Chameleon crazy

[Mikhail]

Hello everyone, 1st post here and we've officially gone off the deep end. My wife has wanted a chameleon for some time and yesterday we saw a craigslist post for 50 veiled chameleon eggs. I figured we would buy one or two but we ended up getting all fifty. Mom was gravid with another batch so I think we'll get her today. The dad was beautiful but I think the owner was rather attached to him.

Never owned a chameleon before. I do care for a wide variety of tarantulas (from 1/8th inch to 9 inches) a pacman frog (cranwelli), and two sp. of roaches. lobster roach and B. Discoidalis. So if anyone ever has a question about roaches or tarantulas be sure to let me know.

I'll post more info on our eggs in the breeding section later, but just wanted to say hi.

 

[Olimpia]

Oh my god, 50 eggs? hahaha That's incredible. Good luck with the hatching and raising of them.

 

[littleliz]

Hi welcome to the forum. Whoa talk about jumping in at the deep end LOL! Hope all goes well. I look forward to seeing pictures of the babies

 

[Miss Lily]

My goodness! One baby cham at a time is enough for me, lol! Hope all goes well for you.

 

[Carlmora]

Yes, that is quite bit of life to put on someones hands! Careful! Im sure you have it under control though, and of course you have a helpful community behind you if you need any help. Not me though I myself am still learning so be sure to keep us updated!

 

[Julirs]

Chameleons are not an easy lizard to care for, and starting out with eggs and hopefully neonates will be extremely difficult. Do you know when these eggs were laid? Please research carefully while saving your money. Baby Veileds are very costly to raise. This will give you an idea.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/cost-raising-69-baby-18467/

Hopefully the eggs were not flipped or jostled too much when you got them. If they flip positions or get shaken too much they will be bad.

 

[laurie]

Welcome to the forum, so you wanted A CHAMELEON? Wow do you 2 put the kind of entushism into all you do? First think as you just heard is when were the eggs laid? Find that out and we will go from there. How far did you move them from where you bought them and how did you move them? That is all good info for us to know. Thay should be fun for you.

 

[writh]

that's a lot of eggs ...............this site might help with baby enclosures just an idea http://www.screameleons.com/site/3467/default.aspx

 

[Mikhail]

Egg info

Well the eggs were laid 4-27 and appear to be progressing normally. We moved them by car from where they were, about a 30 minute drive or so. They are currently in a dark room at around 80. I realize they will be hard to care for, but we're real animal nuts and we've had everything from bottlefed cats, 9 inch T.Blondi, and 15+foot Burmese. I also have a lot of contacts in the local reptile community because I used to sell crix/mealworms and now roaches. So I actually have people that are after the eggs and the young already. We're trying to take extreme care with them.
Thanks for the site for enclosures, I believe I will make my own though. Im pretty handy with those sort of things.
I'm not really worried about the cost. We have tons of rubbermaid totes sitting around, a good supply of clamp lamps uvb and such. I also breed a large colony of lobster roaches, B.discoidalis, and will be incorporating turkistan roaches as well soon. Roaches save so much money if you have a lot of animals. Live bearing too (most) so you don't have to incubate eggs like crickets.

We ended up going back to the owners house and buying the parents as well. The mother is gravid again and preparing to lay. The dad is stunning. He's a sort of pastel green with these big bright yellow ovals on his side. he had black horizontal stripes but now they are red/white marbled. He also picked up some green polka dots inside the yellow ovals. Interesting creature.
The mother has sustained some sort of tounge injury and is hand fed.

Thanks for the welcome and the advice all. I'm primarily on a tarantula forum but I plan to keep my eyes open here as well.

 

[laurie]

How about pictures of the parents? We love pictures on this forum. Sounds like you have it pretty much under control, keep us posted..