Young Female Veiled Digging

[Britt77147]

Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Veiled Chameleon, Female, Been in my care for about lets just call it 2 months
Handling - Maybe once weekly for a little free range or hand feeding
Feeding - Crickets mainly, gut loaded on collard greens. Maybe 6 - 10 a day in the morning.
Supplements - Rep-Cal weekly
Watering - Mistking, 15 seconds for every 2 hours starting at 7:30am with a minute long misting at 12:30
Fecal Description - White urate. Looks like healthy poo
Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites? no
History - Bought at Petsmart. First time Chameleon owner.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - Exo-terra 18 x 18 x 24. Coconut husk, planted terrarium
Lighting - Reptisun 5.0, 25 watt neodyium sunglo, 50 watt sunglo basking light
Temperature - 75F - 82F high 80's low 90's in basking
Humidity - Currently 52% Average 78%
Plants - Pothos
Placement - Living Room, Vent above, room stays at about 73
Location - Oklahoma

Current Problem - Female digging holes and spending time on ground. Seems much to young to be gravid.

 

[kinyonga]

How old is she?

 

[Britt77147]

How old is she?

Can't be that old. She is about the length of my index finger from nose to vent.

 

[kinyonga]

That's not very big. Are you sure she's digging a hole or is she just pawing at the ground to get out of the cage?

 

[Klink]

How big is your finger?

 

[Klink]

Captive female veileds become receptive to mating at very early age. I'm talking from 3.5 to 5 months of age! You don't want her to get egg bound. Set her up in a laying bin and let her dig dig dig. See what happens.

 

[Britt77147]

That's not very big. Are you sure she's digging a hole or is she just pawing at the ground to get out of the cage?

She seems to be digging. She has never expressed a desire to get out of the cage. Never pawing at the glass or anything like that. She acts very content with her habitat. Very happy cham.

 

[Britt77147]

So what is the protocol here? Got her in a big ol trash can with about 8 inches of top soil in it. Now what?

This is my first cham btw. I have another that is male. The plan is to breed them at some point. I did not however expect her to be laying infertile eggs this early. I am still a little skeptical.

 

[Klink]

I use 5 gallon buckets filled about 3/4 of the way with moist beach sand. Moist not wet. You want it moist enough so that she can dig a good tunnel without it caving in on here. It could take all day, it could take a few days. I just put the bucket in her enclosure on the bottom, with a stick or something she can use to climb in and out of the bucket.

 

[kinyonga]

I put an opaque container of washed playsand that is at least 12" x 12" deep x 8" in the cage so she can dig to show me when she's ready to lay the eggs. Most will lay the eggs in this container. Some will need to be moved to a larger container.

 

[Britt77147]

She won't dig in the container but came home today and saw she dug another little tunnel in the same spot in her terrarium. Again it still seems she is way to young to be looking for a spot to lay eggs.