Panther eggs incubation temps

[chameleongalore]

I have been breeding panther chameleons for 4 years now and I have kept temps at about 75/77. I hatched about 6 batches of ambilobe babies at 7 months with those temps but recently I lost 2 batches to premature babies and another 2 batches of nosey be's hatched at about 45% hatching rate. My son unplugged the incubator the one night and the temps dropped to 62 and I'm guessing thats the reason the babies didn't make it. Does anyone have any good suggestions for a very successful panther hatching rate? I know dropping the temps works well but thats kind of hard for me to accomplish since my basement is quite cold. Thanks

 

[chameleonman6272]

chameleon breeder questions

hello my nme is mike i have a nosey be chameleon ? i am new at breeding and i have a female nosey be that layed 5 eggs and she is sitting on the bottom of her cage is she supposed to produce more i had the soil wrong at first i used straight vermiculite in her digging box now i have organic potting soil any ideas

 

[djfishygillz]

I would say keep the temps at 72-74 and wait till they hatch. It will take anywhere from 7 months to a year.

A more risky way of doing it is 68 for the first 2 months, then 72-74 for the next 2 months, then 78 from there on out and some people have recorded hatching as early as 5 1/2 months.

62 is way to low in my opinion. Think of Madagascar, do you think it ever gets that cold constantly? Check the weather there and the local of your animal species. I think you said ambilobe? Check the yearly weather and think about what temperature the soil would be that the chameleon would lay in in the wild (I hope that makes sense).

But yes 62 is really low. I haven't heard of anyone going that low. I would suggest just keeping it at 72-74 and waiting the long time. I heard they are the healthiest that way after hatching and have the best survival rates. I hope this helps.

 

[djfishygillz]

hello my nme is mike i have a nosey be chameleon ? i am new at breeding and i have a female nosey be that layed 5 eggs and she is sitting on the bottom of her cage is she supposed to produce more i had the soil wrong at first i used straight vermiculite in her digging box now i have organic potting soil any ideas

I chameleonman, you are new to the forum so welcome. Normally for this situation you would want to start your own thread not jump on someone elses thread. It is known as kind of "highjacking" for lack of a better term. It makes it easier to help one person at a time instead of there being multiple problems on one thread.

But yes your female should lay a lot more than 4 eggs. I would start a new thread under the health section.

 

[ASublimeDay]

I assume your son got a whack on the back of the head for the unplugging

 

[Chris Jury]

Dropping to 62 F for a night shouldn't have harmed the eggs.

 

[chameleongalore]

hello my nme is mike i have a nosey be chameleon ? i am new at breeding and i have a female nosey be that layed 5 eggs and she is sitting on the bottom of her cage is she supposed to produce more i had the soil wrong at first i used straight vermiculite in her digging box now i have organic potting soil any ideas

If you try to feel her belly, you might feel more eggs so she could very possibly have some left. I would use moist sand, in find the panther females preffer that over soil from experience. Try to just put her in a 5 gallon bucket full of sand, dig a little hole so she gets the idea. cover it up a little with silk plants for privacy, put mesh on top so you can also put a heat lamp on top all of that. That works great for all my chameleons.

 

[chameleongalore]

Dropping to 62 F for a night shouldn't have harmed the eggs.

They aren't harmed they just speed up the incubation process and alot of the babies are prematures so they don't have the strength to pop their shells and sufficated inside the egg or they hatch and die. It's heart breaking and not fun to deal with. I tried opening eggs when they claps if the baby can't on his own but usually iut's too late they already sufficated. This doesn't effect my veiled eggs, somehow only the panther ones were effected.

 

[chameleongalore]

I assume your son got a whack on the back of the head for the unplugging

He spend 2 days without water and food in the garage. lol Just jocking, he's only 2 so a time out was all I could do. That room is locked now, with 500 eggs you can' take a chance.

 

[chameleongalore]

I would say keep the temps at 72-74 and wait till they hatch. It will take anywhere from 7 months to a year.

