The future of Chameleon Breeding

In the 90's, if you wanted information on Chameleons in the US, your source was the Chameleon Information Network (CIN). The CIN printed newsletters that you paid a subscription for, and they mailed them to your house..seems barbaric now, doesn't it.

Ken Kalish and Ardi Abate were the main editors, and the articles were filled with new ideas, theories, and studies on Chameleon husbandry, and species descriptions.

Ardi and I would talk on the telephone (no texting then kids) regularly. Ardi wrote most of the CIN in the later time frame of the newsletters life, and she exited with an explanation letter of why she felt she could not continue in the hobby. Ardi had kept detailed notes on the hundreds of chameleons that she housed outdoors mostly in sunny California. She stated that after F3 (third generation) she began to see negative factors in the offspring. By F5 she said that continuing on was producing low hatch rates, early neonatal deaths, and general unhealthy chameleons.

She left the hobby to reduce the habitat being destroyed in Madagascar, and knowing Ardi, she did. Her goal of reducing the amount of wild caught chameleons being harvested through continued breeding of captive bred was an impossibility based on her evidence. There would always be a need for "fresh blood" from wild caught chameleons.

This thread is not intended to debate her choice, or if we as hobbyists can save the chameleon from extinction.

This thread is to find out how many keepers have raised captive bred chameleons to F5 and above, and share what you have observed.

Nick

nick barta said:

In the 90's, if you wanted information on Chameleons in the US, your source was the Chameleon Information Network (CIN). The CIN printed newsletters that you paid a subscription for, and they mailed them to your house..seems barbaric now, doesn't it.

Ken Kalish and Ardi Abate were the main editors, and the articles were filled with new ideas, theories, and studies on Chameleon husbandry, and species descriptions.

Ardi and I would talk on the telephone (no texting then kids) regularly. Ardi wrote most of the CIN in the later time frame of the newsletters life, and she exited with an explanation letter of why she felt she could not continue in the hobby. Ardi had kept detailed notes on the hundreds of chameleons that she housed outdoors mostly in sunny California. She stated that after F3 (third generation) she began to see negative factors in the offspring. By F5 she said that continuing on was producing low hatch rates, early neonatal deaths, and general unhealthy chameleons.

She left the hobby to reduce the habitat being destroyed in Madagascar, and knowing Ardi, she did. Her goal of reducing the amount of wild caught chameleons being harvested through continued breeding of captive bred was an impossibility based on her evidence. There would always be a need for "fresh blood" from wild caught chameleons.

This thread is not intended to debate her choice, or if we as hobbyists can save the chameleon from extinction.

This thread is to find out how many keepers have raised captive bred chameleons to F5 and above, and share what you have observed.

Nick

Click to expand...

Nick,
I got to F3 with pardalis and saw no negative factors. Kammerflage Kreations has gone to pardalis F10 and is going strong. Their work is evident at any of the shows they attend. Kevin (Dooley) is F5 with lateralis and is continuing to produce healthy clutches. I will allow those who have obtained F5+ to answer your question, but I am wondering why Ardi would have seen those kinds of problems. Did your talks give any insight to that?

I have an awesome F3 and F5 lateralis pair from Dooley which I am waiting for her first clutch of F6 eggs. What I have seen in multi-generational breeding has been encouraging.
Bill

I am not sure but it is possible Louis (seeco) has raised
K multituberculata above f5. he has been breeding them for a while.

Before I gave up hobby breeding, I was at F4 with my cross-local (ambibole/nosybe) Panthers without any ill effects. I stopped my pure nosybe breeding at F3 and did only very infrequent breeding, so insufficient evidence. But I certainly know of several breeders who found the same issues after F3 in "pure" animals that Ardi noticed.

I have respect for Ardi's choice, and her reasoning.
I frequently question (usually after reading yet another post in which a chameleon is suffering in the hands of an ill-informed, ill-prepared keeper) whether chameleons should be captive pets. And I am saddened everytime I read a post about the next cites approved export.

DeremensisBlue said:

Nick,
I got to F3 with pardalis and saw no negative factors. Kammerflage Kreations has gone to pardalis F10 and is going strong. Their work is evident at any of the shows they attend. Kevin (Dooley) is F5 with lateralis and is continuing to produce healthy clutches. I will allow those who have obtained F5+ to answer your question, but I am wondering why Ardi would have seen those kinds of problems. Did your talks give any insight to that?

