Random

Got one Beardie sparkling clean just now, and picked up two water/crapping dishes for both. They are supposed to soak in the dish and it is supposed to induce crapping and also help with shedding. We'll see about both of those. [not even done typing this post and the little guy is already in his dish!! No sign of poop yet] [the next morning: nice big turd!]

If that doesn't make you want to read to the end, then nothing will...

I've been working on putting together some pictures and frames to see if I can get into a quarter auction to make some moolah! I bought five frames at Michael's, and spent too much but not as much as I expected. Too much in the sense that it only is harder to make any profit. So maybe I shall fulfill a friend's dream of accompanying her to the thrift store to find some nice cheap frames. But I guess that's only if the lady likes my stuff enough to let me in. I am going to one as a participant Sunday, and will show her my wares then. Fingers crossed!

We had some fantastic thunder and lighting for a good portion of the night last night. I was laying there trying to sleep through it, but kept thinking I needed to set up the camera to try and get some lightning. It was ideal because all four or so cells passed right over the house, and with it being pitch black outside I could have set the camera for long exposure. Sleep won that round, as usual.

My avocados are doing well, still in their cups. One still hasn't cracked so I wonder if it's a dud. But three though. That's pretty good odds of getting a set that will pollinate each other.

There's a dove nest in the tree over the driveway, so whatever car that's parked there gets a steady stream of pooplets in one spot.
I have not seen a pair at the nest; just one, and don't know if it's the same one all the time.

Was going to put this is a separate post, but it will be your reward for making it to the end: I was throwing away my glass bottles into the dumpster at work today. I always throw the stuff through the side port, and it was open so I could see when something scurried over the pile as I approached. As I rounded the slight curve to come straight at the side port, I was face to face with something that was alive and very much not garbage. It only took me a second to recognize the crazed psychotic look of a Rabid Plague-Carrying Squirrel, and when it made a move towards me I about shit myself. I wasn't totally blocking the port, but apparently RP-C Squirrel thought he still had to go through me to get out. So a few fakeouts by him and more near pant-shitting by me, and I finally figured out he wanted to GET. OUT. NOW. So I moved over a step. He really looked like he was going to go for my head (he was right at eye level) but he did manage to steer around my noggin and out onto the ground. Then he ran away. Also, let me just say that in the middle of the near pant-shitting, I was trying to figure out a way to get a picture. This all happened fast enough that I hadn't even opened my purse to get the phone.

This post has a higher than normal mention of bowel movements. You're welcome.


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random

Just got back from the big fish/lizard/pet store in PA, and I got a leash for (iguanas) Fatboy! So here I shall post a picture of Fatboy looking displeased.

Actually the top one he could almost be showing off his leash. Well the squirming he's doing right now makes me think he doesn't quite like having something tied around his neck.

These two were of Biscuit escaping from Gravy. He seems pleased with his escaping abilities.

Yes that's Evony on the computer. Don't judge me. (don't know why the ads around the internet made it look like a porno, it's not. Just MMORP... whateveryoucallit.)

And yes I put the lead on Gravy. What else do you think I'm going to do with it?

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Random

1) My fish are sick, and I've only have horrible luck with the antibiotics. On the bright side, one of the females just dropped 20someodd babies! How'd they all fit in there??? Of those, 10ish were dead when I finally checked on them, so I pulled them out of the breeder box and fed them to the adults. Bad idea to give them the taste for fish? I'm pretty sure they've been snacking on babies for a while now. So there's another 10 or so swimming up towards the surface of the breeder box, and they seem to know how to eat flake food. I'm hoping for just a couple to survive, but with the coming Apocalypse (medication that will kill them) and then Rapture (me flushing them) following, I may need as many free fish as possible to repopulate their universe.

2) The little lizard I got last week seems to be doing fine; I have yet to see with my own eyes him eating any food. But when I look at him in the evening, the lettuce seems to be less (aside from the fact it's all dried out). He doesn't do a whole lot: he was thoroughly uninterested when I put in a crickie. Could be he's never seen one before.

