From Hatchling to Yearling

After all the patience you’ve shown during the acclimation, breeding, and incubation, at last, the eggs are getting close to hatching. Now is when your real work begins. Note that these animals have a huge growth arc, and upgrades are specified by both age and size. Like the adult caresheet, there is at least one very good reason for each recommendation here. Most of the reasons were discovered by direct observation or first-person reports of injury, illness, or death when care wavered from these parameters. This is not to say you can’t ever experiment and find new and better ways, it just means that young melleri have died when this was not followed. Be prepared for the consequences of risks. Use your own good judgment in customizing care for each stage of growth of your animal(s). For a quick overview to compare how neonate care differs from the general caresheet on this site, see the Juvenile Needs Chart. All photos are copyright K. Francis, and all animals shown are CB unless otherwise noted by caption.

Enclosure

The cage environment needs to be set up and running at optimum humidity/temperature days before your baby melleri hatch or arrive. They can hatch over a span of a week, without exhibiting typical pre-hatch sequence, so it is wise to be prepared.

Temperature range: 68-74°F (20-23°C) by day, 64-70°F (17.8-21°C) by night, until they are 13-14” (33-35.6cm) total length.

Humidity should fluctuate between 75-100%, with a constant, light air movement, inside the cage. Babies dehydrate very easily in dry air. Place an evaporative humidifier blowing into one end of the cage, and an ultrasonic fogging down from above at the other end. The evaporative should run 24 hours/ 7 days a week. The ultrasonic is used for the first week of life, then only all night (from lights off to lights on), and in extremely dry days. This creates comfort gradients for the babies to move through at will. The ideal set up has a large window or sliding glass door nearby, to open and allow fresh air in for supervised durations (don’t leave them without monitoring temperature by digital alarm). This range worked for raising my CBs, during dry winter weather, and battling the further air-drying action of the household heater.

You may baby–proof the cage and furnishings by making a lifted, soft mesh floor (acts as a trampoline for falling babies) or a layer of sphagnum moss. Slip pipe insulation foam jackets on the rims of plant pots. In the USA, this waterproof foam “tube” is precut or scored along its length, and it is available at home improvement and hardware stores. There is no need to use the self-adhesive type. This material prevents severe injury or death from impact with pot edges on the way down to the cage floor. Melleri are clumsy, and young melleri fall about once a week. They are exercising their new muscles and learning how to maneuver in an arboreal environment. Practice makes perfect, even in a precocious species.

You may choose to raise your melleri brood individually in separate enclosures, in one large communal enclosure, or in several enclosures with 4-5 babies each. There are records of each of these methods resulting in healthy adults, in both the USA and the UK. The secret is to just keep the animals comfortable and unstressed, and let them access a variety of gradients of temperature, humidity, UV exposure, and visibility to people. A visibility gradient means open areas and densely planted areas. Do not house your juvenile melleri with a significantly larger chameleon, or a chameleon of another species.

Smaller enclosures housing 1-4 hatchlings. These are good cages to give runts a chance to catch up in size.

Clean up communal defecation areas every day.

Cage dimensions for neonates should be no taller than 30” (76.2cm) until they are large and resilient. If raising singly or in very small groups, neonates can start out in 16x16x30”high (40.6x40.6x76.2cm) cages; for a larger group kept together, read on.

Cage size for 3 months up to 12 months: at least 18x18x36” (45.7x45.7x91.4cm)

Cage for 3 months up to adult: 24x24x36” (61x61x91.4cm)

The Apogee Reptarium 260-gallon (about 60”/152.4cm long) is also an excellent choice for good ventilation and climbing room. A brood of 48-50 CBs was raised successfully in a group, in a 260-gallon laid on its long side and placed on a table. This set up had trivets or plaster bats beneath it, to hold the cage frame and plant pots above the table surface, so the cage bottom mesh became a safety net or trampoline for safety. Do not use the Reptarium cage liner, or the juveniles can drown in the collected water at the bottom. Reptariums can be fitted with a custom 6mil clear plastic sheet to collect wastewater. Keep one cage set up indoors, and keep one set up outdoors for basking. Natural outdoor sunbasking is vital.

