the fruit flies would attach themselves and the babies could see. Nope. They got under the screen and confused the babies....a high mess. Thank you. So much.

 

[MeruJack]

You aren't long winded. It's such good info. I hadn't thought about luring. I tried to hang a piece of screen on the glass so they could crawl up. Don't laugh. I thought the fruit flies would attach themselves and the babies could see. Nope. They got under the screen and confused the babies....a high mess. Thank you. So much.

What kind of babies are you keeping? Panthers? How old are they?

 

[Chachi]

I don't have any babies now. Three years ago my first Chamies were a jackson pair. Two weeks later I came home from work and there was little babies running all over the place. I killed them. I didn't know what I was doing. I know now that I got them too hot, their food got away from them, their living quarters were not baby proof, I had to go to work, their dad ate one of them. Everything went wrong, I cried all the time when I should have pulled up my bra straps and handled the situation. It was terrible. BUT, it won't happen again. Ever. Now I learn from you and Janet and anybody who writes about it. So thank you. I have 3 panthers a jackson and a veiled. The veiled is a rescue from Petco where she had mbd so bad her ribs were bowed. I brought her back and she is great. My Jackson is the cannibal I mentioned earlier. 2 of my panthers are girls, one is the sweetest and the other I think has a little brain damage from her trip from Backwater.Lastly I have a panther that I have no idea what it is, but it's so cute. . Now this, is long winded. Sorry.

 

[MeruJack]

I don't have any babies now. Three years ago my first Chamies were a jackson pair. Two weeks later I came home from work and there was little babies running all over the place. I killed them. I didn't know what I was doing. I know now that I got them too hot, their food got away from them, their living quarters were not baby proof, I had to go to work, their dad ate one of them. Everything went wrong, I cried all the time when I should have pulled up my bra straps and handled the situation. It was terrible. BUT, it won't happen again. Ever. Now I learn from you and Janet and anybody who writes about it. So thank you. Now this, is long winded. Sorry.

I have two 18 month old Mt. Meru siblings from my first surprise batch of babies. The two, named Jack and Jill, survived while their 3 siblings didn't. Since then, I have had a few of my other montane girls produce more surprise batches of babies shortly after I received them (one other Mt. Meru, a hoehnelii that had just one baby, and a wernerii that gave birth to a batch of 8 with half of them missing an eye) and within the first two months or so, all of them died. Like you, I read everything I could find about Mt. Meru babies (especially the posts of ActionJackson & Lovereps) and have made changes over the past 18 months in hopes of having a greater number of babies survive. I currently have 5 Mt. Meru babies and 13 jacksonii jacksonii babies born 13 days apart. Since moving them into these small glass enclosures (first as duo's and now as singletons), I am pleased that I have only had one baby die (the jacksonii runt). There's just not much info out there about how to care for these fragile babies but I refuse to accept the usual 20% survival rate. I'm learning daily how to better care for them and I am sharing my experiences here so that we can all learn from one another and see more of these babies survive the first several months of life and thrive.

Thank you everyone for your on-going support.

 

[WAMBO]

Wonderful! Congrats!

 

[MeruJack]

The babies are doing great! The jacksonii jacksonii babies are now 3 months old and the merumontanus babies are almost 4 months old. They are eating mostly silks and small crickets. I am making small changes to their glass enclosures to make it harder for feeders to hide and to make them easier to clean. I am experimenting with various "substrates" including folded paper towels, crumpled paper towels, no paper towels, and small black river rocks about the size of a quarter. The reason I am trying river rocks in some of my enclosures is that a few of the babies seem to enjoy spending time on the bottom of the enclosure and sometimes a bit of water will puddle there and I don't like for them to get wet. Also, some of them seem a bit perplexed by being able to see through the glass floor so I am using river rocks (I also like the look of them) and am planning on buying some shelf liner today to line the wire shelves so the little ones can't see through the floor.

ENJOY THE NEW PICS!!!!

Female Mt. Meru

Jacksonii jacksonii siblings (above and below)

Mt. Meru brothers (above and below).

Above and below, female Mt. Meru. The baby above is my largest of all. When she was born she fit (snout to vent) perfectly from the tip to the first joint of my pointer finger. NOT ANY MORE!!!

For the nearly 3 months I thought the baby above was a female because it only had the one horn on its nose. Then two weeks ago, it suddenly sprouted the other two upper horns and developed its male coloring. It's definitely a male!

 

[Fiona's Mom]

Ur enclosure shelf is like my wine cellar very nice n neat,I will take that second row top Right .....year of 2016.

Did someone say WINE!

 

[Fiona's Mom]

The babies are doing great! The jacksonii jacksonii babies are now 3 months old and the merumontanus babies are almost 4 months old. They are eating mostly silks and small crickets. I am making small changes to their glass enclosures to make it harder for feeders to hide and to make them easier to clean. I am experimenting with various "substrates" including folded paper towels, crumpled paper towels, no paper towels, and small black river rocks about the size of a quarter. The reason I am trying river rocks in some of my enclosures is that a few of the babies seem to enjoy spending time on the bottom of the enclosure and sometimes a bit of water will puddle there and I don't like for them to get wet. Also, some of them seem a bit perplexed by being able to see through the glass floor so I am using river rocks (I also like the look of them) and am planning on buying some shelf liner today to line the wire shelves so the little ones can't see through the floor.

ENJOY THE NEW PICS!!!!

View attachment 159698 Female Mt. Meru
View attachment 159699 Jacksonii jacksonii siblings (above and below)
View attachment 159700 View attachment 159701Mt. Meru brothers (above and below). View attachment 159702 View attachment 159703 Above and below, female Mt. Meru. The baby above is my largest of all. When she was born she fit (snout to vent) perfectly from the tip to the first joint of my pointer finger. NOT ANY MORE!!!
View attachment 159704 View attachment 159705
For the nearly 3 months I thought the baby above was a female because it only had the one horn on its nose. Then two weeks ago, it suddenly sprouted the other two upper horns and developed its male coloring. It's definitely a male!

Love the Mt Meru brothers....especially the one with the blue eye lids. Super Sexy!

 

[alphakenc]

Did someone say WINE!

Wine is only for occasional digestion purposes n celebrations of the intimacy ,other than that alphakenc I love my fresh squeeze orange juice with some pulp that will make me even sweeter.

 

[Fiona's Mom]

Wine is only for occasional digestion purposes n celebrations of the intimacy ,other than that alphakenc I love my fresh squeeze orange juice with some pulp that will make me even sweeter.

Yeah...I use it for medicinal purposes...and at my age it's necessary. It's also pretty good pool side on these 90°days in Florida. BTW....how's that double egg coming?