3) A guy at work had a feral cat give birth in the window well of his basement. There are four kittens, he says about 5 weeks old (but still nursing). He's going to try to capture one for me, and I shall hug him and squeeze him and call him Gravy. Get it? Biscuit and Gravy? Yes, there is a strong likelihood I'm retarded.

4) I ordered new jammies today. The ones I'm wearing right this second are actually falling apart.

5) I had the phone outside while I was clearing a patch of dandelion garden to plant a tiny sprout of rhubarb. So with he phone outside I put the volume on 11. That was Saturday. Monday morning at 6 am I could sense that thing taking a deep breath to belt out level 11 alarm noise. Scared the shit out of Hubby, and I was lucky to not fumble the thing across the room while trying to silence it.

6) About that tiny little sprout of rhubarb. Hubby's mom sent two pieces of rhubarb Friday. One was the itty bitty sprout, with one tiny little yellow leaf on it. The other had some stalks with leaves. I thought what she was sending was some theat and some to plant. Upon reflection, I think I was supposed to plant both. The amount of usable materiel (I consider this shit something the Geneva Convention should cover) was very little. Nowhere near enough to make pie. So then I thought I'd make pielets in my muffin tin. Hubby said don't bother, we'll find some at the store and combine. So anyway, getting as much of the usable stalk as posible means I tore the everloving crap out of the rhizome or whatever rhubarb grows from. Had I used my brain, I would have a better chance of my back breaking labor on Saturday panning out. See above note about being retarded.


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Reno

Approx 5 min into Reno trip, and already things are going swimmingly. I thought it would be a problem to get seats with Hubby since we got our tickets through different purchases. But not only did they hook us up with seats together, but we got exit row seats, baby! And. And!! Since the group of us are travelling on Military orders (except me, the dependent) we got shuffled through security in like 1 minute, with the regular line trailing back through the corporate offices and bathrooms.

Continued:
We're back now. It was a fun trip for me, since it was no work and all vacation. Hubby got tagged by his boss, who wasn't even supposed to be there (wrong MOS) and had to do "daily accountability". That means he had to have one of NCOICs gather phone calls and emails confirming everyone was still alive from the night before, send them to Hubby, and then he sends the 100% back to the boss. Yeah, youngest person there is a specialist in her low 20's. Young, but still an adult. But other than never getting a break from the micromanagers, I think Hubby had a good time too. Their conference wasn't too much work, and everyone always got the nights off. Me, I just had to occupy myself while they were busy. All I have to say about that is I don't know why I wasted my time with slots; I should have manned up way earlier and gotten on the Blackjack table on day one. I got enough back on Blackjack to not be embarrassed by how much I lost on slots.

This is the main downtown core. The tall buildings are all casinos, but there are some regular town-type buildings in this area as well. We were in the green one, the Silver Legacy. Pretty nice place, cheap rooms, so-so maid service, very nice dealers.


This one is the first morning, before all the snow melted. It snowed later that day, but none of it stuck in the valley the town is in. Up there with the houses is where my Dad's uncle lives, and from where the night picture was taken.


There was a blizzard in Denver the day before we left, and it messed up some people's flights but not ours. So our flight to Phoenix was overbooked from moving all the Denver people around. Flight out of Phoenix was also overbooked. No, we did not volunteer to get bumped. Yes, I'm selfish.

So. The scene to which I returned. One dead lizard and one dead fish. Lizard I knew about, because I got the frantic call midweek. I didn't know about the fish, but the tank is algaey and the guy taking care of the place probably didn't know how many there were to begin with.

The lizard that died is the little Beardie, who I got to replace Lazarus. He had just come out of brumation a few days before we left, so I was loading him on tons of worms. He was VERY (even caps is understated) excited to eat, so I kept giving him lots. So I think the thing that killed him was not crapping out all the poop, so he probably died of some obstruction.

