Hello.Sorry to hear of your baby Jackson's troubles.
I've raised over 50 Jackson's babies and did not experience the sudden death problem that so many others have reported.
While my "methods" may or may not make a difference to babies born to a malnourished or abused (recently imported) mother, it may help others to raise their Jackson's babies.
Having said this, I am not placing blame on Jackson's keepers for the sudden deaths they may experience.
Look at all the money which has been dedicated to researching human SIDS and the cause or causes
still remain unknown.
Unfortunately, very little time or money is spent on researching chameleons and their health issues--which is why sharing information with others on this forum is so important.
Rather than keep secret what has worked for me, I'm glad to share the info and truly hope that it helps others to raise their Jackson's babies with fewer problems.
I'll clear up a misconception or two that you have and suggest a couple of changes.
First, Jackson's don't necessarily take 9 months to gestate before being born.
The
range is 6-9 months and my Jackson's took 6 months from start of pregnancy to birth.
The babies were not premature and I did not have losses.
Baby Jackson's look odd compared to their older appearance. Their heads and eyes are larger and they are brown.
Every single one of my Jackson's xanth babies had 3 horn nubs present from birth.
Secondly, be prepared for the very strong possibility that momma Jackson will give birth to another set of babies 6 months from now.
Jackson's most definitely can and do retain sperm from a single breeding session and go on to have subsequent births.
For the setup, I would make a few changes.
I would eliminate both the basking light and the night light from the babies' enclosure.
They are
both keeping the temperatures too high, which rapidly leads to dehydration in babies especially
and the night light prevents proper sleep patterns in most chams.
Time and time again I've read posts by people who were advised when they bought their chams to use a night light--- and doing so resulted in their chams getting sick.
They were puzzled as to why, because they were doing everything they had been told (elsewhere) to do.
Jackson's babies like it cooler than the Jackson's adults do--who, in turn, like it cooler than Panthers and Veileds do.
Jackson's will benefit from a nighttime drop in temperature.
For this reason, I would get rid of mom's nightlight, too.
60-80% humidity is great but constant wetness isn't desirable. A humidity and temperature gauge is essential.
If you lower the temperature to 70-75 at the warmest, the babies will need less frequent mistings to keep the humidity up.
I used an 18x18x36" tall ExoTerra , put a used Reptisun 5.0 linear (long tube) bulb for UVB and warmth, added a couple of live Umbrella plants, lined the bottom with paper towels both to retain some moisture and to act as a replaceable bottom liner to ensure cleanliness.
I inserted 20-30 bamboo shish kebab skewers into the foam backing, so the babies could vary their distance from the UV and also quickly move anywhere within the terrarium that they wanted to go.
Food must be available
constantly.
I loved using Josh's Frogs producing cultures of Hydei fruit flies and I also used their FF media to make my own cultures.
NEHerpetoculture also had nice cultures but does not have the quantities of producing cultures for immediate use that I needed to raise groups of 20-30 babies at a time.
I relied upon the nutrients present in the Hydei FFs from using cultures nourished with Josh's Frogs Fly media or Repashy FF media and did not dust the flies at all for at least the first month.
1 or 2 fresh pieces of fruit were kept on the end of skewers so that the flies would congregate there and make for easier targets for the babies.
They ate nothing but FFs for the first 4-6 weeks.
No D3 or multivitamin was added until later, as these were already present in the FF media.
That's why I was picky about which media I used for the FFs, too.
Some people make their own FF media from cheap ingredients but that is not going to provide the same nutrition as the Josh's Frogs or Repashy FF Media do.
I then added Phoenixworms because of their naturally high calcium content and they are also rather nutritious aside from the calcium.
I ordered them directly from the source
http://www.phoenixworm.com/servlet/the-template/comparison/Page
I later added very small crickets and very small superworms--which both were
always dusted with plain calcium to compensate for their poor calcium
hosphorus ratio.
Hatching your own silkworms is another way to provide calcium rich feeders.
A variety of feeders is important for the adult Jackson's too.
Mine enjoy crickets, superworms, Phoenixworms, silkworms, isopods, land snails and Blue Bottle flies.
The feeders are all fed a nutritious diet, so that my chams are provided with more nutrients.
The reason that variety is good is that each feeder absorbs a different amount of the nutrients from the same foods.
For example, crickets store vitamin A in their eyes.
Land snails (you'll need to breed your own) store a huge amount of calcium in their shells. Isopods also contain a good amount of calcium, as do phoenixworms and silkworms.
Ensuring that everyone is drinking is an extremely important task.
Jackson's brains often don't seem to register the need to drink until after 2-3 minutes of continuous misting.
If misted in shorter bursts, some of them would not have been drinking enough.
I suspect that being unaware of this and failing to mist longer, rather than more frequently may be one of the common causes of Jackson's "SIDS".
I truly wish more people appreciated the Jackson's for the awesome chams that they are.
Gentle little, lovable dinosaurs is what they seem like to me!
I hope this helps you out and the rest of your babies thrive.
For anyone looking for a healthy Jackson's female--I am willing to let just a few go to good homes.
PM or email me before the weather gets too cold to ship safely.
