Please Help...Dropped Egg

[ChrisnLisa]

We are extremely worried over here and would love to hear some advice from those of you with more breeding experience. Our female ambilobe dropped one egg in her cage today. She was mated on 11/10/08 so she has some time before she is due. She has not paid any attention to her laying box, still sits high in her ficus all day, and is still eating, but at a slower pace. Any ideas???? She is very sweet and very new to our family and I am soooo worried right now. Any ideas or suggestions would be much appreciated as we have never had to deal with laying problems before.

Lisa

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Greetings, Lisa.

I would recommend you place her in a birthing bin. I mean one she cannot get out of.

We have a female ambilobe that laid her full clutch just 15 days after mating. Eggs still look good, months later.

We have a female Ambanja that likes to scatter her eggs, whether she's in a birthing bin or not. She will actually dig a tunnel, and maybe lay 3 eggs in it. Maybe none. Then come up to the surface, carefully cover the tunnel, and poop out several eggs.

Other than that she appears to be healthy as a horse, and goes on with her life as though nothing had happened. She is a rescue, so we don't know what her past may have been like. We haven't taken her to the vets because she does start to "lay" her eggs on schedule, and seems to expel them all. She just has to do it her way. It is possible that at sometime in her past she was not given a birthing place and had to simply expel her eggs.

Don't know if this helps you or not, just letting you know we've had some similar experiences. But I would recommend you get her in an egg laying bin.

Hopefully someone with more technical knowledge will chime in.

 

[FOREVER ENDEAVOR]

i Agree with gesang, get her into a laying bin asap and don't bother her much for a couple days.. make sure she has an adequate lighting set up, and be sure to "peek in" to see if shes digging or not..just stay out of site..

 

[ChrisnLisa]

Gesang-
Thanks for the advice on that. I will set something up for her tomorrow. We have never had to use a set-up like that outside of a females cage. Being that she is only 15 days along should I still offer her food from a cup while she's in there? The ambilobe that layed after 15 days for you, does she usually do that or was this one off? We bought our girl as a virgin and she seemed very well cared for. We were told she had never layed, infertile or not. She was quite plump though, so I was watching food intake before and after mating. Could it be she has a very large clutch and does not have room for all the eggs...do you know if this happens? If this is the case I am concerned she may suffocate. Well these are just ideas so any other input from anyone is much appreciated. Thanks.

Lisa

 

[kinyonga]

If this was her first mating, she might be "dumping" or needing to lay eggs that are infertile so she can go on with the fertile clutch. In any case, I always keep a place to lay eggs available in all egglaying females' cages so they can dig. It helps avoid eggbinding.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

If this was her first mating, she might be "dumping" or needing to lay eggs that are infertile so she can go on with the fertile clutch. In any case, I always keep a place to lay eggs available in all egglaying females' cages so they can dig. It helps avoid eggbinding.

Thank you, Kinyonga. I had observed that before, but didn't understand what was happening.

Lisa, I don't know if everyone does this, but I do feed my girls while they are in the laying bin. Until they've begun digging. All but 1 of them will eat while in there. I also mist them.

 

[ChrisnLisa]

Thank you both for your input. I'll be sure to keep you guys updated on her. I had no idea that some "dump" infertile eggs if it was their first mating. I learn something new everyday!!

 

[Chameleon Company]

Chris and Lisa,

I'll throw an opinion or two in here, responding both to your observations, and the advice of others. All IMMHO, and based solely on my own personal observations.

1) Dropping an egg is not abnormal, and happens about 15-20% of the time with normal females, bred normally, housed normally, etc.

2) It is not indicative that she cannot find a place to lay. Spending extra time on the bottom of her cage, looking to dig elsewhere, would be the first strong signal that she ready to lay.

3) Some females will never show an attempt to dig, even if everything is provided, and may end up dropping all their eggs on the surface. All eggs laid on the surface should be treated as viable until shown otherwise.

In the end, it is not cause for alarm. If you are comfortable moving her to a laying container now, you certainly could. Or, if your experience is that you need to see other ready-to-lay signals, then I would not read this one egg drop, or even a couple more, as being indicative of her being ready to lay and unable to find a place to dig. She's getting close though. We have had many females with laying substrate available to them who have dropped a few on the surface before finally digging in the rest. Good luck.

 

[ChrisnLisa]

Thanks Jim-

Your comment helps settle my nerves a bit. And you are right, she has not shown a single other sign of being ready yet, other than that one egg. Anyway Jim, your advice and experience is always welcome here. Thank you.

 

[RachelRiot]

I have a female veiled. She is about 4 months and I dont know when they start laying their eggs. I also dont know what I should use to create an egg laying bin.

When we took our "boy" to the vet we found out "he" was a "she" so I wasnt prepared for this aspect of it.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

I have a female veiled. She is about 4 months and I dont know when they start laying their eggs. I also dont know what I should use to create an egg laying bin.

When we took our "boy" to the vet we found out "he" was a "she" so I wasnt prepared for this aspect of it.

You should probably have her set up for egg laying in a few months. Here is a great place to learn about care of female veileds:
http://raisingkittytheveiledchameleon.blogspot.com/

 

[ChrisnLisa]

Update on Bethesda

As of last night Bethesda was still high in her ficus hanging out...no signs of restlessness, still eating some food. Today during our chameleons afternoon misting we saw her digging in her sandbox so we immediately covered her cage. It has been at least 7.5 hours so far so we hope she is getting close. It is 8:30pm here now so we will take another peek in the morning to see if she is done yet...fingers crossed!

 

[FOREVER ENDEAVOR]

so did she lay em?

 

[ChrisnLisa]

So it's about 11:45 pm and we just finished digging up 13 eggs. This seems like a pretty small clutch to me...I'd like to hear some ideas on this. Also her eggs vary in size, do you think this may have to do with the fact that she is early? She was mated 17 days ago.
Lisa

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Glad to hear she laid the eggs. Congratulations.

We had a female panther last week with a 16 egg clutch, so, it's not unheard of. Your girl did finish and cover her hole before you dug up the eggs? Probably, since you guys are not novices at this.

But I can't say whether it is because she is early, etc. Perhaps Kinyonga will comment.

Did you feel her to check for more eggs Just in case?

 

[ChrisnLisa]

Yes we gave her a few hours in her ficus before pulling her sandbox out. I did feel her and could not feel anything, she is also a lot smaller. I am curious though if she is going to lay again because she is early, maybe she still has eggs developing that are very small so I cannot feel them?? Not sure if that is a possibility, just throwing around some ideas. The female that you had lay after 15 days, the eggs are still good you said? How long ago were they layed? We are going to keep a good eye on her over the next few weeks just in case she ends up having more to lay. I am relieved though, that dropped egg had me pulling my hair out waiting for her to lay.