March 21, 2017
Female Fucifer pardalis (Panther Chameleons) will rock back and forth with their mouth agape in a defensive posture when they are not ready to mate.
It is always good to introduce the female into the male’s enclosure to avoid injury to either animal because their body language is not for show. Males are often too persistent for their own good. In the beginning of March, Judy climbed willingly into Flash’s cage, but we had to try multiple times before she was comfortable. They mated for about an hour, and we put her back. We separated them as soon as they were finished to avoid injury.
Since then, Judy has been almost black with a pink stripe down her side, and today, after faking us out a few times, she finally laid her clutch!
These eggs look healthy, and we moved them into a Tupperware with vermiculite:
The vermiculite should be moist but not wet. We squeezed it until water stopped dripping out of it, and packed it into the bottom of the containers. Then we placed digital hygrometers inside and left them in our hunt board. Many breeders put their eggs in their closets because they do well at room temperature. The only challenge is maintaining a steady temperature, so we periodically checked the temperature and humidity to make sure it was staying around 75 degrees and 90% - 100% humidity.
Judy had a second clutch in July which did not make it. The eggs were yellow, but we waited for them mold before discarding any because there are many stories of shriveled/yellow eggs recovering and hatching into healthy animals.