important info for chahoua owners

[laura]

As most of you know I have a serious chewie addiction. I am always looking for info on chewies and have read everything I could get my hands on. I have spared no expense setting up their cages and thought everything was going well.
Now I have noticed that some of my older ones skin seemed rougher, not as soft as when they were babies. Nothing alarming but I had noted a difference. I keep DETAILED hand written notes on each one.

So about two months ago I noticed one of my females wasn't eating as much. She was still eating some and pooping but just didn't seem to be eating as much. So I gave her the wormer meds and it didn't make a change. Then within a short time she went from 43 grams to 42.6 then 41.2 within about a month. She was eating the crested diet (a little) but had suddenly stopped eating bugs, now this is a girl who was a great bug eater.

I called Steve @ leapinleaches and told him what was happening and asked what he thought. We had a long talk about the difference between the care and native location of the different rhacs. Steve feels that chewies must come from a more humid location/area even than the cresteds. The way this made sense to me was Steve brought up a fact we all know but don't really think about. Chahouas don't bury their eggs yet the eggs don't dessicate, that means that the area they lay in must stay pretty damn humid without being too wet. Otherwise there would be no chewies! Steve admitted he keeps his like breeders, not pets, as in sterilite tubs (rack system) so the difference in pet enclousure is pretty significant.

So then we talked about pet enclosures, I keep mine in the BARRS 20x20x20 it has a screen top. Steve told me to cover part of the screen so it stays more humid and now since we moved to a new place I am able to keep the gecko room a different temp than the rest of the house. I DO NOT like being too warm so I tend to keep my house at 70 always. Now I can keep the room they are in around 75 to 77 which in turn keeps it moister longer. Steve asked me to caution folks that more humid does not mean wet!!

So now what have all these changes done to my chewies....all their skin is softer they are eating more and the girl in question? In about 11 days she has jumped up to 46 grams as of tonight! I asked Steve why everyone seemed to be doing so well for so long if it really wasn't warm or humid enough. He said that they are highly adaptable animals but that it will catch up.

So while I thought I was doing everything within an acceptable "range" it was not precise enough so I am sharing this story in hopes of sparing someone the scare I had. I am very happy I caught it before there were any serious issues.

[bertopia]

I appreciate your information! I have been keeping my chewies on substrate rather than paper towels like my cresteds. I will need to make sure that it stays moist.

[rhatfield]

Okay!! so bonbon is going into a planted tank when she is 10 grams! only a month or so away! Thanks for the info! mm I also wonder if that is why so many of the eggies don't hatch?

[laura]

I would love to go planted but I worried about them ingesting substrate. My guys really love the thrill of the bug hunt but some of them (young ones) don't have the best aim!

[bertopia]

I feed all my bugs in little jars, tall enough for the bugs to not get out, but short enough for my chewies to perch on the edge and pluck out the bugs.

hehehe...I have always wanted to use that emoticon!

[laura]

I should have said, I have tried the jars but all mine seem to eat more when they can "hunt" them down. I feed Dubias so I don't worry about them chewing on my chewies! On bug night I remove the paper towel and branches on the bottom so the roaches are trapped on the bottom of the cage until the chewies can get them.

[Katieam]

I do not personally own any Chahouas, but I find this fascinating. It goes against what we "think" we know. I wonder if there are any other little things that we dont know yet about cresteds or leachies too? Maybe now that we know this, it will improve the hatch rate for these guys

[MPLexus301]

I have read a lot of research suggesting that Chahoua need to be kept more humid than Crested geckos, but most sources say that they keep both species in similar setups regardless. I believe that even the Rhac bible mentions this, and says that they keep Cresteds and Chahoua the very same way.

Your findings seem to indicate that Chahoua actually are truly more sensitive to humidity than Cresteds. For owners who live in more arid climates or use papertowls as a substrate, this is definitely something to keep in mind.

In my house, all of the Rhacs are heavily misted every night and have a bowl of standing water at all times. I also use naturally planted vivaria and know that helps to retain moisture as well. Mine are all growing like weeds so I can only guess that the humidity is within the recommended range for Chewies.

Thanks for posting this up

[laura]

My BARRS cages are not really designed to be planted so what I ended up doing was putting big lay boxes with dirt in ALL the chewie cages, males and babies included. I should also add that the rest of them seemed to be doing great. It's common for me to have jumps in weight of 9 to 10 grams per month on these guys. The dryer, rougher skin seemed to be between the eyes and nose and a little down the back. Since upping the humidity this has softened again like when they were babies.

[Rhacbreeder]

does this include leachies too?