Is this normal for a veiled chameleon to do?

Question

i bred my 2 veiled chameleons and now the female is laying her eggs but she didnt dig a hole in her nesting box i provided her. yesterday i found 7 eggs in he box just chillin on top of the dirt i carefully dug everywhere to try and find more but no just 7. now i just got home from work and found 10 more again just chillin on top of the dirt. now i dug her a hole to give her a little head start and as i am typing shes in her nesting box just looking at the hole not walking around just standing there staring at it. like im a bad hole digger or something. is this a normal thing for them to do? the guy i got her from bred her a few times before so its not shes new at this.

Answer 1

I used to breed veiled chameleons, and in my experiences, when they're not bothering to dig a nest and they're just dropping them wherever, they're infertile. You can still incubate them until you know for sure, but if they're not white, they're probably no good. One of my females had started just dropping them wherever just like yours and they were no good. She had reached old age (females only live a couple of years) and could no longer produce viable eggs. She only lived a couple of more months after this. Whenever I've had good eggs, they would dig a nest and lay all of them at once.