Some new meller's pics

[Eric Adrignola]

you got eggs!?!? Tell me - hpw did you go about getting the female to lay the things? That seems to be a persistant problem. They're gravid, and hav ewhat (we feel to be) a suitable nesting site, but just end up drpping eggs on the floor, with no attempt at digging. When placed into a pre-dug tunnel, they sometimes lay. Something's missing from what I (and others) have done. Some people have had no problems. I need to find the missing "thing". or things... That's great.

I appreciate the kind words and support. Working with the hobby, and talking about it has been th ebest thign for me. Much better for me than the other distractions.

My setup here is unfinished, and unspectacular. It's simply a tarp with trees on it. I hand feed or cup feed everything. There's minimal dripping, and whatever does drip is evaporated off the tarp quickly. I'm going to figure out a way ot put the misting system in without making a mess. I'll use plastic sheeting and funnel it into the tree dirt I think...

I'm getting some deremensis shipped to me tomorrow - to arrive Friday. I've been without them for a long enough time. It's about time I get back into them.

 

[Fidel]

Anyone in the NC area that has some unsexed melleri are welcome to bring them over to play. I know I've got males and females here. My one CH is 100% definitley male, and I was pretty sure by his behavior that he was. I expect another male to act the same at this age.

Is that a challenge? BoyGeorge will come over and dominate.

 

[summoner12]

Here is a Link to Lenny's laying thread.

I used a 20g Brute Rubbermaid trash bin. I didn't expect her to lay in it just yet... so it didn't have a ton of dirt in it. Maybe only 6-8" of peet moss and sand. But she dug to the bottom and did her drop. She wouldn't finish up laying her eggs and covering them until my GF and her brother in law left the apt. We think she could hear them or feel them... because they left for about 30 minutes and came back and she was perched.... where as before she had been pacing the Brute.

 

[summoner12]

I've got to solve two issues though. What to put underneath to protect the wall to wall carpet and the containment of feeder insects. What do you all have on the bottom to protect flooring? Does cup feeding keep things pretty contained? I don't cup feed anything now.

Cathrine. I have had good luck with heavy shower curtains as a way to catch water and poop. Right now I am using the shower curtain material and PVC pipe as the structure for Lenny's range which is in my living room... with carpet.

I must say I do get mist overspray onto the floow but it is clean water and dries up.... This can be solved by lowing the nozzles and making sure there is no breeze in the room. You can also solve this with a hood aroun the nozzle. I did this in my first range.

shoot... photobucket is doing site work... can't snag pics to post.... ill finish this up later with pics.

 

[Narnia]

Yes, I took all the information

you gave me, and from Kinyoga, and from the CiN issue 26. If you take all three and look at the results the Ed Martin obtained, it all points to the fact that the female will look for a hole to lay in. So, when I first started our email conversations, my male from Mike, was courting my largest female from LLL. It was your knowledge on how LITTLE to feed these guys that really started me in the right direction. You had also told me you believed that the females looked for an existing laying location (i.e. a pre dug hole). In the wild, it was suspected the females looked for existing holes to dig out a side chamber (again, this is knowledge you and the other three sources gave to me). Sure enough, the above couple became "friends", and within a month the female was clearly putting on weight, even with the diet I was keeping them on. She became very agressive with the other two females, not to mention the male, who you had advised me to keep seperate. But, when I would take them outside, and she would see him, she would open her mouth and sway (stay away sucker!) He didnt care, read lips and all (ha).
She got really big, and started moving around, like she was in fact looking for something. In went the five gallon bucket, sand and dirt, predug hole, bending so she could be out of sight if she wanted to. I misted the whole thing once a day. On day five she went into the hole, and came out shortly afterward. Two days later she went back and layed her eggs about three inches down to the right. She covered them up. You cannot believe how thin she was when she was done. I mean you could see her spine thin.
I started her up on feeding schedule from Kinyoga. They gain weight so fast.
14 eggs. About the size of a Panther's.
You and the CiN issue were spot on about the seasonal timeing for breeding.
Again, thank you for all your help.

 

[kinyonga]

Congrats on the eggs Narnia! Glad it went well! Deremensis can be tough to get to lay and are fussy about the laying site!

Summoner12...when were the eggs laid? When should they hatch?

