surprise!! more quads hatching

pamnsam94

Established Member
While checking on the hatching melleri eggs this morning, I got a big surprise. Fortunately, I decided to check 7 incubating quad eggs laid by a deceased female (she laid 9, but 2 were not good). To my surprise, I found that two babies had hatched and more were hatching!!! At first I was shocked because I couldn't believe my eyes. I expected these to hatch after another clutch of quad eggs (from a different bloodline). After checking my journal, the Chameleon Forums where I type everything :D, I found out that these eggs were laid on 2/16/13, so they are right on schedule as far as hatching is concerned (a little over 5 months). Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy!!! :eek: I had the hatch times in my head reversed. I thought the other clutch (laid in March) was laid before this clutch. In other words, I expected this clutch to hatch in September. Almost always, I take the time to put a piece of masking tape on the lid of the incubation container. Well, this time I didn't. I was relying on my faulty memory. Egg on my face. :eek: Pics to come later of these and the melleri babies. For the record, so I don't keep a journal, these are half siblings to all the quad babies I am currently raising. They were mothered by the female that started bloodline A, but the father is the adult male I still have, the male that started bloodline B.

Perry
 
Here's the 4th one that hatched. Another reason that I thought this clutch was laid after the clutch that's due to hatch in August is the fact that the eggs in this clutch are small, the smallest quad eggs I've ever had hatch. In the one pic, you can see him next to the three eggs that haven't hatched yet. Last time I checked on these eggs, I noticed a greater discrepancy in size between the eggs than I ever have before with quads. Although it's difficult to measure, because they are no longer plump, I measured the 4 eggs that have hatched. They are all at 3/4". I went back to look at old photos from another clutch and they were 3/4" when they were laid, not when they hatched. In the second photo, you can see the neonate next to the 3 eggs that haven't hatched yet. One of them is only 9/16" long, the other one is 5/8" long and the third one is 11/16". Although I haven't measured the lengths of these guys yet, my first thought was that they are small. My wife on the other hand thinks they look normal size. She just thinks I've been looking at melleri eggs and babies too much this past week and that has skewed my judgment. She's probably right. :D

Perry
 

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Here's a pic of a baby quad next to a baby melleri for size comparison.

Perry
 

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Perry do you ever feel guilty for having it all? baby quads and baby mellers. Life is not always fair. But your babies are always beautiful. Give us weights on them.
 
Perry do you ever feel guilty for having it all? baby quads and baby mellers. Life is not always fair. But your babies are always beautiful. Give us weights on them.

What, feel guilty!? Who's the one that bought the gravid F. campani and now has eggs incubating? :)

Well, I couldn't find the 4th one just now, but the weights on the three I did find are 0 grams, 0 grams and 0 grams. ;) My scale won't measure anything less than a gram so apparently they're less than that.

Perry
 
Here's the 4th one that hatched. Another reason that I thought this clutch was laid after the clutch that's due to hatch in August is the fact that the eggs in this clutch are small, the smallest quad eggs I've ever had hatch. In the one pic, you can see him next to the three eggs that haven't hatched yet. Last time I checked on these eggs, I noticed a greater discrepancy in size between the eggs than I ever have before with quads. Although it's difficult to measure, because they are no longer plump, I measured the 4 eggs that have hatched. They are all at 3/4". I went back to look at old photos from another clutch and they were 3/4" when they were laid, not when they hatched. In the second photo, you can see the neonate next to the 3 eggs that haven't hatched yet. One of them is only 9/16" long, the other one is 5/8" long and the third one is 11/16". Although I haven't measured the lengths of these guys yet, my first thought was that they are small. My wife on the other hand thinks they look normal size. She just thinks I've been looking at melleri eggs and babies too much this past week and that has skewed my judgment. She's probably right. :D

Perry

On second thought, I think my wife is wrong about these. I'm convinced these guys are smaller than other quads I've hatched. The eggs were definitely smaller when they hatched than the eggs of other quad clutches. On one occasion, because the eggs weren't expanding as much as I expected, I wondered whether the vermiculite might not be moist enough due to evaporation from a lid that wasn't fully snapped on. I even considered moving the eggs to a new container with a fresh, moist medium. I just hope these guys do well. Despite being small, at least they're eating well and keeping their eyes open at all times, so that's a good sign.

Perry
 
Update. Of the remaining three eggs, nothing happened yesterday. Today however, look what I found! Seems like he was kind of used to being in the curled up position. In the second photo, you can see that he even stayed in that position as I lifted him up to put him on a nickel. Not too long after I picked him up to put him in his cage, he uncurled and seemed content in his new home.

Perry
 

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Update. Of the remaining three eggs, nothing happened yesterday. Today however, look what I found! Seems like he was kind of used to being in the curled up position. In the second photo, you can see that he even stayed in that position as I lifted him up to put him on a nickel. Not too long after I picked him up to put him in his cage, he uncurled and seemed content in his new home.

Perry

Sooooooo cute! :p
 
That is just too cute. A baby on a nickel! I so want my babies to hatch. Another month is just too long to wait.
 
A total of 5 out of 7 ended up hatching and are doing well. One egg shrunk and made two small slits (I could see his nose) but stayed that way for days with no progress. I opened it up today and it was dead. :( The seventh egg hasn't done anything at all. All the eggs were smaller at hatching that most quad eggs are when they are laid, but the 7th egg, the one yet to hatch, hasn't even sweated. Of course I'll keep checking on it until something happens, but I won't be surprised if it ends going bad.

Perry
 
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