The fish that died, I don't know about. Yeah, that tank's dirty, but not enough to kill fish. It was the orange one who bit it, and he (and his female) are older than the other fish in the tank. Who knows. Maybe now with him gone some of the babies will survive.

Gecko's hanging in. He's been getting a steady supply of crickets for the past couple weeks, so he's is eating mode. I saw him giving the fish the "I'm going to stalk and eat you now; hold still" look this morning, so I gave him a couple crickets. He usually isn't into eating very much, but maybe watching the fish has gotten his appetite up.

Cats are still alive and well.

OK, that's all.


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Another animal update

Got a bird feeder set up, haven't seen any birds, but it's going to take them a while to figure there is edible food here again. So it's like Day Two of having the feeder up, and I found a dead bird in the basement. I guess that means someone discovered the food, right? But didn't get a chance to tell his buddies because Biscuit is too good of a hunter.

Anyway. The point is I've ordered a webcam, under the very helpful guidance of WB's hubby. He was even kind enough to point me to an awesome sale ... after I already had ordered a cheaper model, just my luck. So we'll see if I can get the thing hooked up; I was going to point it at the bird feeder, and then other things like the fish tank when I get more cameras. After the dead bird discovery I had an image in my brain about what the camera would capture: fade in. Tight shot of feeder, couple birds nibbling. Suddenly a black and white paw is seen carefully reaching up from the bottom of the screen. Doesn't get anything with that swipe. Then another swipe. Then you see the feeder rocking and swinging wildly with two black and white paws attached firmly to the edge, with birds scattering everywhere. *scene* Hey! That's good TV! But I expect nothing anywhere near that exciting. Be lucky to even catch a glimpse of one danged bird at this rate.

Fish: doing good. The new peacocks I got for the cichlid tank are doing very well. The original female is still holding (still no sign of the two babies) as well as one of the new females already! Discus are still trying to spawn. I watched the act the other day, but the male (I am now mostly sure the blue one is a male) wasn't into it, and the female never actually laid any eggs. She rubber her dangly bits on the leaf though, just like she would to deposit eggs.

Lizards: what a couple of weirdos. Fatboy woke of from brumation for a few days, got a worm and lots of water, so that made me feel better. Even with the curtain open (so full view of sunrise/set) he went back under his log for more sleep. Little guy (Big red) just crawled under a log the other day too! He had been trying the brumation thing off and on all winter, but I think he was just too young to get the full hang of it. But he's been down for a few days now, right when he should be starting to wake up.

I would like to get a camera set up on the discus and the peacocks. The lizards are just pretty boring unless they are interacting with something, like trying to eat my finger.


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Lizard update

So bearded dragons hibernate in the winter. It's called brumation. Fat Boy has been brumating for probably 3-4 weeks solid, and before that he woke up for a week when I fed him a worm. Before that he had been brumating for a couple weeks solid. Every once in a while he'll open an eye, but I am careful not to disturb him because I don't want him up again. Anyway, I had thought Big Red was too young to get into it, but I had seen him digging in his sand for a few days. Finally today I see him asleep under a log. I just dug out a cave hideyhole out of my junk last night, so I think I'll put that in there for him. It's cool to see them follow their instincts, but what am I going to do with all these worms?


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I have worms

I ordered a 1000-ct box of worms for the lizzies. I thought it was supposed to be in the 40s yesterday, so the box of them shouldn't have gotten too cold. Turns out it was below freezing while the box was getting shipped. Fortunately the company thought of this and packed the box inside another box, and also insterted a pocket warmer! Now, I'm not sure the pocket warmer did much, since it needs air to stay warm, but it was a nice touch. So anyway I think the cold was actually a good thing, because it slowed down the worms. They usually are crawling out all over the place and escaping through the cracks. But in addition the fact that there was a second box to get through, they were all sitting very still in their little egg crate. So not expecting much, I got all the worms into their tub with a little bit of meal, along with a bunch of veggies on top. Well today! They're all back to life and wiggling around like normal! So now I wonder if I should always try to ship on a super cold day.


