Pygmy chameleons start life with a batch of eggs ready for their life of egg laying. The female becomes sexually mature at around 4 months.
The male becomes sexually active at around the same period and will begin to show off to the females. He will advertise himself by walking parallel with the female in his finest colours and neck puffed out.
Mating can be a dangerous time for females as the courtship can be pretty rough even though these are small chameleons.
The male will often bite the female quite hard before mating. If she is not ready for mating or if already gravid she will turn a dark colour and perhaps try to imitate another male or run away. If she is ready then mating is commenced several times in a 24 hour period.
Keep a close watch at this time to make sure the female isn't being hurt in the process. Once you're sure she has mated it is time to separate them.
The early spring is a good time to mate Pygmys in the UK. This allows the eggs to develop naturally during the summer when temperatures rarely drop to below around 14C at night.
If you want to use mechanical means they you can breed them all year round.
A thermostatically controlled incubation unit can either be bought or made and allows temprature to be maintained accurately.
As the female is now going in to egg production mode so she will need a good quality vitamin & mineral supplement dusted on to the crickets etc prior to feeding.
Make sure there's plenty of calcium available for egg shell production.
This is also the an ideal opportunity to change the UV light source. The strip tube will need changing every 6 months as they slowly stop producing UV (ultra violet) in sufficient quantities.
Whilst the light in general may not seem to change over the six months, the invisible spectrum (what you can't see) such as the UV wavelength begins to degenerate making it useless. This Chameleon has a ZooMed™ ReptiSun 5 strip tube.
The new light fitting will produce UV in the right proportions and strength for the lizard.
The female will deposit her eggs under some suitable pile of leaves, usually she will lay 2 or 3 eggs. This is usually around 10 weeks after mating but it can be more or less.
During the day the female will seem restless and very fat looking. There's not much space inside the tiny lizards body so 3 eggs show up very easily.
The eggs should be cleaned of any compost sticking to them, do this VERY carefully with a soft artists brush.
DO NOT wash the eggs under a tap, this will wash away a protective film on the eggs they will probably die and rot during incubation.
The dry eggs should now be placed in an incubation chamber of some kind. A simply solution is to use VENTILATED cricket tubs. A substrate or damp vermiculite should be put in to 2/3's the depth of the tub.
The vermiculite should be measured by WEIGHT and not volume. Each 1 ounce of vermiculite should have 1 ounce of water added. To create a damp crumbly texture.
The eggs should be laid out at 3 inch intervals, in a cricket tub you can get 3 eggs. The eggs should be 1/2 to 3/4 buried in the damp vermiculite making sure the vermiculite is in contact with the egg. Replace the lid on the container.
The eggs will need checking regularly to remove any that have gone off or are mouldy. A top up with water may be required to keep the vermiculite moist. If it's dry then add 20ml of water to the vermiculite in one corner.
If all goes well your eggs should begin hatching after around 4 months if kept at 56F - 70F. The first signs will be the egg changing colour as the embryo shows through. The egg may form beads of moisture on the surface (sweating) and the egg may collapse as shown here.
After all the wait and effort you will be thrilled to see the first little Pygmy Chameleons as they emerge over the following few days.
To start them off well you need to keep them in a well ventilated container like an Aquazoo 5. The tank should have at least one plastic vine plant in there of some kind to act as a shelter for the hatchlings.
After 3 - 4 weeks of the tank they can be moved in to their permanent enclosure.
Provide heat with a ceramic lamp (60w) placed 10 inches above the tank. The temperature should be 20C with no spot lights on, this remains on 24 hours a day (Sept - June in UK).
To supplement the heat during the day a spot light is provided for basking purposes. This light is again placed 10 inches above the enclosure at one end and the temperature under the spot light should be no more than 30C.
There should always be cool retreat so the lizards can thermoregulate (keeping at the right temperature).
A new UV strip tube should be purchased to make sure the lizards receive the full benefits of the light, ZooMed™ ReptiSun 5 lamps work well.
Spray the walls and plants with water every morning and every late afternoon. Make sure that you don't spray the babies directly, just the plants and walls of the tank.
The idea is to get the plants to have droplets of water on them but no water is allowed to collect in the bottom of the tank, small chameleons can drown in a tiny pool of water!
Feeding should commence the day after hatching and should be fat flightless fruit flies dusted with supplement powder, do this after the plants have dried (2 hours) so that the flies don't drown in water.
The chameleons instinctively know how to use their long sticky tipped tongue and it is a joy to watch the hatchlings taking aim and catching their first flies!