Breeding Quadricornis?

C

Chamlover96

New Member
Hello,

I am new to this site but am definately not new to chameleons. I am getting a pair of quads and i wanted to know if breeding them was difficult and some stuff i would have to do.

Thanks,
Mike
 
Quads are a wonderful species and from what I understand, are very unique and require lower temperatures. I am wondering the same thing as you as far as breeding, but I haven't been able to find much helpful information, and most of the threads on here were contradicting. I was going to start a new thread, but if you don't mind, I will ask some questions on here so that we both can benefit.
I have a 6 ft tall by 8 ft long buy 4 ft deep cage, would that work for a trio? Do females tolerate each other with minimal stress as caresheets say? And as far as multiple males being housed together (which I will still never do unless the room is the size of a large greenhouse), what have people's experience been with that?
Thanks for replies, I know there are people on this site that are breeding quads at the moment, so your replies are greatly appreciated by both of us :)
 
Hello guys, I current have 2 month old baby quads. I have 9 of them. I do not keep any of my quads together. Both females even have their own cages. They are 24 x 24 x 36. I have known a guy who kept 2 females together. One of the other forum members tried it and the females did not get along. It depends on the chameleons. I have to make dinner but I will come back later tonight or tomorrow and try to provide more information.

If there are things you want to know, ask specifics and maybe 3 or 4 of we quad keepers can answer, that will give you a range of opinions. None of us do it the same. Sorry but we live in very different areas, have different temps & humidity issues etc. If you want an exact science, well - good luck. I personally an still working as getting my husbandry the way I feel it should be.
 
some experience

I'm at work now and I can't respond at length, but I'll edit with more later.

Edit: I currently have 1:3 WC adults and have kept a pair before. I have not taken a female through a complete breeding and laying cycle, nor have I raised neonates. I have two female that are *very* gravid and one who was recently mated and is gaining fast.

They don't seem that super-sensitive to me, but I live in a cool climate. I do use a humidifier most of the time. Similarly, a dripper is going most of the time. I mist by hand often. Relative humidity still drops into the 40% range sometimes, but its probably higher in the foliage where they hide. My temperatures drop in to the 50's F. every night. They go outside for direct sun for a few hours when weather is nice. My cages are relatively big and very heavily "planted" (plastic and real) - I feel they need the security of lots of hiding places deep in the foliage.

I guess my biggest concern I would pose to you is, if you live in New Jersey, how are you going to keep them cool in summer? I don't know how keepers who live in Florida or other warm climates do it, but they must have some techniques. It would seem wise to work the cooling details out before you acquire the animals.

I have seen reports of observers finding quads in close proximity to each other; I do house mine together. For many months at at time I keep all four in the same large cage, but I have a spare cage ready for each animal. I have not noticed a lot of stress or aggression interactions, but I did report on one female who has been a bit agro about food in other chams' mouths. Read about her here. I did observe mating on many occasions and it seems to be a relatively placid affair. Now that all the females are non-receptive, the male is separated.

I think 24 x 24 x 36" for one animal is alright; it would have to be much larger if you plan on a group. Spare cages should be ready at all times.


Perhaps others with deeper experience will contribute their observations or critique mine.
 
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Wow. Ok, I guess me being the newbie I'll try to help.

I have a pair of WC and the female is gravid.
Others have tryed, but I wouldn't dream of keeping them together even in a huge cage.

Temps should never be above 78F ambient, 69-74F seems good.
Humidity needs to be high. 70%-90% seems right.
If temps get high, humidity needs to be 95%-100% or they will get weak and die fast.

Add the male to the females cage and the rest is like most chameleons...
The female if gravid will lay in 5-6 months.
Eggs take about 4-5 months to hatch in 65-69F temps.
As for the 8-12 babies...be prepared for hungry mouths. They need high humidity or could die.

Harry
 
alright. i didnt know if they were good or not but im guessing they are. also how big is the reccomended cage size for quads. i was going to try and house a pair in a 4x4x6 cage but idk if that will work
 
Well you have some good quad keepers jumping in. D Gray is modest - he knows his stuff, Warpdrive is anal about his, even has a male that likes to poop in his hand, I know a bit, and to round it out all you need is luevelvet, probably the most technical and experienced one of all.

Also Harry- (warpdrive) and I differ on temps, my kids don't get above 72 unless I get sloppy. I like 68 - 72 for adults and babies around 65 - 68.
 
Since they dont need high temps do i even need a basking light? Im kinda scared about cooking them but im pretty sure ill need one. I guess ill go with the smallest i can find
 
Mine get basking lights that are 25 watt, that way they think they are basking.:)
The friend I had who kept a trio together almost lost both females because the male would not leave them alone (go figure:rolleyes:) and the stress and being constantly gravid wore them down.
 