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Putting things on animals

Click all pictures for bigger. Especially the last one.

God, I thought the other one was on my side. Gonna have to kill him too.

As soon as I get out of here, I swear all you bitches are gonna die for this!

I'm trying to hibernate, bitches

Santa taste yummy

I haven't done anything to Saffron yet. I have a feeling she'll just sit there, because any attention is good attention.

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Boring lizard post

I feed the Beardies superworms (big meals worms). The worms go in mealworm bedding (chopped up wheat), and somehow through some miracle of life that I don't understand, the worms never reach their pupal stage until I, say, try to feed a gecko who just lets it sit in its cage forever. Anyway, I had a problem with the last batch of mealworm bedding: it had been on the shelf too long before I bought it (online, otherwise I would have found a different bag) and had moths living in it. So, being the cheapskate that I am I thought I would salvage the two bags. I sifted through both bags and removed any moth larvae I found. I thought I was in the clear until a few weeks later when there were some moths flying around the house, and I saw the little larvae crawling out of the bucket I have the superworms in. Also, my spare bag has a new batch of moths in it. Oh! and the best part was when the larvae I missed chewed their way out of the ziplock bag the extra bedding was in. And it's been a couple months now, but I still have stray moths every once in a while. But I won't change my ways even after this situation: $30 for 1000 superworms is nothing to sneeze at, so I'll stay with this method.

So, the moral of the story is to just throw that crap out if it's gone bad and don't try to save it. It was nothing but trouble.


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Confirmed: cats are assholes

Turns out Rachl Lukis is right.

This morning before my very eyes:

Then later:

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The circle of life

On the discus front, I think I have two (out of eight) dead discus. One I saw had worms because he had white stringy poop. I didn't actaully see worms, but the white poop thing is a symptom. So I got medicine: PraziPro by Aquarium Solutions. It's supposed to be very safe for the plants and fish, and very effective at killing the nasties. The active ingredient is praziquantel, and their directions will give a concetration of 2.5mg/L (2.5ppm). I have four very healthy looking discus, and then two small and shy and sickly looking ones too, so my eye is on the two smaller ones.

Further along the circle of life is the superworm I put in the gecko cage a long time ago. That guy doesn't eat very many superworms (I think he likes crickies better) so the worm just crawled about in the cage. Well now there's a freaking beetle in there! It's like a two week process to go from larva (the superworm the lizards eat) to pupa (I didn't see that stage) to now a dark colored beetle. Maybe the gecko will be interested in that!

sorry for being boring but I have a surprise on the way! Click for full post and comments

ZOMFG!!11!!one!

You will never believe what happened today. I decided to take the little guy (lizard) out on the lawn to get some sun and eat some clover. He decided he likes grass and clover just fine, thank you. Anyway, I'm crouching over him and look up. guess what I saw. Fatboy 5 feet away from me eyeing the little morsel I was playing with!!!! So I brought in the little guy (I shall call him Big Red) and scooped up Fatboy, put the two in the tank (warily, I wasn't sure what would happen). Fatboy was down in the sand and didn't seem to see Big Red up on the log, fed Fatboy a couple worms. He ate no more voraciously than usual, but I think he looks a little dehydrated. 

So I've got Big Red in a little tiny tank thing and Fatboy gets his old bachelor pad. I didn't take him long to settle in:

Oh yeah, I've decided that a lizard 16.5 inches long will most definitely eat a lizard 6 inches long. Before I separated the two, Fatboy saw the little one and went after him, but I was right there, expecting it to happen. The two lizards cannot be within eyesight of each other, because they will spend all their time and energy crawling on the glass wall trying to get to the other one.

For size comparison, the picture of Big Red in his previous post was of him lounging on the left arm of this log. Up on the top flat part of it, with is tail drooped down.

