I bred my female veiled

[Nicodemayo]

We'll i posted a thread a week or so ago wondering whether or not i should breed my female. This week she'll be like right at 5 1/2 months old and i weighed her the day i was deciding whether or not i should breed her and she weighed in at 114g before i fed her. I know some of you may disapprove of this decision but i was letting mother nature do the call. If she wasnt the weight she is, i would have never even considered it. Everything went perfect and i had them together for about 2 hours and they bred twice during this time. The male is a good looking boy and they'll surely have very good looking baby's. My roommate has a high definition camera that we filmed the first round of action on so I'll be uploading that later. I don't have a place to host hd videos so you tube quality is gonna have to do lol. I talked with a friend of mine who's been breeding veileds for years and and i discussed the young age factor to him but in his honest opinion he said at her weight and size he felt she'll truly do fine be fine, just as long as i have her properly set up with her bucket. Ive had that strategy laid out since the day i bought her so im not to worried, just a little nervous because this is my first time. He has a couple of females that are around 2yrs of age they have already laid a couple of clutches for him and they weigh in at the low 100g range. This will be the only time i breed this female and after that she'll be fed on a maintenance schedule for the rest of her days. I'm doing this purely for experience and then i will be focusing on breeding panthers. I posted a few pics of her and her boyfriend.

I do have a couple questions as far as incubation go's. Im seriously tossing around the idea of weather or not i should buy a hova bator. My reptile room temps are about 72 at night and 78 during the day on a shelf i plan on putting them on if i were to choose not to put them in an incubator. My other option is to buy a hovabator and place them in a closet in my room i never use for anything and for the first two months, keep the temps at like 70 and then after that gradually bump the temps up a couple of degrees a week up to 78 or so. What do some of you experienced with breeding veileds do? I talked to my buddy will about this and he said he uses the closet method and that the eggs are pretty hardy if you keep the humidity levels correct. He told me that years ago, he had babies hatching and his work was chaos and one of his females was laying at the time. He put her in the bucket and took off to work, when he came home during the day and he saw she laid, took her out and back into her cage and had to take off again for work. So much was going on between work and all the babies(he breeds leos,beardies, ball pythons, crested and various frogs) that it was about 3 months before he remembered them. When he did he dug them up, put them in the tupperware with the vermiculite and tossed them in the closet and all but 2 eggs ended up hatching.

so anyway, what is your preffered method of incubation?

 

[Nicodemayo]

Well no one is responding lol. I may have pissed off some people cause i bred her at 5 1/2 months old. If anyone does see this, i have a question.

How much should i be feeding her? The past few days ive given her her normal meal plus about a half. All is supplemented with calcium w/o d3 but i have a schedual shes on so i switch between calc with d3 and without. What do some of you experienced breeders suggest as far as diet goes. Also the crix and superworms shes feeding on right now are gutoaded beyond belief. I also prefer to only feed her molted superworms as well. I have them both in bins full of dry gutload, greens, and oranges.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Sometimes so many of us are posting on the forum at the same time that a new post drops out of the "window" before the right people have taken a look at it.

I have not had eggs hatch yet, so I can't help with that. Our eggs are incubating in a small room kept at a near-constant 78 degrees (following Kinyonga's successful temperature range).

I do agree about the breeding size. She seems huge for 5 1/2 months. It's not just age that matters, it's the weight and "beefy-ness" of the female. SHe needs good bone mass and body mass to support egg development. Of course, the other issue with veileds is that you're going to get egg development whether you breed her or not. With her at 114g, and the size she looks in the photos, especially next to that male, I don't see a problem with breeding her at this age.

Have you checked this site out for help in caring for your girl and for the eggs?: http://raisingkittytheveiledchameleon.blogspot.com/

By the way, that's a very attractive pair!

 

[Justin Carl]

Once again I think that people dont like to post on certain things because of politics.
Sure, their are the "safe" routes, but why not try to learn on your own?
I think its great, and I like to see people step outside of the "comfort zone".
I'm guessing 40 eggs by the way.

