unexpected birthing

[xanthoman]

as i mentioned in an earlier post https://www.chameleonforums.com/wc-jacksons-bs-reptile-35855/ i had an unexpected and largely unwanted birthing and had taken steps in hopes that wouldnt happen, much to my suprize, i found three babies today and a dried one on the floor. i was entirely unprepared for this and caught off guard. appear to be in normal health but are ridiculously tiny, i estimate less than .5g each, i had no ffs on hand and wont be able to get any until tomorrow. because of their extremely small size, i would not be suprised if they do not make it through the night , we shall see. if they are still alive in the morn i will post weights and pics and update as to their condition. i will also be discussing the issues of saved sperm and filial cannalbalism

 

[laurie]

Wow talk about tiny, I can't even imagine one that small let along three. I will sure be hoping they make it. Best of luck with the tiny ones and keep us posted.

 

[DGray]

Sneaky pregnancy...

Congrats! How's the mom? Best Wishes!

I once had a Jackson's give a second smaller clutch with no hint of her sneaky pregers condition. The stepfather was very surprised.

I fed the bambinis fruitflies, of course, and I was able to collect springtails under rocks and boards. This was in December in Portland, so maybe you can find those in Seattle at this time of year.

Regards.

 

[Courtney]

sorry to hear that ...good luck

 

[xanthoman]

update

a fourth one was found alive this morning and placed into a 1/2g terrarium with the others. ffs still not available but should be hatching today. i have taken some innoculated ff medium and rinsed it in a strainer, and placed about a hundred clean rinsed ff (hydei) maggots in their container, the newest one shot his tongue a couple of times but i was unable to see if he got anything, the others are curious but dont yet know what to do. if i am not able to produce flies by today i will have to buy ffs from petco (ick , petco ff cultures are melongasters and always mite infested , i dont even like having them in my house, i just the other day threw out my mealworm colonies and most of my ff cultures due to mite infestations, i wish now i had kept them for a few days longer). in a couple of hrs i will take them out for a little natural uvb and will weigh and photo them at that time

 

[Courtney]

when ever in bind and i know its far but here in fl underground reptiles can ship you ff they are nice looking....im sure you know may other places that could have shiped them to you and they would have been there tomorrow...


i didnt mean to sound rude...sometimes its hard to make decissions in situations like that...the best of luck to you!!!!! i apologise for sounding so rude

 

[xanthoman]

update2; this is going to be tough one

this whole thing is a really long story so i will fill in the details later, but for now the weighings are in they all weigh between .5 & .6g. my last clutch had one that was .5g and he is 6 months and still alive, but it was a real challenge so this could be a tough one, but they all seem to be alert and active, so we shall see. their current cage is a 1/2g betta tank and it is almost too large

 

[Chase]

I can't wait until I peer into my Jackson's cage and find it with babies. I'll be so excited, but I still have to wait, only about two weeks or less . The babies look great though!

 

[xanthoman]

a better size refference

a better size refference. there may be some discrepency in the math because my scale only measure to .1g increments./ stay tuned updates to come

 

[Chase]

Wow! Thanks for the photos, now I know there will be nickel sized babies to look out for

 

[xanthoman]

update3

Wow! Thanks for the photos, now I know there will be nickel sized babies to look out for

among other things i did not do proper conditioning because i was trying to discourage another birthing (more on that later) hopefully your neonates will have a birth weight of at least .8g and be considerably larger./ despite having scoured the cage and birthing are with a fine tooth comb last night and this morning, a fifth live one was just found a few minutes ago. this is not helping my efforts to downsize.

 

[Chase]

Do you think these were premature?

 

[xanthoman]

back to back clutches

Do you think these were premature?

no not premature but a poorly conditioned mom. this is the same mom who birthed the clutch born 6-29-09 . i do have a free ranging male but i made efforts to keep him away during the period shortly thereafter, which begs the question, was this from saved sperm or from my only male ? tommorrow will be 6 months to the day./ back to back clutches

 

[ijmccollum]

I have always read that jackson's do not retain sperm. Also, from what I have read, 6 mo. seems like a reasonable gestation period. Curious she is dropping them on seperate days. I thought they dropped in the a.m and all within 24h.

When chi-chi birthed last summer (9 babies) -- surprise -- didn't know she was gravid when she came to live with us -- that was pretty much what occured. After birthing, babies were removed to 10g viv with paper towel substrate, low watt lamp, no uvb. They all seemed quite healthy, alert, active. At about two months we started to lose some -- one here, one there. By three months we lost them all -- mostly toward the end. At that time I had added a 2.0 uvb and started minor dusting W/Ca++D3. They were on FF flies w/in 24 h and later on pinheads, ad-litum.

I wish you all the best. They are sheer joy. Keep us posted. Would like to know more about their mating rituals and neonate care as I currently have 1:1 jackson pair but am keeping them apart for now.

We want pictures,and lots of them!

 

[thealissa]

Aww! So tiny and adorable!! I love babies.

 

[xanthoman]

saved sperm or not ?

weather or not jacksons save sperm has been a classic and at times, rather contentious debate that has raged for years, and to be perfectly honest, i still cant say with 100% certainty (although i am tending to lean towards that they do?) in fact i will be addressing that issue and another rather long term contentious debate (filial canabalism) in a new thread (when time allows) , entitled "saved sperm or filial canabalism ?" (much to brads dismay i am sure). if you search my posts, you will find i detailed much of the raising of my previous clutch (born 6-29-09) and there are several pictures in my cf public albums of them. it is my personal opinion that xanth neonates should be given low output uvb at the earliest opportunity (preferably within hrs.), i am suprised they made it to three months without it. i also recomend a (one time) dilute micro dusting (of feeders) of full spectrum of vitamins and minerals within the first few days. it is common to lose a few seamingly healthy neonates around the 3 month mark for a whole variety of reasons, most of which can be avoided. jmo

 

[xanthoman]

in reference to the previous post by ijmcollum , i am fairly certain they were all birthed the same morn within a couple hr(or less)period. its just because they were so small and the fact that i wasnt really expecting them that it took me so long to find them all, there may have been others , but i will save that as part of a future post.

 

[ijmccollum]

I am going to have to track down your previous threads because I certainly want to know much more before I entertain the idea of Chi-Chi and Sedgewick getting up close and personal. Would love to hear more on your thoughts in Jackson's husbandry. Maybe you could even start a blog.

 

[ijmccollum]

I can't wait until I peer into my Jackson's cage and find it with babies. I'll be so excited, but I still have to wait, only about two weeks or less . The babies look great though!

Keep us posted on your Jackson's and neonates when the blessed event occurs.