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Fatboy's replacement

As I stated in the comments of the disappearance of Fatboy post, he ran away just over a week ago, and the neighbors saw the two hawks that live around here down on the ground chasing after something. I'm guessing it was Fatboy, and it pisses my off that he'd be so close (next yard over) and in an area I looked in multiple times. 

Anyway, had an empty (and freshly cleaned and setup) cage, so I went back to the pet store. I got a different color variant. This one is more of a red color, and he's just so cute! And tiny! He's only 6 inches long (Fatboy was 16.5) which sounds kinda big, 

but 3 of those inches is tail.

I'm starting this guys off on the right (?) track: I fed him a whole worm today (still have a bunch left over) and I had to cut it in half while the little guy was chomping. He managed to get both halves down. Good for him! On his way to being Fatboy2!

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You probably shouldn't trust me to babysit your kids

Fatboy the bearded dragon ran away. He was in a homemade cage on the lawn, and he pushed himself under and escaped. I had taken some pictures while he was out there. So here's one.

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Animal update (so I can use up some pictures)

Fat Boy, the bearded dragon, is a giant freak of nature. I measured him a couple days ago, and he's about 16.5 inches long. His rate of growth has definitely slowed, thank god, but he is a lot bigger than even the pictures from just a few weeks ago.

His tail has grown very muscular, so that when I pick him up he swing it wildly, maybe for balance, I don't know. But he can wrap it around things as I pull him out of the cage, making it awkward when he chooses to latch onto the heat lamp. Idiot. 

Also, I got 4 additional discus today, so now it's up to 8 in the 125 gallon tank. The original 4 have grown some, but one started out bigger than the others and has become quite stunning. Another has sort of hidden the whole time, and I'm not sure how much he actually eats, thus is a little smaller than the rest. So of the 4 new ones, two are about the size of the bigger original one, and the other two are about the size of the rest. So hopefully everyone will get along. One important thing I've noticed: I have a bunch of flying foxes in there (for algae) and they have totally left the discus alone. I pulled some of them out today and put them in another tank because they fight amongst themselves constantly. 

I am currently feeding the discus not enough, probably, but I'm not home during the day. So they get two meals a day, which consist of a brick of frozen bloodworms (by Hikari) and then some frozen 50/50 blend of bloodworms and brine and mysis shrimp (by H2O Life). They have not yet learned to grab floating food off the surface, although they notice it's there at least. 

I've been thinking of another type of plant to add to this aquarium, because all the plants now are green. And boring. I want a plant with color in there. Problem is, the tanks at 84F, so a lot of plants will not survive. I'll do some research.

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Animal update

So, the chameleon died a few months ago. While we were in Fiji, actually. The guy taking care of the animals feels pretty bad still, but I know it wasn't his fault. You see, it was a female, and females lay eggs even when they aren't fertilized. So, of course she died because she was egg bound. I KNEW that was going to happen.

And of course you can't just have an empty cage laying around, so I decided it was time to venture into the exotics. And by exotic I mean lizards than any fool can manage to not kill. My local pet store does lizards and fish, and they had a batch of Bearded Dragons and also a Uromastyx. These were the two I had decided on from the reading I had done, and didn't really know which I would get. I decided on the Beardie because they were babies. And they had a male, because I don't want a female lizard ever again, unless I want to make babies. So I was going to give this guy a cool Dragon name, but he is now know as Fat Boy.

Because he's fat. (he's stuck in this picture, and I ran for the camera instead of first helping him out)

And he's a real clown. Here he is in his favorite position, watching the fish that are right next to him (something to keep him occupied).

Whatchulookinat, bitch. Gimme food.

He is currently 16 inches long, which is within maybe 6ish inches of his final adult length, and is about 5 months old. These guys eat greens and live food like worms of all types and crickets. I finally broke down and ordered 1000 worms because I got tired of going to the pet store every other day. He eats Dandelion greens the best, which is good cuz that's free! But I do get him to eat other greens lie kale and chard. And yes, I buy that especially for him. I only like lettuces and spinach, and he can't have spinach. He's supposed to eventually eat less live stuff and go for the greens more, but so far no such luck.