Use live plants to furnish the cage: Pothos, Ficus benjamina, Hawaiian Schefflera, Hibiscus, China Doll, miniature fruit trees, and other non-toxic plants are recommended. Even neonates sometimes accidentally pull a leaf into their mouth when hunting an escaped bug, and they will chew out a perfect, tiny “V” from the leaf and swallow it before you can intervene. Older juveniles will actively browse leaves and “play attack” perches. Clean natural branches and sandblasted grapevines make good perches. Scrub and rinse all cages, furnishings, and plants before the animals move into the cage. Palmolive antibacterial hand dishwashing soap is recommended for cleaning these items. Do not use plastic or artificial plants, melleri over one month to years old can eat them and die. Kristina Francis has recorded CB melleri attacking sticks and plants at 5 weeks of age.

Do not free-range your juvenile melleri. It doesn’t yet understand that it should avoid climbing in the doorjambs, and it could cook itself to death in a glass window or on a lampshade. Young melleri have no common sense and are clumsy (it seems odd to mention that, but in the wild, they could be deleted for just one misstep). Melleri should be at least 12”/30.5cm total length before free-ranging in a secure room. I prefer to only free-range adult (2+ years old) animals.

Lighting

ZooMed ReptiSun 5.0 UVB linear tube bulb

If using a Reptarium and no reflector hood on your UVB bulb, upgrade to a 10.0 at 12 months of age. A 10.0 should not be used with a hood for Old World chameleons, it is too strong with a reflector. Reptarium mesh blocks the excess strength of the bulb.

Babies under 3 months of age: 50 watt ZooMed ReptiBulb UVA hot spot

Over 3 months to 12 months: 75 watt ReptiBulb

12 months on up: 100 watt ReptiBulb

Be sure to stock up on incandescent heat bulbs for your chameleon, as the USA is phasing them out.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/12/18/us-energy-bill-phases-out-incandescent-light-bulb/

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-energy20dec20,1,3516223.story

Make sure the hot spot only points in one area of the cage, so there is a temperature gradient. In a huge cage for a group, create three separate basking areas over the length of the cage. That means three UVA/heat hood fixtures plus one UVB linear tube fixture.

The juvenile melleri will show heat stress by gaping and becoming pale at higher temperatures. Your juvenile must be brought indoors to cool off when the outdoor ambient temperature in the shade is 80°F/26.7C.

That about covers prepping their environment, so now what happens when they do finally hatch?

Hatching

Typical hatching sequence: droplets on surface, fluid escape and slit from eggtooth, and pipping.

Don’t panic if only one hatches at first. Two recent clutches have been recorded to have one or two hatchlings as much as a week before the “mass hatch”. Keep monitoring the eggs each day, continue the same incubation temperature. As they hatch, use sterile exam gloves to pick each one up and place it in the enclosure.

The exciting mass hatch, which can occur simultaneously, even in several separate containers.

Since melleri can have large clutches, it is nearly impossible to tell each one apart visually. To keep detailed records, you need an identification solution. You can use non-toxic acrylic (no other paint is safe and waterproof) art paints to dab a combination of color spots in code. Do not use any color that contains Cadmium. Lightfastness ratings are not terribly concerning, since the paint dots will not be long in use after each application, and will remain true colors despite the UV exposure. Keep a notebook with the color codes listed, and leave space beside each code to track weights, sheds, etc. Each spot of paint should be no larger than 1/8” diameter. Wait until the neonate’s skin is dry after hatching, before dabbing on its unique paint code. A good tool for applying paint is the dull (flat cut) end of a common kitchen bamboo skewer. The skewer is long enough that you can dab paint on a neonate long-distance, without frightening it.

This is #18 from Kristina’s CB brood (yellow and blue dots).

Whenever you have to open the incubation container, place it on a steady surface well away from any counter or table edges. Some hatchlings can slip the egg in the blink of an eye, and they come out running and leaping. Prevent falls and possible contamination by opening the box in a safe place.

If you are checking the eggs or removing a hatchling as another starts to hatch, just continue with your work. Your presence will not stop the process. You may even observe a /hatching animal buzzing its first infrasonic call.

