My veiled is pregnant! what now?

[Mike H.]

Hello! Alaska is pregnant! she has a very nice and big laying bin, and i have a tote bin with some perlite in it! every day i feed her 5 calcium powder covered crickets, a superworm, and lettuce once a week. i know she will lay eggs in 20-30 days. How should i prepare the perlite? What should the humidity in the tote box be? temperature the eggs should be at? thank you!

 

[jannb]

Welcome to the forums. Did you mate your girl? They usually lay around 30 days after mating. Here's a video and my blog that should help you out.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/laying-bin-set-up-educational-video.77225/
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/egg-laying-and-the-laying-bin.345/

 

[kinyonga]

The eggs are incubated on perlite so I'm assuming that's what you mean when you say you have e a tote bin ready.

Lettuce is not a good food for her. You can/should gutload,/feed the insects a wide assortment of greens (dandelion greens, kale, collards, endive, escarole, etc) and veggies (carrots, squash, zucchini, sweet potato, sweet red pepper, etc) and a bit of fruit (berries, melon, pears, apples, etc). A veiled can have the same items in addition to insects.

Re eggs...here's how it should go..
Near the time she is going to lay she will drink more, may eat less, will wander the cage looking for a place to lay them, etc she will dig a test hole or even several and pick one which she will dig until she's happy with it. Do not let her see you watching her when shes digging. It may make her abandon the hole. She will turn around butt down usually in the evening and lay the eggs. She will fill in the hole and tamp it down and go back up to the branches hungry and thirsty.

Once that's done you can dig the eggs up being careful not to turn them as you move them to the incubation container. Place them in rows in dents made with your thumb about an inch apart in all directions and put the lid on. Put them somewhere dark where the temperature is about 74F.

 

[Mike H.]

The eggs are incubated on perlite so I'm assuming that's what you mean when you say you have e a tote bin ready.

Lettuce is not a good food for her. You can/should gutload,/feed the insects a wide assortment of greens (dandelion greens, kale, collards, endive, escarole, etc) and veggies (carrots, squash, zucchini, sweet potato, sweet red pepper, etc) and a bit of fruit (berries, melon, pears, apples, etc). A veiled can have the same items in addition to insects.

Re eggs...here's how it should go..
Near the time she is going to lay she will drink more, may eat less, will wander the cage looking for a place to lay them, etc she will dig a test hole or even several and pick one which she will dig until she's happy with it. Do not let her see you watching her when shes digging. It may make her abandon the hole. She will turn around butt down usually in the evening and lay the eggs. She will fill in the hole and tamp it down and go back up to the branches hungry and thirsty.

Once that's done you can dig the eggs up being careful not to turn them as you move them to the incubation container. Place them in rows in dents made with your thumb about an inch apart in all directions and put the lid on. Put them somewhere dark where the temperature is about 74F.

Okay! How is my feeding of her? (5 calcium crickets a day and a mealworm) is it too much? And what about the humidity in the perlite incubation bin? I put water the same weight of the perlite in with it.

 

[kinyonga]

I don't use perlite so I don't know how moist to make it. Hopefully someone else will pipe up and tell you.
As for feeding ...that is not too much. Don't forget she needs lots of nutrients, especially calcium to put into the eggs.