Viable Chameleon Eggs?

TribalGecko · 10-14-03, 10:25 AM

Hi, just a question about chameleon eggs. I find myself with a rather large reptile collection left here by my INsignificant other. While I am great at cage cleaning and feeding, I do not know enough about the different reptiles AND I have a incubator full of veiled chameleon eggs. I have been doing some reading about them and feel horrible now because they are being house in two tanks, two females and one male in each and now they are adults and probably hating it everyday. The goof has up and left them and I have to figure out with to do with them because I can't stand to see an animal uncomfortable. I kept telling him I didn't think they should be housed together like that! Anyway, to my question, how can you tell if the eggs are fertile or not? I hate to keep the incubator running if they are not. The first clutch was laid in July and they LOOK great on the outside but when one was candled recently there was no developement seen, just a small red ring. I don't even know if you CAN or are supposed to candle these type of eggs. The thermometer in the incubator reads about 85 degrees which I think might be too high from what I read but I don't know how to adjust it. Ugh!

Trace · 10-14-03, 12:10 PM

Wowsers, what a crappy thing to have happen to you. I won't get into a husbandry or caging discussion here, as it seems you have very recently discovered that chameleons do not belong in tanks. I wish you luck in finding or building a few screened cages fairly quickly. The chameleons will love you for it. One point though; males need to be housed separately, females can be housed together, but you really have to keep your eye on them to see if all the females are eating properly, receiving the proper UV etc daily. It is still the best if you house the females separately as well. Nobody will fault you if you think you need to get rid of a few of them, considering the situation.

On to the egg questions! Veiled eggs have long incubation times of anywhere from 150 to 200 days. Because of the extremely slow developement of the embryo's you won't really see much at this point considering they were deposited in July. I have found that you don't really see much of anything for the first week or so of incubation. Shortly after though, I do see very small pink areas in the eggs when I candle. These areas get larger as the egg grows. This is probably what you are seeing, so it sounds to me like they are fertile.

You are correct about the lighting of chameleon eggs. They do best when kept in complete darkness. Normally they are buried 12-15" in the dirt, therefore they are incubate and grow in the dark. One study I've seen, showed eggs incubated in ambient daylight had a 37% hatch rate with earlier hatchings and smaller chameleons. The clutches kept in darkness had a 81% hatch rate. What I did all summer was basically ignore the eggs in my dark closet. I would check them every 2 or 3 weeks or so, just to make sure they were still growing. I do have a clutch that is due anytime, in fact, one has just hatched, but the rest has not at this point. For the last few weeks I've been checking the eggs almost daily for signs of sweating, pipping and the like. I usually did this in the evenings when the room was dark and the only light was my flashlight. Perhaps this is the reason I've got a premature chameleon, I don't know. I think if you candle them quickly every few weeks, you won't hurt them.

I can't really comment on your temps. I do not have an incubator so I left mine in a warm, dark closet all summer. There were temperature fluctuations in the rubbermaid container, but these fluctuations are normal, even in a wild setting. This apparently is working for me. I have read many different studies on incubation temps of Veiled eggs and none are really conclusive. They all work! Eggs kept at higher temps may hatch a little faster, but the hatch rate may be lower. The closet trick may take a little longer, but hatchlings may be stronger because of the temp fluctuations. As far as I know, the temperature does not affect the sex of the offspring like it does with other reptiles. The consensus among breeders though, is the incubation temps should be between 80-88F with slight temperature drops overnight.

PHEW! I was a little more wordy than I intended with this post! Like I said about the actual animals, nobody will fault you if you decide to discontinue incubating the eggs. I'm not saying you should, but a pile baby chameleons is an awful LOT of work.

I hope this helps in some small way.

Cheers!

Trace

TribalGecko · 10-14-03, 12:56 PM

Thank you so much for your reply. Yes, this situation sucks! I also have bearded dragon eggs with 3 clutches that already hatched and I don't know what the heck to do with them all. I even placed a ad in the local paper and have only gotten rid of 3 of them. I was hoping that the sale from the babies could help pay for the keep of all the other stuff. I have about 25 or 30 left, and I can't even give them away. And selling them on the internet is hopeless since there is not a legal way to ship them, not even UPS will take them, I asked. The idiot ex boyfriend told me he would make a ton of money breeding all these things and thats such bull. I just love the animals, they are my pets. Between six kids and all the animals, I am so busy! Thank goodness its brumation time so I can put my snakes away for awhile. I raised up the six chameleons I have now from tiny hatchlings so I hate to part with them. I know alittle bit about the type of cages they need but the SOB took every tool in the house, even the stuff that had MY name on it so building something will take awhile. I am glad to hear that the females can get along okay because I have separated the two females that just laid their eggs into another cage so they won't be bothered by the males again. I don't think they like it though, they are a brownish green color right now. Well, I don't know what I will do with the eggs, I have the incubator in the basement in total darkness but its getting cold down there and that will make the heater in the incubator run constantly. I am afraid to change the eggs atmosphere for fear of causing birth defects and stuff. Well thank you very much for your help and I will probably let the eggs run their course, I know a breeder that would probably take them off my hands if they proved to be too much for me to handle, but they are SO cute!!!