Some may have with a yolk sac still attached to their belly. Do not try to remove it. The baby needs to absorb what it can from the sac, and the excess material will naturally fall off in time. Since melleri hatchlings are active, it is more likely that they will wipe the sac off on perches within the first hours of hatching. A couple hatchlings may even have tiny drops of blood on them when they hatch; as long as the amount is small, the animal is fine.

The yellow and green are the paint code, the red spots on the yolk are blood.

Yolk suspended from umbilicus.

Some babies seem to get more incubation media stuck to them than any others. Misting right away will only make it stick worse. Let the neonate dry, climb around, and most of the incubation media will fall off. Anything left will come off with subsequent mistings and dry-outs.

Melleri hatchlings do not always have evident occipital lobes. It may take days for those little lobes to plump up and become obvious. Neonates have smooth, rounded heads, and very tiny dorsal crenulations. As they grow, the crenulations further differentiate from the dorsal fin, which itself rises from the spine.

Water

The first two weeks, as the hatching occurred over nearly that span, I got up twice a night to mist, for a total of 5 warm water mistings per 24 hours. To adequately hydrate a large group of enonates, drain a whole 40 oz Hudson pump sprayer three times a day (during their daylight hours). That means, three refills and complete uses each day.

If using an automated mist system, make certain the water coming out is lukewarm. Babies will not drink cold mist. The mist should be very fine for animals under 3 months of age. Over 3 months, they respond best to water delivered like light rainfall.

When the baby raises its chin, move the mist off it, or it may aspirate. The baby will “pop” its eye turrets out each misting: it is grooming its eyes, an important behavior. You may alternatively use an automatic misting unit and program it for 10 minutes, three times a day.

As the juvenile grows, you can reduce to two mistings by hand each day, as long as the automatic mister waters them several times daily. Start watering subadults (over 100g each) in the shower for longer durations in the morning. Each must be large enough to not fall, slip into the drain, or drown in the shower. Do not allow water to collect and pool in the bottom of the shower.

Feeding

For neonates less than 30 days of age, feed Hydei frutiflies, pinhead crickets, and other small prey. At one month of age, they are large enough to hunt houseflies, baby silkworms, 1/8th inch crickets, and young roaches.

A good source for live housefly pupae to hatch out for your melleri juveniles:

http://www.shopspiderpharm.com/servlet/Detail?no=26

Try introducing your melleri to novel prey items of similar size. See the main caresheet for prey gutloads. See the chart below for Kristina’s supplementation schedule of neonates up to six months of age.

As the juvenile grows, it will want larger prey. Only provide prey as long as one side of the chameleon’s mouth. Wash your hands before and after handling their food.

Some melleri like to shoot from their keeper’s hand. If you start training at 30 days of age, most of your clutch will hand-feed when given the opportunity. The work you put into them at this stage will result in well-adjusted and interactive adults. Each chameleon is unique, and some will take longer than others to accept food from a hand. I let our houseguests handfeed my CBs to get them used to accepting strangers without fear. Melleri eat less while shedding, and babies shed every 2-3 weeks like clockwork. If they are not shedding and putting on weight regularly, examine the diet and check the UVB with a meter.

Its skin looks too tight, but it is just about to shed.

After hatching, neonates may go as long as five days on yolk reserves before they begin to hunt. They will drink water the second day. However, they do not have to be starved to start eating. Melleri hatchlings eat when visually stimulated, either seeing prey, or seeing another hatchling shoot and eat prey. In a group enclosure, even neonates will start hunting when they see their elder siblings eating. Feeding from shallow plastic bowls, such as 2” deep disposable food containers, works very well. Smear plain yogurt or mango baby food as a barrier around the inner lip of the container to keep pinheads and flightless fruitflies contained. Both of these foods are safe if the hatchlings consume them. It is important to practice proper food safety and replace the bowls each morning with clean ones. Wash the bowls in an automatic dishwasher to sterilize them; this will reduce incidence of juvenile illness and death. As the babies grow and increase tongue shot, increase the bowl size and depth. Bowl-feeding used with identification codes on individuals allows the keeper to see at a glance which animals are eating, and how much they consume. Regardless of whether they are kept singly or in a large group, each animal can eat three times a day at this stage. Refill bowls at midday and early afternoon, then remove bowls and wash them in the dishwasher. Maintain a strict supplementation regimen, and customize the supplementation to compliment your gutload and to suit the animals.