...

laurie said:
Well you have some good quad keepers jumping in. D Gray is modest - he knows his stuff, ....
Click to expand...

Not modest, I will offer what experience a have, but defer to the real experts with years more experience. Thanks Laurie.
 
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So it doesn't seem like too many people have had problems keeping females together, of course given that they all have different personalities and some may need to be separated. I have a 4 ft by 2.5 ft by 6 ft tall for the male and 6ft by 8 ft by 4ft deep for the females, so would 3 females work in that huge cage, of course given that there are no bullies and it is heavily planted?
Before I even attempt to breed, I want to have the species for a while, just to observe, as I think it is important before jumping into breeding to learn as much about the species through our own experiences.
Since almost all of those that we have to acquire if we want them are wc, are they difficult to acclimate? I find Melleri difficult to acclimate (if you haven't and want to, you can read my post about euthanizing him), and he died of a blood clot to the small intestine. So after that, I am very hesitant to acquire wc sensitive animals.
 
Well I see no reason a male needs such a large cage.
Once again, even with such a cage for the females I personally wouldn't do it.
Once gravid said female would need her own space anyway...just a waste of time to even try it.

If you act fast, both Luis and Laurie might have a baby to spare in a few months...so that you don't have to go the whole WC way.

Personally I think that any WC has its own challenges.
My male is freshly in the country now for about 2 1/2 weeks and drinks like a fish and ate from my fingers before ever going into his cage.
He has been easy as can be for any animal that is shipped.

My girl has been shedding while being about 5 months gravid.
She is scared to death of me, so I leave her alone as much as I can.
She has been in captivity for 8 months now and I can't ever see her with others sharing a cage.
At least not in her state right now.

Harry
 
Your male will love you for a cage that size!! Lucky guy. On keeping the females together, since you want to try just plant very heavily, watch them ( i know planting heavy & watching are not easy.:D) I would remove any gravid females. Other than that keep me posted on how it goes, I am always looking to learn and find different ways to do things, even if I opt not to try it now, you never know about later, right?
 
Hey Everyone,

Great topic, but maybe I'm a little biased! :p

I'm working on a quadricornis care sheet right now and will let everyone know when I'm done with it, but to answer a few questions in this thread...

When planning your enclosures and such, I would recommend having one for each animal. You can never predict whether they will be peaceful long term. Recent example, one of our adult females just laid a clutch at the and of April. After a 6 week hiatus from the male (who normally, and gently, loves his ladies and will pace when they're not around) I introduced her back into the main enclosure. The male went bananas and unsuccessfully attempted to violently mate with the female, after which he proceeded to attack her viscously.

Moral of the story? Give a guy 6 weeks away from his lady friends and he realizes how amazing the freedom is! :p

All kidding aside, after 6 months of being by each others side, I thought they were inseparable until that moment. They can turn on each other very quickly. Females or males to either gender. In an attempt to save space, I placed two females together (mother and daughter funny enough) and Momma wasn't having it at all.

Now, my melodramatic story to illustrate how situations like this can go south doesn't negate the potential for you have different experiences. Like I said, they were inseparable for more than 6 months and for long periods of time before that in the care of their previous owners. :)



As far cage size goes, bigger truly is better but I don't recommend adults in anything smaller than a 2x2' foot print. Larger for multiple adults together. Height is something that is relative to your bonsai and furnishing skills. Our adult cages are mainly 2x2x3', with younger adults being housed in 2' cubes.

We don't provide basking spots since it tends to raise the temps in the room a bit too much, but the room rarely goes above 78 and usually hovers around 76. Oh, and DGray, most homes in FL have central air systems which does a decent job in our home. It will help when we sell our panther's and go entirely montane. :)

All enclosures are heavily planted, mostly with schefflera and everything is lit with Exo-Terra 5.0 linear bulbs.

They get misted three times per day at 10 mins each session. All enclosures drain into a main drainage system we have hooked up for all of our animals. RH goes up and down throughout the year. Averages seem to be ~40% in the winter up to ~70% in the summer. I turn the cool-mist humidifier on when it dips below the 40's.

We offer no supplementation, just well fed/gutloaded crickets. We use fresh vegetables and fruits daily along with a friends homemade gutload mixture.

Hmmm....did I miss anything? Oh, and yes, we will have a few available in the coming months. Unfortunately we won't have completely unrelated pairs so I'm hoping a few other folk can fill in the gaps. But the numbers are looking....good at the moment. :)

Luis
 
i had pretty much the same experience warpdrive said about his WC male, right off the bat he wasn't shy about eating in front of me and seemed to acclimate pretty well. maybe it has something to do with some of the breeders (like flchams or LLLreptile) doing better jobs of acclimating their animals before selling them, idk.
 
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