 

[Eric Adrignola]

Really, it's a matter of size vs. age. Many problems arize when females are bred too small. They are not eliminated when they're bred young - though the reasons might be only indiretly related.

Females that attain huge size very young were likely being fed a lot. This often results in unnaturally fast growth. Abnormal reproductive systems have been linked to rapid growth.

It's been my experience that females grown fast and bred young have a very hgih rate of dying egg-bound. But not from egg binding.

Their reproductive systems seem to be onyl partially developed. When full of eggs, the oviduct is entangled with the intestines, and this is fatal if not sutrgically resolved.

The symptoms are as follows : female digs and lays normally -but can only lay part of the clutch. Usually around 10 eggs. The rest cannot pass. Surgury reveals the oviduct is pinched off by the intestine. Was told ot me by Linda davidson, many MANY years ago, and I've seen it personally in two of MY OWN animals, before I knew better. Since then, I've seen it in probably 20 female veileds, all bred before they were 9 months old.

In my experience, it's risky - no matter the size - to breed females under 9 months of age.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Thank you, Eric. That's the first explanation I've heard for waiting, outside of the size/weight/mass issue. Very interesting and good to know.

 

[Nicodemayo]

Good to know although i have read contradicting view, i do not doubt anything you have to say. I guess all i can do now is correctly nourish her and cross my fingers. Lol justin me and my roomates are already guessing how many eggs shes gonna lay. I have my bets on 23.

 

[Nicodemayo]

i weighed her yesterday and she now weights 118g. I have also noticed her poops are alot smaller which i am assuming most of everything is going toward the egg development. How much weight should i expect her to gain right before laying?

 

[Eric Adrignola]

It's almost impossible to tell. Most of my females in the past (over 10 years ago) laid around 35 eggs their first clutch. I was concious of not overfeeding them, an dthey were about 9-12 months of age. If your female mated at 5 months or less, she was clearly growing fast. One could assume she was being fed a tremendous amount of food to attain such growth. This often results in a female producing a large clutch.

Plus, she's big. She's bigger than most of my females.

Generally, a female fed enough food to attain an accelerated growth rate is going to be developing more eggs. It's the same result as overfeeding females to product lots of eggs per clutch. In fact, regulating food intake of a growing female veiled is most important (to me) in that it prevents them from developing massive clutches of eggs.

The end result is a later dte of maturity, but initially, my goal was smaller clutch sizes.

With the food quantity required to get her that big that fast, I wouldn't be surprised if you have a clutch near 70. but hey, it's nature, you never know for sure!

 

[stevereecy]

I once had a baby panther that I hatched out, and then raised up to breed her. I kept tracking her weight, and then I checked my notes on her age before breeding her. I thought she was 5.5 months old, and her weight was well "into the zone" and she was showing receptive colors. Turns out only after a successful mating when I was rechecking my notes, I realized she was actually 4.5 months. Yes, I'm the result of public education. I sweated the whole time that she was gravid.

Turned out she had a regular-sized clutch, and then kept on laying eggs with no problems.

That is an extreme case, and a "mistake", but sometimes mistakes can help us understand where the limits are. Recently, for example, I had a 2 month old veiled chameleon that get lost during "overnight" shipping and it stayed in the box for a few hours shy of 4 days and it survived. Another mistake, but its not something that I worry about sharing from a "political" standpoint, because its good information that should be published so everyone knows it. Now all of you know that Veileds probably will be OK if they are in the box for 2 days, for example, though its not something I do, nor recommend.

In any event, I believe that if your food is nutritious, and their weight is appropriate, breeding at 5 or 6 months, depending on species is OK. I think the best formula for figuring out the "reasonably safe" minimum age is taking 12 months minus the time that it takes for the eggs to incubate expressed in months. If Veiled eggs typically take 6 months to incubate in the wild, then 6 months of age is appropriate and probably happens all the time in the wild. If the age plus incubation time exceeds 12 months in the wild, then the wild populations would lay eggs later, and later every year, like the ancient Romans trying to figure out why it is snowing in summer because their calendar isn't quite right.

