Eddie the Chameleon

June 11, 2000

Eddie is the chameleon who I have kept from the clutch which we recently had hatch. Eddie's mom,Emerald, died from the huge clutch of eggs (62) which she carried. I had taken her to the vet in her eggbound condition in late November. She didn't have enough calcium in her body to maintain muscle tone and could not lay the eggs. The calcium was being distributed to the eggs and the lives starting inside of those eggs. The vet and his technician worked for an hour and massaged 62 eggs from her. A normal clutch is between 20-35 eggs. We hoped she would recover, but she did not; we lost her the next day. I put the eggs in the incubator and 7 months later, they began to hatch--but only 34 eggs hatched. Of the 34, 21 survived. Given the trouble Emerald had, that was a good number. Eddie was the largest from the clutch and has a ferocious appetite and, so far, a good attitude.