Kim

eyespy · 10-14-03, 01:27 PM

Kim, if it proves to be too much for you, you can always freeze the eggs so that they don't develop. This early in the embryos really won't have a nervous system and will feel absolutely nothing.

Another option might be to find a reptile specialty store, sometimes they will buy clutches of eggs to incubate themselves, or will at least take them off your hands for you.

I'm so sorry that crumbum left you in this situation. He doesn't deserve to keep pets.

TribalGecko · 10-14-03, 01:46 PM

Ha....get this! The only reptile specialty store that was ever in this area was owned by him, about 5 years ago. He used to take Veil eggs off pet owners hands and incubate them. He went out of business, needless to say. Thank goodness I have three huge insect colonies whos offspring are small enough to feed all these babies.

meow_mix450 · 10-14-03, 05:33 PM

well theres a little bit of good news lol, i wish yout he best of luck, and keep us posted on what your planning to do.....i hope everything will turn out right, i bet most of us do. but keep us posted

Meow

Wuntu Menny · 10-14-03, 06:17 PM

79-81F is the best temp range I've found. I've never had a hatch rate below 95% at that temp. If the eggs haven't rotted by now, they're viable. If you shine a light at an angle and see pink light through the shell or any network of vessels forming, that tells you that there is vascular development taking place and your little embryos are on their way.

Good luck,

WM

TribalGecko · 10-14-03, 06:50 PM

I have very briefly candled a random few and on some I see a pinkish light with the tiny red vessels showing, then on others it only looks pale yellow but none of the eggs have shunken in, gone moldy, or discolored in any way. I am concerned about the temperature being so high, I hope they will be okay. It is very thrilling to see an egg hatch, even if I really don't need the extra mouths to feed ;-)

Wuntu Menny · 10-17-03, 09:02 PM

They will tolerate the higher temps but will hatch earlier with a higher mortality rate. The eggs that appear yellow are likely duds, but unless they start to go obviously bad I wouldn't remove them. I've had dud eggs go a full 7 months with no external signs of rot only to open them and find no trace of an embryo.

It sounds like you've got some fertile ones there so sit back, relax, and learn how to breed your own crix!

WM

TribalGecko · 10-17-03, 09:46 PM

I wonder if I could turn down the incubator. Would the fluxuation that would most likely occur cause them harm? After the last female laid her eggs, 4 days later I found two more eggs at the bottom of the cage. I thought she was acting uncomfortable. I hope she got them all out. I already am ahead of the game. I noticed that when I put the cricket in with my leopard geckos (which happen to have a egg laying box in the cage) the crickets too advantage of that and they laid eggs too so we had all these tiny crickets in there. So I set up a box just like that in a tank and throw a bunch of crickets in there. I will see if they use that box to lay eggs in.

Wuntu Menny · 10-17-03, 10:11 PM

Lowering the temp shouldn't harm the developing embryos. I usually try to limit deliberate changes to no more than 4 or 5 degrees F over a couple of days. Ramping temps up is more likely to cause developmental problems than dropping them.

Its not uncommon for older females to retain a few eggs after deposition of a clutch. Our resident senior citizen now drops her clutch in the bucket and spends the following week spreading another dozen eggs at random around her cage.

Crickets will lay eggs in any available moist medium. If you want to try hatching them I suggest using a sterile medium to start, this will help reduce the liklihood of mold and fungus killing off the nymphs. Provide the container you mentioned with an anch or two of moist peat moss or vermiculite. The female will deposit hundreds of eggs in it. When you see eggs appearing at the surface, remove the container to a warm, humid area for incubation. I think their incubation takes about ten days.

WM

TribalGecko · 10-19-03, 12:33 AM

Well this is just great!!! I went and checked the eggs today and for some reason the plug on the underwater heater was not connected all the way and the heater has been OFF, probably all day. The thermometer reads about 68 degrees!!! Did all my veil eggs just die?? I don't know how this happened because I have the incubator in a dark little room on a shelf and there would be no reason for anyone (ie. my kids) to have gone in there and messed with anything. I have since moved it and it is running again but are my eggs now damaged? I had some bearded dragon eggs in there too.

bob_thesnowman · 10-19-03, 03:17 AM

they're more then liekly fine if it was just for the day,i had leo eggs in my incubator in a room with the airconditioning and it was unplugged for 2 weeks,well i lost hope,but decided it was worth a shot,it took a total of ten weeks,but these babies are fine healthy,and taking crix like there's no tomorrow