Yes, this is captivity, and diets are artificially too "good", so clutch sizes are too large, and that is a good counter-argument against breeding as early as nature. But Veileds must mate before 8 months of age in the wild, or their eggs would have to incubate in 4 months to stay within the calendar year. So a small clutch at a young age might be OK if it falls within what is natural.

This argument has been raging for years. The bottom line is there is no good rule of thumb, because the age and weight for breeding depends not just on how much the cham was fed, but when in its life it was overfed, when, or if, feeding was reduced prior to developing eggs.

Steve

 

[Nicodemayo]

Interesting things you both have to say. When i first got my female at around 4-5 weeks old, i would feed her 4-5 1/4 inch crickets a day and i think most would argue thats way to much but i continued this diet until she was about 2 months old and i would feed her 6-8 crix a day (increasing the cricket side with the "cricket rule") while most people with their female would feed them maybe 4-5 crix every other day. I kept everything well supplemented and would often throw in a superworm to subsitutue for a couple of crickets. After everything ive seen about overfeeding while they're young, i know how careful i need to be when i buy my female panther, and i am going to feed her much more strictly than i did my veiled but i was still learning and still am. Steve-your panther story lets me rest alittle easier but i wont be completely at ease until i see her drink like mad and chow down after she lays all those eggs. 70 eggs will be a handful if she lays that much. Hopefully she wont end up like what eric is believes will happen to my female. I guess i'll just learn from experience and i'll know how to raise up a female better next time.

 

[Lovestospooge]

Well no one is responding lol. I may have pissed off some people cause i bred her at 5 1/2 months old. If anyone does see this, i have a question.

How much should i be feeding her? The past few days ive given her her normal meal plus about a half. All is supplemented with calcium w/o d3 but i have a schedual shes on so i switch between calc with d3 and without. What do some of you experienced breeders suggest as far as diet goes. Also the crix and superworms shes feeding on right now are gutoaded beyond belief. I also prefer to only feed her molted superworms as well. I have them both in bins full of dry gutload, greens, and oranges.

why would people get mad? isnt it a good idea to breed them? or unless its a bad thing? she looks really big and healthy I would breed her!

 

[Eric Adrignola]

I'm not really trying to be negative. I'm just stating facts. In my experience, wen females are bred young, they have a higher incidence of problems and a higher mortality. When females are overfed, they lay huge clutches. It's entirely possible she may lay a small clutch - there is variation. Due to her size and rate of growth, it's a safe bet that she'll lay a large clutch.

A factor to consider is that she is a BIG female! Larger females have an easier time laying eggs, period.

I hope all goes well, of course. Personally, I'm kinda thinking my female will lay a larger clutch this go round. I thought she was gravid a couple months ago, so I fed her a lot. Turns out, the increased feedings triggered her to become receptive (along with the warming temps), and NOW she's gravid and getting big. IT wouldnt' surprise me if she's got ~50 this time as a result.

 

[elishkamo]

female veiled

after reading your thread i had a few questions for you...id the picture of your female veiled after she copulated? i was wondering how to know if they mated if i missed the action happening lol i left mine in over night together and she now looks like your female in your pic.
IS SHE COPULATED?

 

[Brian]

Hi Nicodemayo,

Veiled chameleon eggs are farely easy to hatch out... and Im shure all yours will hatch out fine. You'll want to buy a hova-bator incubator the one without the fan. Sometimes some people recommend no incubator but they hatch out better and faster this way. You'll want to place the eggs in moist vermiculate about an inch apart, but leave a little place on the side (with no eggs) to spray the vermiculate if needed. Make shure the incubator is in a dark room (I had mine in a closet). Set the incubator 78 degrees and check on the eggs once every two weeks for bad eggs etc. You'll also want to make shure the container you have the eggs in has one small hole on the top middle. They should hatch out in about 6 to 7 months...but dont throw any away, I had one egg hatch out a month and half after all the eggs hatched.

Brian