Breeding History of Graceful Chameleon - Part 3

[TerryLund]

In the last episode my Graceful Chameleon had been busy and laid a clutch of 61 eggs on 6/3/2012. I was expecting an incubation period of 8-9 months. During this time I would open the lid about 1 a month to spray the inside of the lid, check the eggs visually for mold or any other things out of the ordinary. I just left the egg container on my kitchen counter top in a spot that would not be disturbed. This spot never received direct sunlight but it was also not the dark. As it got close to the 9 month time period I would make sure to visually check the eggs without lifting the lid. The lid was clear so this was easily done. My girls also kept checking the container everyday after school to see any of the babies hatched. It was not until 3/10/2013 that Daredevil the first baby was born. My children and I would check every day from that point on to see which eggs were hatching next. The last baby Dusty hatched on 4/1/2013. I learned many things during this period. Since Daredevil had completely come out of his shell and was walking around in the container I just had to spray the perlite that was stuck to him off and put him into a cage that I had ready. However, there was Shelly the 2nd to be born that I help out of her shell and this step I regret since she still had some of her remaining yolk attached. I knew this was her first meal and that it should be absorbed but after moving her to the cage she eventually got this caught on something and it was detached from her. She eventually died and I had always thought it to be related to not finishing her first meal completely. From that point on I no longer helped any other baby chameleons out of their shells. This worked out well until near the end of the hatching process. Near the end I notice a few of the eggs had the typical dark end that was where the baby chameleon would break through and exit from. But these ones just never became empty. I had to go against what I had learned with Shelly and I decided to open these. I found that there was a fully developed baby chameleon but I guess it just ran out of energy trying to get out of it shell. I am really not sure what went wrong here or if my guess is right. In the future I will keep track of when the end of the egg is broken open and after couple of days I will help the little one out by making sure they can get out of the egg by opening it up for them. The last egg was the biggest of all and it was taking just too long to open. I eventually decided to cut it open and it just pop like a balloon and was just rotten yolk. In summary, there were a total of 55 out of 61 chameleons that hatched successfully, 5 stillborn and 1 unfertilized egg.

I will add to this as I have time.

See Also:

https://www.chameleonforums.com/breeding-history-graceful-chameleon-part-1-a-116911/

https://www.chameleonforums.com/breeding-history-graceful-chameleon-part-2-a-117685/

 

[CNorton]

Thanks so much for sharing.


Just to be clear, how long exactly was the incubation? You said at least 9 months but then gave an actual hatchdate without any lay dates to do the math.

Again, great job and thanks so much for documenting!

 

[TerryLund]

Sorry about that. I thought I had that detail in "The Breeding History of Graceful Chameleon - Part 2". Anyway, I edited the above and added the lay date. It was 6/3/2012. The first hatchling was 3/10/2013. This was 281 days or roughly 9 months for the first one and 303 days or roughly 10 months for the last one to be born.

Thank You for pointing that out. I hate missing details like that. I will do a summary and the end of this series.

Terry

 

[CarlC]

Great write up!

Carl

 

[ChamLady]

Beautiful babies. Thank you.

 

[spawn]

Fantastic documentation. Well done. And you really shouldn't worry too much about the ones that don't hatch. Your hatch rate sounds better than in-nature. Babies that can't help themselves out of the shell are thought to not be strong enough to survive to adulthood anyhow.

 

[kdc5019]

Fantastic!