Help! My Female Jackson is pregnant!

[yogiyogi]

Hi guys, this is my first time posting on the forums~
I need help with my pregnant Jackson Chameleon. She looks like a Bag of marbles and has been constantly opening her mouth.

I would like to know, how to handle the birth of the baby chameleons, Could i feed them pinhead crickets on their first week (I live in Hawaii, I'm not sure where to get fruitflies @___@), the appropriate settings of the cage, what i should keep an eye on, Is a plastic reptocontainers a good place to raise them for a while (It has a lid with alot of slit/vents on the top), and ANY OTHER INFORMATION YOU CAN GIVE ME. I want to successfully raise as much babies as I can, I dont want them to perish :<.

Also, How can you tell when a female jackson chameleons going to give birth ? Any signs that will tell that she will give birth in a week ?

 

[bluewuta]

My experience is that my females will not eat as much and then stop eating before giving birth. I take and separate all my babies in to two pound deli cups with a two inch hole in the top cut out and then I use a hot glue gun to glue window screen over the whole. I then put some sphagnum moss (sp) in the bottom and moisten it to keep humidity up. Then put some manzanita or other sterile small branches in each and thats my individual cage for my babies for the first month. I give them fruit flies as food and pin heads but I also put a small number in so I can keep track of who ate and if you put to much and they crawl on the hatchling it with stress them. I have had a lot of success with raising all my babies this way but it is time consuming and can be expensive but I find it worth it. I am sure there are others that have some other ideas that may work for you.

 

[xanthoman]

imo, it would be a really good time to fill out the help form in its entirety.
in the meantime i would drop your uva basking temps to below 80*

 

[jodeoh60]

Go for bigger crickets than pinheads-- one or two sizes up always did fine here. Forget fruitflies unless you can make you own giant-sized cultures two months ahead, as you'll bust the bank. The babies will easily tolerate each other up to 3 to six months of age, so one small group screen cage 18'x18'x18' should do fine. Shower the heck out of them--I'd drip them in the shower slowly overnight everyday. The three most important issues are hydration, hydration, hydration!!

 

[jodeoh60]

Goto "the jackson nine" here and see our crop of baby jacksons given to the members of the forum

 

[BocaJan]

I happen to have an 18x18x18 Nano that worked great. I had 8 babies and they got to climb all over the place and ate whatever I put in there. I already had some nice big ff, some 1/8 crickets (you have to be careful with 1/4". Sometimes the breeders give you 1/2's mixed in with the 1/4's and they are waaaay to big for the little guys. My advice is start small for a week and then as you see they can handle them you can always go larger. Boy, I have a bunch of mantis breaking out now, that would be perfect! Too bad you don't have some of those.

 

[bluewuta]

I keep about 20 cultures going at a time to and start up more when they give birth. I have seen to many babies choke so ai am always using smaller crickets then they may eat. The movement of the fruit flies tends to simulate them to eat for me.