A more risky way of doing it is 68 for the first 2 months, then 72-74 for the next 2 months, then 78 from there on out and some people have recorded hatching as early as 5 1/2 months.

62 is way to low in my opinion. Think of Madagascar, do you think it ever gets that cold constantly? Check the weather there and the local of your animal species. I think you said ambilobe? Check the yearly weather and think about what temperature the soil would be that the chameleon would lay in in the wild (I hope that makes sense).

But yes 62 is really low. I haven't heard of anyone going that low. I would suggest just keeping it at 72-74 and waiting the long time. I heard they are the healthiest that way after hatching and have the best survival rates. I hope this helps.

It dropped to 62 over only one night by accidents so I don't think it would harm the eggs but I am aware that it might speed up their process a little. I've always hatched my panthers at 7 months doing 75-77 and they almost all hatched but this year for some reason I've had bad luck and I think it's because of that temp drop for one day to 62. Thanks for your advice.

 

[djfishygillz]

It dropped to 62 over only one night by accidents so I don't think it would harm the eggs but I am aware that it might speed up their process a little. I've always hatched my panthers at 7 months doing 75-77 and they almost all hatched but this year for some reason I've had bad luck and I think it's because of that temp drop for one day to 62. Thanks for your advice.

Okay makes sense. I thought you were putting the egg temps that low on purpose :0... Best of luck with the babies

 

[Chris Jury]

They aren't harmed they just speed up the incubation process and alot of the babies are prematures so they don't have the strength to pop their shells and sufficated inside the egg or they hatch and die. It's heart breaking and not fun to deal with. I tried opening eggs when they claps if the baby can't on his own but usually iut's too late they already sufficated. This doesn't effect my veiled eggs, somehow only the panther ones were effected.

I don't know what factor or factors are causing the problems you're seeing, but it's not the drop to 62 F for a night. During embryonic development (i.e., after the diapause) low temperatures slow down development, they don't speed it up. Hence, development is faster and incubation time shorter as temperature increases *within a tolerable range for the embryos*. If temperature goes too far above a tolerable range it can sometimes result in slightly longer incubation times, but is also likely to lead to birth defects and embryo death.

Again, I'm not sure why you're seeing premature hatches or dying embryos, but the drop to 62 F for a night is unrelated. Your temperature regime sounds fine. In general issues with hatching, if not related to temperature, are usually related to substrate moisture (too much or too little) or to the conditioning/nutrition the female received before and during egg development.

cj

 

[Eltortu]

I am keeping mine at 66F-68F using the closet method and so far so good.

 

[Mjhiggs16]

From what I heard you want slow influx. If you think about the ground and what it is doing it is a barrier like a blanket so it's a stable insulator. So if the temp rapidly dropped the ground would take longer to cool down and longer to heat back up. It also might never get quite as low in temp and never get quite as high. So I would say if the temp drops very carefully I would bring the temp back up over a couple days. Just a opinion but from what I have heard the more stable temperatures are the more the eggs a climate well.

It dropped to 62 over only one night by accidents so I don't think it would harm the eggs but I am aware that it might speed up their process a little. I've always hatched my panthers at 7 months doing 75-77 and they almost all hatched but this year for some reason I've had bad luck and I think it's because of that temp drop for one day to 62. Thanks for your advice.

 

[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

Once my eggs are layed I put them in the incubation medeum and let them sit t room temperature (the tempersture they were layed in for a couple of weeks. I then put them in my incubator at 74 to 76 degrees F. They hatch at round about 8 months and I have a near 100% hatch rate! Except for the one batch that got bumped over due to my boys rough playing in the room where that is forbiden! Those eggs were at 6 month incubation and only one third hatched and only at 9 months. The hatchlings were weak and would not start eating. Only 9 out of 27 eggs hatched and only two started eating and survived! My boys were a wreck over it and has been treating the Chameleon room with reverence since then!