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Animal catchup

OK, I know I've neglected the site for a long time. So, time to get back up to date.

Fishes: the 46 bowfront broke a seal in the bottom of the tank, and I was able to only save three of the five cichlids. I lost the Hap and the lemon yellow from stress, because the five fishes were in my two one-gallon buckets all day long while I was at work, buying and then set ting up the new tank: 75 gallons! Probably 15-20 gallons spilled onto the floor and down the air vent into the basement, but I siphoned all the water that could fit into on of my big recycle bins. That was probably 15 gallons of original water. I also saved the gravel, which was nice and dirty. I of course saved the biological filters without washing them. So, in the end, the new 75 gallon tank had maybe 25% original water, with old gravel and all the biological goodness that comes with it, and the sponges already filled with bacteria. I wasn't worried about the water killing the fish, I just needed to get them out of those buckets pronto. The tank was filled with water from an outdoor hose, and was brought up to temperature with hot water from the tap. The Stress Coat was added to dechlorinate, and the fishies added. Three little fish in a 75 gallon tank look pretty funny.

That happened in March, or so. Now it’s July and that tank is filled! The cichlid additions are:
2 Bolivian rams. They only grow to be a few inches, so they may already be adults. I can’t really tell.
1 orange blotch hybrid. Since the male kenyi is clearly the alpha, I’m not sure how bright this guys colors are going to be. Right now he’s a cream base with maybe some orange in it, with brown blotches. He’s pretty the way he is, but some pictures make me think the blotches are supposed to be blue.
1 regular pleco
5 Bosemani rainbows, the smaller ones with yellow rear half
4 Australian rainbows, the larger ones with red/pink fins and tail

Another incident I have had in the past months is a case of ich! It came with the batch of rainbows. I have had ich in the past, and the only method I trust is the now FDA-banned compound Malachite Green mixed with formalin. Malachite Green in a suspected carcinogen, so don’t get any on you, and wash your hands immediately and thoroughly after use. I put in a drop for every gallon, every other day for a five day period (three doses) then wait a couple days and start the five day process again. It took a few series, but the ich as finally killed and I only lost one fish (due to the ich, not the medication). Also, this was before the purchase of the pleco and the other cichlids in the list above. I know plecos (any smooth-skinned fish) are not supposed to be exposed to the M.G./formalin mixture, so I don’t know how the Bolivian rams and orange blotch would have tolerated it.

The two kenyi are a pair, and the female has so far produced two batches of fry. The first batch, even though I could tell she was holding (she didn't eat for a few weeks), I didn't find any fry until there was only one left and it was already well into the free swimming stage, and then I didn't see him anymore because he got eaten. Now this second batch, we were able to suck the four fry into another small tank using my siphon hose. So now they are growing all by themselves; I've left the mother in the tank because 1) they don’t need her anymore, and 2) it would be hard for me and stressful for her for me to try and catch her.

Lizards:
The chameleon is working on a second clutch. She’s been in the cage with the sandbox for a month or more already, but she’s only dug a little. She doesn't seem interested in laying her eggs. I don’t know if she learned anything from her first egg-laying adventure, and maybe she’s doing things smarter, but last time she was digging like crazy. But she still has a voracious appetite, so that’s something.

The gecko had been moved into the 46 bowfront, so now he has glass on all sides of him with a screen top. Now his ceramic heat lamp is inside the cage with him, shining on a slab of marble for him to lay on. He’s also now right at eye-level with the fish, and I swear he watches them sometimes.

