Carpet Cham Photos!

Jimturner

Established Member
Here are a few pics of my new carpet chams! The first three are the female, the last two are the male. The female is gravid... any husbandry or incubation tips would be much appreciated! Cheers!
 
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I KNOW! It's nuts how tiny they are... I'm used to my mellers, the behemoths that they are. These little things blow my mind. lol I think I'm hooked. Probably gonna get more. Cheers!
 
Stunning chameleons! I would really love a female myself one day! Have you seen her go black with her colours yet? Carpets are just so beautiful!
 
These are really beautiful, the only shame is their short life span. Good luck with them, hope the breeding goes well.
 
They are beautiful!!!! The best of luck with breeding and please let me know if you would ship to Ontario!!!
 
Hi Jim,

They look great. :)

They are easy to nest. Just use a 5 gallon bucket with sand/soil mixture. I say mixture of the two because I've had 2 females that died when their nest collapsed on them while digging in the past 7 years. This was an all sand base and heavier. I've found the trick (if there is one) to getting them to nest is having the substrate be pretty moist. Just place a 60 watt spot bulb over the top of it, and leave them in for the entire day. If they don't use it, take them out for a day to recover, and then try again the next. You can usually tell they are ready to lay because the eggs are palpable pretty easily. I don't notice much restless behavior with this species prior to laying, and they generally lay for me between 2 weeks and 1 month after breeding.

This species has a reputation for dropping eggs, and in my earlier years of breeding them, I thought this was normal. In the past 2 years, I've only had maybe one girl do this. It is not any more normal than with any other species. You just need to be persistent. If she does drop them though, don't worry, they can hatch just fine as long as they aren't broken/dehydrated beyond recovery.

Good luck! You'll love lats. They are a great species.

Kevin
 
Forgot to add incubation...30 grams vermiculite, 20 grams of water. 70F for 7-15 months. The average is 8-10 though. Using a LLL or think geek "incubator" works wonders as long as it is not placed in a room with wild temp. swings.

Kevin
 
Thanks for the info! I have read that the eggs benefit from a diapause of a few degrees during the second month of incubation... any thoughts or experience with this? Cheers!
 
Ive used both methods Jim, and can tell you that diapause is unreliable and often creates weak babies and hatching rates as low as 10%. This is not every time, but many times. Your best bet is constant 68-70F. It's reliable and works. Don't ask me why the older literature makes it seem like diapause is necessary. That advice wasted a lot of time and eggs for me when I first started working with them.

Kevin
 
Thanks again for the great info! It's good to hear it from an experienced keeper/breeder. Cheers, Jim.
 
How are they doing Jim? I have clutches laid monthly, and today, this girl laid a nice clutch of 15. This was her 4th time being placed in the nesting bucket. As I said, persistence pays off.

Kevin

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Great photos! I have placed a temporary small bin inside her enclosure.... no sign of use yet and she is still chubby & a little bumpy. I leave to work out of town in the morning and intend to try the larger more isolated bucket if she hasn't laid by the time I return sunday. The temporary bin is 6"x9" with maybe 4 inches of sand... deep enough? I cant wait to try out your recipe! lol Cheers!
 
Hey Jim,

By this point a response is probably not as important. It's Sunday already! I'm sorry for the late reply. 4" would probably suffice, but she'll dig deeper if you let her. I haven't measure the depth of the sand in my laying buckets, but it's probably 8-10" and they dig straight to the bottom in many cases, or just short of it. Keep me posted :)

Kevin
 
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