Sprocket's History

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Sprocket arrived here as a captive bred baby in September 1998. During the few years 1996 to 1999 many thousands of chameleons were collected from the wild in Cameroon in Africa and were imported to the UK for the pet trade. The most common species collected in Cameroon were Chameleo quadricornis or "quads" as they are known. We assume that Sprocket's parents were amongst those wild specimens.

Chameleons are notoriously 'difficult' to keep and it seems that most of those thousands of chameleons that were imported did not survive in the hands of the inexperienced buyers. Whilst most of those chameleons probably died of chronic dehydration and infections during their first few months in captivity a small number were lucky enough to end up with owners that maybe knew a little more about keeping chameleons or were willing to find out or were just plain lucky. We have managed to track down some of the few survivors and these now form part of a small family here in Quadricornia.

Initially we thought Sprocket was male. We had not seen other quads of similar age for comparison (only the wild caught imports mentioned above). We were keen to grow a big and healthy male chameleon so we fed 'him' accordingly. It was only many months later that we realised our mistake when a chameleon keeping friend in Germany informed us that Sprocket was definitely female.

So, we mistakenly fed Sprocket all she would eat and with lots of additional dietary supplements also. By the time we realised Sprocket was a girl she was rather overweight. Her size was not entirely down to fat either - she was also brewing up a large batch of eggs. Female chameleons, if well fed, will produce infertile eggs even if they have never seen a male.

After much consideration and discussion with our vet we decided to mate Sprocket so that at least the eggs would count for something. She managed to lay ten eggs by herself but it became clear there were some left inside her. A week later the remainder had to be surgically removed and Sprocket was spayed to make sure this problem would not happen again.. The eggs were placed in the incubator but the two groups were kept in separate containers.

After a long wait (6 months), the eggs started hatching on 28th December 2000. The initial ten eggs hatch first. Then a week later the six surgically removed eggs also hatched.

Sprocket in 1998
He is so tiny!

Sprocket in Feb 1999
The 'boy' still has no horns.
This shed needed a bit of help.

Sprocket is Gravid
August 2000. The colours and attitude tell male chameleons to stay well away.

THE EGGS HATCH!