So that’s the recap. Right now I'm investigating (again) the possibility of setting up a discus tank. My plan is for a 100-125 gallon tank (with the spill-overs in the back), planted and with driftwood, and a plumbing system to connect the sump to a recirculating line with a reverse osmosis unit connected. The RO unit has a 5 gallon storage tank, and I want a way to be able to feed the unit with the old tank water from the sump (where some the biological filters are) and then squirt in some fresh water from the storage tank. I think what needs to happen is for there to be switches to bypass tank water from the recirculating line to the RO unit for, say, a hour at a time. I don't know any pumping capacities for the inline pumps or the RO, so I don't know how much water is delivered in one hour. I just want to get maybe 10% of the water changed in a day. Even if I got this tank set up tomorrow, I still would have to run it for months with just the plants in it to get everything equilibrated and cycled. But I can dream, can't I? Click for full post and comments

Excavation of the eggs

In what turned out to be an all day project, I cleaned out the chameleon's old cage and set her up in a new, taller cage. I took out the sand box and got the eggs out. Now, I'm glad I knew the eggs weren't fertile, because it gave me some liberty with how I handled the eggs. They have soft shells, so they can get squished if digging recklessly. Also, I have read that when you dig up fertile eggs for hatching that you want to separate them and arrange them so they are facing exactly "up" as you found them (mark "up" with a pen when each is uncovered.)

So, here is my practice for if I ever feel like breeding a lizard:

The original layout of the sandbox was a bilayer system. I carved out a little section on one side and filled in the other side with that sand, so there was a little lower section for the lizard to actually fit in for digging. Just so she wasn't sitting on top of the sandbox exposed. The original lower section and tunnel entrance is shaded grey in the picture below. It all got a little destroyed when she filled in everything. The original sand structure was very densely packed; it worked great for this. The tunnels, once dug, did not dry out and cave in as I feared. In fact, the sand at the very bottom of the box was very wet still, almost dripping.
As I was digging I could feel the looser dirt, where she had made tunnels. Her system was more extensive than I had thought. Her clutch ended up being back underneath the original lower area (so there were only scant inches of roof).

So this picture is in the same orientation as the one above, where the egg on the left is just above where her clutch is (though I didn't know it at the time). The egg on the right seems to be a truly lone outlier. Like she was still crapping them out as she was filling in the hole. The depression between the eggs is tunnel:

Now the orientation has rotated 180°. The original lower area of the sandbox is now at the top, in the shaded area. The egg on the left in the above photo is present in this one too, the topmost one of the groups of four. It looks like there were two sections of tunnel that went back underneath the lower area, and one short section that went off the the side:

Here the edge of the clutch has finally been uncovered.

And here is the clutch intact:

There were 23 eggs total, which is perfect. I thought I remember reading the average size for a veiled chameleon is 15-30 eggs, but I could be wrong. I just hope she wasn't too traumatized by her removal from the cage and my throwing her babies in the trash. I don't know, maybe she knew they weren't going to hatch. She'll forgive me when I throw in some crickeys. She always does. Click for full post and comments

She's thin again

Yesterday and today I noticed the chameleon looked skinnier. I guess she belly has shrunk back down, but now I think she looks weird.
I think now her head looks to big for her body. But I noticed her spots are bright again, so she must think she's guarding babies. Poor thing. One question I have about this whole thing, though: those eggs are buried like 6 inches under sand. How in the hell are those little things supposed to hatch and get out? Without suffocating? If she had laid actual fertile eggs, that is. Click for full post and comments

Lizzy did it!

I think the chameleon has laid her eggs. Yesterday she spent the entire day underground, after digging her tunnel all the way to the bottom of the container and then off to the side (she made a little view hole like in the zoo). But the view hole got covered up again, so I couldn't watch. Also, I could hear her scratching away underground. It was pretty weird. Anyway, as I wondered how many days of not seeing her until I dig out a dead chameleon, I saw her working on covering up her hole.
I think she still looks big, but more hollow. Like droopy or something.

So this weekend I will take the box of sand out and clean up her mess. There is sand everywhere. I'm not gonna waste it, though, I'm gonna sift that shit and find those eggs! I have a feeling she will be, uh, displeased, to say the least when I yank her out of there for the cleaning.

Also, notice her coloring seems to be calm again. I noticed her coloration mellowing out a couple days ago. The formerly white spots have been that tan color for a few days now. Click for full post and comments