Hey guys I’ve had my female veiled chameleon since October and she is a year old. Breeding them was always something I was interested in so that’s when I decided I would expand so I got a beautiful male chameleon he’s full of color and when I saw her showing receptivity I put her in the males cage for an hour. It looked like they paired successfully about 3 times since then 3 days later I showed her the male and she was showing a lot of unreceptive behavior. I don’t know if she will be laying eggs soon but any advice of what the laying him should consist of and other things would be very appreciated!
Need advice for breeding
- Thread starter Panda26
- Start date
Syreptyon
Chameleon Enthusiast
A little late for that. OP stated that they already allowed their chameleons to mate.
What you really need to prepare for is how you're going to feed the probably dozens of babies. You will need feeders on the order of thousands. If you assume each cham eats ~10 insects a day, you could easily end up needing 300+ feeders every single day, so I hope you're prepared and have a plan to accomplish that.
The other thing will be, what are you going to do with the offspring? How are you going to find people to sell them to? The world has no shortage of veileds whatsoever and so there is very little demand for single person breeding projects (especially when, unlike the many many established veiled breeders out there, you have no reputation as a competent keeper let alone breeder in the public eye). What will you do if you can't sell them? You need to be prepared and knowledgable starting yesterday. Breeding is not to be taken lightly. It is very hard on the female's body and very expensive. In the beginning, they won't take up all that much space, but they will grow fast and eventually need to be separated from each other. So you will need space, equipment, supplements, caging, lighting, etc etc.
You will be putting a heck of a lot more money into doing this than you will make from selling them. In addition you need to know exactly how to incubate chameleon eggs. Do you know how to set up a proper laybin for your female? Do you know how long incubation takes? Since they have seemingly already mated, you will quickly run out of time before you need to know all of this and much more, so I suggest getting to researching everything you possibly can immediately.
Thank you! I’ve researched a lot about breeding before I’m providing a lot of extra care toward my female and I’ve been in touch with someone that breeds them also!
salty dog
Chameleon Enthusiast
It is expensive, at 2.5 months they will all need their own cage, or they will kill each other, each cage will need a uv light, and need replacing every 6 months.....uv light + fixtur $85.00.....viv $100.00 feeders for 2 weeks 30.00 so 1 viv without furnishing bare minimum 220.00.....how many babies....220.00 x 25 = 5,500 those are real numbers!!
JuniorC
Avid Member
What kind of bulbs do you use for basking?
jannb
Chameleon Enthusiast
A 25 watt old style household bulb, here in the Florida Keys keeps the babies 80 to 82. I use the tube style 48 inch Reptisun 5.0 for UVB.
How are your chams getting any UVB with the light being so far away from the highest perching spots? It appears to be a good 2 feet away.
@Panda26 very exciting stuff. First thing the lay bin. Egg Laying and the Laying Bin
Step 2 do the math that Syreptyon suggested. You could easily have 3 clutches of 50 in the span of 6-9 months. If that sounds too pricey know that you don't have to incubate all of the eggs. You could cull the eggs down to only a dozen that you incubate. That way you get the experience without the out of control overhead for all the cages you might need if you can't re-home them quickly.
Step 2 do the math that Syreptyon suggested. You could easily have 3 clutches of 50 in the span of 6-9 months. If that sounds too pricey know that you don't have to incubate all of the eggs. You could cull the eggs down to only a dozen that you incubate. That way you get the experience without the out of control overhead for all the cages you might need if you can't re-home them quickly.
jannb
Chameleon Enthusiast
I have a UV meter and they get about 10. I keep adults at 20 or more. Over the years I have found that babies don’t like high UVB and it can bother their eyes. I’ve had them close their eyes in the past and open them after the UV was turned off a couple days.
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Thank you that’s great advice!
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