Veiled Cham - gravid? & other questions...

[Darla Marie Pelan]

Hello,

I have myself a young (dont know how old, yet) veiled female cham. I noticed that she is digging in the bottom corning of her cage and wondered if she is trying to dig a hole to lay. I put a bucket with soil there this morning, and a while ago she was just sitting on it. She has no spots and she goes from dark to light..she is light when she goes to bed and this morning she was a darker shade of green.

Anyways, i was reading up and wondered if female veiled chams lay as many clutches so much so that it signifigantly reduces there life span, from the stress and what not. My cham is still very young, so this surprised me.

She is eating what i put in her enclosure and no lumb by her hind leg (which i hear is where the eggs are located).

Any insight would be appreciated.

P.S. - what do you do with the eggs if you dont want a bunch of little ones? Maybe they are not even fertilized (she was in a enclosure with another female when i got her)

 

[Hardwyre]

She was probably sitting there politely waiting for you to leave.

chameleons need complete and total privacy to lay, if they even glimpse you while they are digging their nesting hole, it can cause them to clench up and become egg-bound (life-threatening condition).

The eggs are located just in front of her hind legs, to the sides of her stomach kind of. when a chameleon is NOT gravid, the body should taper down to the hips before the legs.

I would recommend you get your little girl a nice laying chamber. 5 GAL. buckets are popular, but the serious herp owners seem to favor bigger things like yard trash cans (the big cylindrical ones). Read up on proper laying substrate (ground cover) as she will need to be able to dig a sturdy tunnel to deposit her eggs.

If you do not want the eggs, throw them away I guess... most people will attempt to incubate just to see - and within two to three weeks if you don't have a batch of moldy lumps you can look forward to baby chams in 7-10 mos.

 

[kinyonga]

Does she have mustardy/yellow splotches on her yet?

If you don't want the eggs and they are fertile, why not give them to someone who does want them rather than "waste" them?