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Looks like this one is getting ready to shed that waxy stuff from his/her temporal gland. I remember when Megana shed her's last year. Here is a link about it in a thread from this forum last year, for anyone interested. Not all of them shed this.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/temporal-gland-11188/

Eric, your chameleons look so beautiful, and your set up is the envy of so many. Just know that our hearts go out to you, and many of us have been in your same situation at one time or another. It has been proven time and again that animals help humans cope and heal. For me it was my dog, Tomodachi-san, who saw me through, years ago. Her name means friend in Japanese. I got her out of a pound on the island of Okinawa and brought her to the U.S. and then to Germany. We travelled the world together.

 

[ocular_factitus]

Re:

Beautiful Melleri's you've got there, i had no idea they were so sociable. Is there one male and the rest females? They're all gorgeous!

 

[Eric Adrignola]

thanks - I believe it to be two males two females, as one has constantly challenged the big male. I removed him for the most part, for his own protection.

Fidel - not a challenge, an invitation!

It's good to hear someone had success getting deremensis to lay. I've had them set up with what I thought was suitable predug tunnels. I HOPED it was just that I was not doing them properly, and the error was simple like that - and not hard like somethign I could't figure out.

14 eggs is good. My other ""idea" for the problem goes hand in hand with them being fat little pigs. They can get so big and fat in captivity, maybe they CANNOT lay their eggs! Josh Mease had told me that Joe in Tanzania had issues with them getting too fat.

 

[summoner12]

Summoner12...when were the eggs laid? When should they hatch?

If they were viable they would be hatching next month I think. They all molded over the second week I was incubating them.

Is this what you guys are talking about?

Both Henry and Lenny have a yellow and black goo looking thing there.

 

[Sepioteuthis]

They are looking great, Eric. I like seeing pics of Ardi, he looks a bit more robust then my Guin (who's his sibling). How big is Ardi?

I think you made the right choice in keeping the young male separate from the rest. I used to have 2 males together in a freerange with 2 females and as some as mating season started things got out of hand. Dume got suddenly very aggressive in his attempts to keep Guin away from the females. I ended up losing Dume even though he was the aggressor.

 

[Eric Adrignola]

Kristina mentioned that - it was a good warning, and I decided to play it safe.

Ardi is 20" TL, and weighs about 270, I think. He got a bit chubbed out since the female came in, and is now on a restricted intake. Fat little thing. I have to re-weigh him. He's not really fat, just heavier than I would like.

 

[AJA]

Ardi ... got a bit chubbed out since the female came in, and is now on a restricted intake. Fat little thing. I have to re-weigh him. He's not really fat, just heavier than I would like.

Eric,

I am sure it is muscle. That's what all my boy friends tell me.

 

[Sepioteuthis]

Kristina mentioned that - it was a good warning, and I decided to play it safe.

Ardi is 20" TL, and weighs about 270, I think. He got a bit chubbed out since the female came in, and is now on a restricted intake. Fat little thing. I have to re-weigh him. He's not really fat, just heavier than I would like.

Doesn't sound that heavy to me. Guin is 19" TL and weighs around 260. I guess ideal weight probably varies a bit between chams.

 

[Eric Adrignola]

Well, Ardi was 19" for the past 2.5 years and weighed around 220, if I remember correctly. He had good muscle tone, good hydration, and a good, healthy appetite. The fact that he's significantly heavier, and not significantly larger in body size, means he's got a bit of fat stored up in him - or he's a female and is putting on eggs.

He was clearly healthy at 220. Just weighed him, and he's at 276grams.

Whoa - WC female is now up to 412grams. She's got to have some eggs in there.

CH male, her offspring, is just under 17" TL and 136 grams. I think he needs some water, he seems a bit thirsty, and might not have been getting enogh in the free roam.

 

[kinyonga]

Summoner12...sorry to hear that the eggs were not good.

 

[summoner12]

Summoner12...sorry to hear that the eggs were not good.

it was a bummer... but it was a stretch that they would be fertile... I have had her for just about one year.... and other than Henry she hasn't seen a male that I know of... and she prolly didn't mate with Henry because he freaks out so easily... very very shy of all chams. Not really sure why.

 

[LBonawitz]

i noticed in the first picture you have a clear plastic feeding cup. how do you stop your chams from shooting at the side? my little dork always trys to get crickets through the plastic

 

[Eric Adrignola]

actually, that's a makeshift dripper. I have it in place to water them while I figure out the drainage and mist system.