Feeding frenzies, three times a day.

Move the bowl lower in the cage to give older animals more room to shoot and exercise.

Color Patterns

Healthy hatchlings are bright green and white striped, or black and white striped when stimulated. When they are chilled, they turn a lavender color in their white stripes. As they mature, each shed results in greener tones, eventually losing their black. At about 18-24 months of age, the white stripes turn yellow and the animal is mature.

Problems

Some issues can be corrected if the keeper catches them early enough. Gray color is a warning sign. Here are examples of juvenile health issues. Dehydration, anorexia, and falls must be guarded against. Some losses occur even under close watch.

This animal turned gray and became lethargic, as shown. It was removed from the main cage, placed in a smaller cage under the heat lamp, and quickly recovered. It grew quickly and was returned to the group without incident.

Two CH siblings of same age: on left, undersize, edema, and thin; on the right: normal size and showing gular edema. The left CH was found to have enlarged lymph nodes, due to undetermined illness. The right CH suffered a fall, which broke several ribs and caused them to lacerate the liver. This is one situation where animals housed together exhibited a similar symptom (edema) but had two different conditions.

This CH juvenile is exhibiting extreme weakness due to advanced undetermined illness mentioned above. Some CH melleri are weaker than CB, possibly related to the stresses and pathologies their WC dams are exposed to during the importation process.

Behavior

Sometimes, melleri neonates and juveniles do strange things but are perfectly fine.

Deep asleep, yet almost 180° of rotation at the sacro-lumbar.

Clumping to roost for the night.

It is not known why melleri juveniles and subadults seek each other at roosting time and stick together at night. They appear to sleep soundly when allowed to exhibit this behavior. Keepers have conjectured that the clumping makes the animals look like a single larger animal, or the black and white color is confusing (like zebras en masse), thus acting as a deterrent to smaller, nocturnal predators. Another possible effect may be that these clumps of juveniles retain greater body heat through the night. They all clump in different conditions (separate cages, separate clutches recorded, and animals all facing different directions). As they grow, they will choose roost with bonded partners (not necessarily future mates). Keepers would like to see more research into this subject, such as temperature records of clumps vs. singletons, and actual photography of clumping behavior in the wild.

You may have noticed an odd photograph above of juvenile melleri feces. There is an interesting group behavior that creates the communal defecation area. CBs were observed to purposefully select one perch, far away from basking and feeding areas, and each one would drop feces from this perch. As they matured, they began to learn from each other where to go, which made the cage much easier to clean. Eventually, they developed two defecation perches at opposite ends of the cage. Usually, chameleons will defecate under their basking perches or into feeding bowls. Basking often elicits defecation (warming up the digestive tract). However, this shows a great effort in individuals to separately crawl away from the basking areas to a specific location used only for this purpose, and to continually return to the location for subsequent use. This instinct may help them hide their numbers and reduce predation of the brood. When the animals are moved to another cage, or the cage furnishings are moved around, this upsets their routine and they may establish a new waste area.

Juveniles exhibit several greeting and rank-establishing signals. Rejection signals are the same as the adult signal spectrum, with similar escalation. When a smaller juvenile enters a group of larger subadults, they may show acceptance with passive colors, and some animal(s) will cross the territory to duck their head under the tail of the new animal. Two keepers have witnessed this "welcome" gesture, in multiple animals. In my experience, the two largest CBs crossed a 6' cage span just to come duck their head and rub their dorsum under the tail of the WC addition, then marched all the way back to their basking area again. Once this happened, the other 5 CBs relaxed colors and accepted the addition. Prior to the ducking gestures, the smallest CBs were watching cautiously from behind branches. The dominance displays of one larger CB stopped, after he watched the two ranks above him duck under the WC's tail. Ducking the head under the tail of another has social significance in other animals, and it appears to also have meaning for melleri.

Bonded pairs can occur.

