Gravid veiled, need advice

[leafling424]

My chameleon had been showing signs of being gravid, but she has done this before with no digging. I attached the cage to the bin I had on hand knowing it wasnt quite deep enough but not trusting myself to understand her signals-thinking she was just stressed from our recent move and her new digs. however this morning i woke up to sounds of her scratching in the sand, actually digging like a dog in the corner of the bin! this is a first for both of us, and I have been a worried mother hen all day, making sure she has complete privacy and pacing back and forth. i went in to very quietly check on her and she is at the bottom of the bin trying to dig further. I realized the sand is only 6 inches deep! Immediately went to store to pick up more sand and a deeper bin, made sure the sand had enough water in it, have a curtain set up around it for some added privacy....but now I am stuck with the task of getting her INTO the bin. do I wait until she crawls back up tonight and move her in her sleep? do I carefully attempt to get her out of her hole NOW? WHAT IS MY MOVE HERE

thank you so much for any input. we need all the help we can get. she is in very good health, but I am so worried about the possibilty of her becoming eggbound.

 

[kinyonga]

I would likely move her to the bin...but first I would start a hole for her in the bin you are going to move her to. Will you be able to leave her in the bin until she lays the eggs... even if it's a few days?

 

[leafling424]

yes it's a good place, plenty of privacy, sun through the window, and its deep enough that she wont climb out. it will be very difficult to get her out of her cage though. she is digging in the back corner, and i have tons of foliage to move to reach her. she very much dislikes anybody looking at her when shes "normal" and hates to be taken out of her cage. should i still move her, knowing all this?

 

[leafling424]

i did it, she wasnt as angry as i thought she would be. she seemed kind of relieved, the poor thing. i started a new hole in the big bin like you said. i will check on her again in a little while to make sure shes ok with things. thank you so much.

 

[leafling424]

Update: She seemed to lay eggs and then cover up the hole yesterday! I wiped off some of the sand, put her back in her cage under her uvb light and fed her some crickets dusted with a multi-vit. She is skinny now, her color is looking good, but when I searched for the eggs I came up empty. I put her back in the bin very early this morning and left her for a few hours but she only hung out on the small tree i put there, did no digging or anything. I will continue to keep an eye on her. My question now is, how tiny are the eggs? I thought I was searching pretty carefully, but are they small enough to be easily missed?

 

[kinyonga]

Infertile veiled eggs are like small jelly beans usually. Did you look everywhere in the bin because sometimes the will turn the corner and dig in a different direction.

 

[leafling424]

I found them! She laid them in the original hole, in her cage. I couldn't get to the spot before because of the foliage. Today I unattached the cage from the laying bin and voila! 36 little jellybeans, just as you said! I'm not sure what to do with them now. I have cats, maybe it'd be a nice treat? Haha!

 

[camimom]

I just throw the infertile eggs out.