This
page is here for those of you looking to purchase a baby chameleon or
you have bred your adults and have your hands full with babies.
BABIES
0 – 4 WEEKS:
Caging
or Rubbermaid Container? The first few days upto two weeks are
the most crucial for baby Veileds. Although food and water are
the most inportant in a hatchling veileds life, the enclosure
is also important. There are quite a few key parts in keeping and
raising veileds. First the amount of babies per enclosure or
container. Second small thin branches for there little feet to grip.
The size of the branch should allow the little feet to grip the
branch securely. The height of these branches is also important
some breeders like to keep the branches close enough to the floor of
the container to allow for easy hunting access to feeder
insects on the floor as well as the branches . Caution needs to be
used when using this form of feeding. Reason being is cleaniness the
cage for should be free of all fecal matter when free range feeding.
Cup feeding is a much better way of feeding. Baby veileds can be
fooled very easily and a fresh dropping of feces can look like a
droplet of water or a small cricket and can be accidently consumed.
Misting three times per day is recommended for young
chameleons . You will notice most babies will drink readily from
the branches and leaves in there enclosure . Using a wet cricket
food/gut load is also an advantage for the veiled chameleon
babies to get a little more water from a properly hydrated feeder
insect . Vegetables can be used or a wet gut load to feed the
crickets.
MISTING
Water
is key to keeping and raising a healthy baby veiled chameleon. A
newly hatched veiled that can weigh in at less than one gram is in
need of water atleast three times daily. Knowing how little the
babies are and weigh misting for water consumption is super
important. Purified water is recommended to use for misting but tap
water is just fine. ( Do not use any chemicals to purify your tap
water there’s a possability it may harm your baby
(s). Using a container or a screened enclosure misting only
one side of the cage is advised. You should see your veiled go
and drink of the wall of cage furniture. You should not directly mist
you small chameleon this will make them retreat and they will not
drink. Your no doubt gonna get water on your baby (s) but they should
be water in a matter that isnt harrasing to them. It is best to
mist with water thats at room temperature. In the wild the
water temp is a bit cooler than the air temperature. But no where
close to an ice cubes temperature. We can debate over the type
of spray to be used . But as long as water is supplied and the animal
is drinking you have it correct . Spray type bottles are fairly
common all over the world. Ideally a small green house mister
could be used on a automatic timer as long as you allow
for the water to drain from the container.
FEEDER
INSECTS FOR BABIES 0 to 4 WEEKS
A
couple weeks before your veiled chameleons are about to hatch you
should set up your fruit fly cultures. If you have to toss some fruit
flies away then you are doing it correctly. Don’t worry when 20
baby veiled chameleons are feeding your fruit flies will disappear.
Depending on how many little mouths your feeding is how many cultures
you should make up. Depending on the hatch size of your baby veileds
you should only be feeding them fruit flies for about 3. to 5 weeks
tops. You will be able to judge how long your babies will be on fruit
flies. Baby veileds grow very rapidly so in the first few weeks they
can almost double in size. Usually with in the first 4 weeks a baby
veiled can out grow the needs for fruit flies. Once they’re passed
that stage you will need to fill that food gap with pinhead crickets.
As the babies grow try and remeber as with anything a variety in diet
is a good thing. Feed your chameleons pinhead crickets, dubia roach
nymphs, there are a variaty of different worms to feed off.
(Note feed worms with an exoskeleton sparingly.)
- In optimum conditions D. melanogaster. life cycle is 3-5 days at temps of 80-85 degrees F.
- In optimum conditions D. hydei . life cycle is 30 days at temps of 80-85 degrees F.
The
question always arises: How many cultures do I need to feed 10 baby
veiled chameleons 2 to 3 times daily? What we have figured out here
at our facility is the bigger in diameter the culture the more flies
one culture will produce. As long as you can supply the adult FF with
medium to eat and deposit there eggs for with have plenty of food.
For 10 baby veiled chameleons you will need atleast 3 to 5 cultures
with a base diameter of 3 inches. You should start producing these
cultures a few weeks before babies hatch. I know all this FF raising
sounds alittle tricky but it really isn’t. Start with the easiest
and most prolific FF D. melangaster.
Pinhead
crickets are next. Pinheads are 1 week old crickets that are
produced and sold upon request by most commercial cricket breeders.
Besure to be very clear on what size you need refer to them as dust,
ant size, one day old however you need to get your point across. You
want to raise or purchase 1 week old crickets for your baby
chameleons a few weeks out of the egg. Try not to dump to
manycrickets into the container this can cause a baby veiled to
become confused unable to decide which one to eat. Trust
me it happens. You should always start your chameleons on
FF the movement of the flies attracts the babies and turns them on to
feed. You can always offer a mixture of tiny crickets and FF. Remeber
variety is key in a healthy chameleons life. In th beginning your
gonna want to free roam your chameleons food. Meaning when feeding
just allow the feeder crickets to crawl around the baby chameleons
enclosure. You should always supply a small supply of cricket food
for the uneaten crickets to feed on. Hungry crickets will chew on
your babies if given the chance. If there are large numbers left over
take them out and adjust your feeding amount next time.
BASKING
The
amount of time allowed for basking can vary greatly. But all babies
need to bask to digest there food properly. You will recongnize your
babies basking when you see them leaning towards the sun or
artificial light and will darken to thermal regulate body
temperature. If you have a small group of babies in a screened
enclosure or container you will notice after while that they will
retreat under leaves or to a cooler part of the cage. When seeing
this you should move the babies to a cooler place so they can bring
there body temps down to atleast room temperature. Baby veiled
chameleons can usually do this in about 10 minutes or so. Basking
should be offered atleast 3 times daily for the first few weeks and
water should be offered through out this basking time.
ARTIFICIAL
LIGHT
Light
bulb manufactures offer bulbs that try and simulate natural sunlight.
These bulbs work just fine but natural sunlight is best. Natural
sunlight should be offered for brief periods about 10 to 20 minutes.
Set a timer so you can keep track of how much time you have your
babies in the sun, 20 minutes could be to long. If keeping your baby
veiled chameleons outside wild FF are very easy to culture up.
Chameleons are opportunistic feeding and will eat throughout the
daytime hours, if given the constant availability of small FF. Other
larger flies will be attracted and consumed.
SUPPLEMENTS
Supplements
are as important as a good food supply. These can only
become effective as the animals begin to eat larger meals. And
in tiny hatchlings this can cause blockages if used improperly.
This doesn’t mean you don’t use them. There are ways of providing
supplements to a one week old baby veiled chameleon without any
extra effort. This can be done by simply using a high quality
cricket gut load. Remember we are talking about babies 0 to 3
weeks old, not 4 week old animals. At 4 weeks you can
begin to apply supplements directly to food items.
BABIES
5 WEEKS to 4 MONTHS OLD
With this rapid growth special
attention should be paid to care and feeding requirements. A
baby veiled chameleon feeding on pin head or fly sized
crickets should not exceed the width of the baby veileds head.