Group behavior is fascinating. As with anything chams do, to understand the signal, you have to read it in context, or else it’s a complete guess. When a cham pinches a forefoot and looks sharply at another (or its keeper), and then begins to laterally compress and sway, that is an escalating bluff display. The significant part of this signal is the eye contact. When there is no eye contact, and no other gesture except a gently raised foot, it seems to keep cagemates at a polite distance without sending them into a reciprocal display. Without any displays to set limits, they can and will just pile on top of each other in relaxed coloration. They also have very subtle rank maintenance signals, such as being normal and relaxed, but slowly raising one closed forefoot and basking in that pose. The cham in this pose doesn't look at any cagemate in particular, it's more of a general announcement of dominance. When the signal is down, they will all crowd around each other very tightly, even on top of each other, particularly when settling to roost.

When young melleri are feeling particularly feisty and secure, they'll attack and chew perches or buds on branches. This may be practice for hunting, a manifestation of animal play. They appear to gain enjoyment and certainly enrichment by mauling a terminal bud or a stick, throwing their whole weight into wrenching on a piece, and brightening their colors. Some will even flip their lobes at the target before each attack. They also attack the locks of plastic cable ties (zipties) used to secure perches to the cage frames. Position the tie locks underneath the perches, so they are not accidentally ingested. Artificial plants are likewise targets, especially the plastic stems and vines. This behavior is known to not be gender-linked; both genders do it, and some keep it up right through adulthood.

Going back through my journals, and having the benefit of having identified individuals with non-toxic paint, I do have behaviors of individuals recorded from hatching. I have nothing solid to offer about early rank establishing behaviors being possibly gender-linked. From what I have to date, my data (though it is only one brood) indicates it is not gender-linked, but just animals asserting and maintaining their ranks. It makes sense that this isn't gender-linked for this species, since melleri have a very late puberty, being giants, and they are a monomorphic species with large, equally powerful females. Food fuel for growth seems the primary concern for the first couple years, instead of determining mates.

In my experience, some of the animals who were first among the brood to establish their rank have not had to loudly re-establish it more than once or twice since, and they cohabitated up to almost 2 years of age. They were separated at puberty to avoid accidental inbreeding. The rank foundations laid as neonates seem to stick.

Young melleri have a very strong fear of other animals. Do not let your melleri see any of your other pets, except its own sibling(s).

Handling

Desensitization for handling is a gradual process. By spending time placing food bowls in the cage, and offering bugs on your fingertips, you can begin the process in a positive manner. When the animals are under 30 days of age, only give them very short-term regular handling. The thirty seconds it takes to examine, weigh, or move from cage to cage is enough contact per session. It is important to train them to accept minimal handling for regular weighing and vet visits. Some keepers have continued work with CB melleri, and these specific animals are public education and zoo exhibit animals.

Wash your hands before and after handling. After 90 days of age, you can continue training an individual melleri by taking it out of its cage every day for 30-60 seconds, and sitting very quietly with it perched on your finger. When carrying your melleri, cup one hand over it, or loosely enclose it in a clean paper towel. The movement of walking can make your melleri jump from your hand and impact on the floor. Each month, increase the duration you hand-perch the melleri, and offer it prey and sunshine. Food and sunlight are their favorite pleasures in life.

General Concerns

If you are not the breeder, but the buyer, the source of the juvenile is very important. If purchasing from a breeder, they should be happy if not proud to provide you with photographs of the parents, eggs incubating, hatching babies, and the cage(s). The breeder can tell you the exact age of your new addition. Breeders who are passionate about their animals will expect you to have done your research, too. If you are purchasing WC (wild caught) juvenile, the age can be estimated by the color patterns, weight, and decoration development. CH (captive hatched, usually excised from dead WC females) melleri have had mixed results in captivity. Some clutches have been hardy enough to ship at a few days old and survive to three months or more. Some clutches are quite weak, and exhibit failure to thrive. It is suspected that importation stress on the gravid females affect the eggs. CH animals that are underweight for their age and infrequent shedders are very likely to die before they reach four months of age. Baby melleri should pack on the weight and you should be able to nearly set your watch by their shedding. See the Growth page for a chart of CB growth to compare your animals’ progress.

This subject, like the rest of the site, is one of continuous study. More information is coming!