I have an awesome F3 and F5 lateralis pair from Dooley which I am waiting for her first clutch of F6 eggs. What I have seen in multi-generational breeding has been encouraging.
Bill

Click to expand...

Good to hear of the successes. Kammerflage and Dooley are good examples. It is possible that something was missing in her (all of our) husbandry.

sandrachameleon said:

Before I gave up hobby breeding, I was at F4 with my cross-local (ambibole/nosybe) Panthers without any ill effects. I stopped my pure nosybe breeding at F3 and did only very infrequent breeding, so insufficient evidence. But I certainly know of several breeders who found the same issues after F3 in "pure" animals that Ardi noticed.

I have respect for Ardi's choice, and her reasoning.
I frequently question (usually after reading yet another post in which a chameleon is suffering in the hands of an ill-informed, ill-prepared keeper) whether chameleons should be captive pets. And I am saddened everytime I read a post about the next cites approved export.

Click to expand...

Sandra,

I too feel that Ardi thought through the issues, and made a choice to try to preserve the species by putting her efforts toward preserving habitat in Madagascar. In retrospect, I left the hobby for a time in part, because her choice forced me to look at my choices to get more and more chameleons, and be involved in buying from a Cameroon importer.

I have resolved to have less chameleons, enjoy them more, and help others to understand the needs of these amazing creatures.

I completely understand your sadness on exports...

Nick

And, the limited gene pools breeders are drawing from are a bit larger than those Ardi would have had access to. The stronger individuals would have survived longer and passed those traits to their offspring more often. We also don't know anything about the range of collection points exporters would have available then compared to now. Maybe that hasn't changed much but its still not very clear. I'm sure nutrition, husbandry advances, early detection and treatment of health problems helped!

Okay, how are you labeling your filial generations? I was under the impression that when two animals are bred that have different filial generations you pick the lowest one and use that for reference. (ex: F3 X F5 = F4, not F6) I have seen some people label animals the way I just described and then others who do it using the highest number (ex: F3 X F5 = F6) I though it was the way I described because filial generations describe how far away the offspring are from the wild generations (P) so the offspring can only be as far away as the lowest parent.

I think the way people label the offspring is going to make a big difference in this convo.

pssh said:

Okay, how are you labeling your filial generations? I was under the impression that when two animals are bred that have different filial generations you pick the lowest one and use that for reference. (ex: F3 X F5 = F4, not F6) I have seen some people label animals the way I just described and then others who do it using the highest number (ex: F3 X F5 = F6) I though it was the way I described because filial generations describe how far away the offspring are from the wild generations (P) so the offspring can only be as far away as the lowest parent.

I think the way people label the offspring is going to make a big difference in this convo.

Click to expand...

good point. for me, F3 X F5 = F3

nick barta said:

In the 90's, if you wanted information on Chameleons in the US, your source was the Chameleon Information Network (CIN). The CIN printed newsletters that you paid a subscription for, and they mailed them to your house..seems barbaric now, doesn't it.

Ken Kalish and Ardi Abate were the main editors, and the articles were filled with new ideas, theories, and studies on Chameleon husbandry, and species descriptions.

Ardi and I would talk on the telephone (no texting then kids) regularly. Ardi wrote most of the CIN in the later time frame of the newsletters life, and she exited with an explanation letter of why she felt she could not continue in the hobby. Ardi had kept detailed notes on the hundreds of chameleons that she housed outdoors mostly in sunny California. She stated that after F3 (third generation) she began to see negative factors in the offspring. By F5 she said that continuing on was producing low hatch rates, early neonatal deaths, and general unhealthy chameleons.

She left the hobby to reduce the habitat being destroyed in Madagascar, and knowing Ardi, she did. Her goal of reducing the amount of wild caught chameleons being harvested through continued breeding of captive bred was an impossibility based on her evidence. There would always be a need for "fresh blood" from wild caught chameleons.

This thread is not intended to debate her choice, or if we as hobbyists can save the chameleon from extinction.

This thread is to find out how many keepers have raised captive bred chameleons to F5 and above, and share what you have observed.

Nick

Click to expand...

Keeping and working with chameleons in captivity is a privilege of accomplished wildlife conservation in that species of chameleon native habitat. For the hobby to continue habitat conservation has got to continue I have always concurred with Ardi about that. The idea that chameleons only live in pristine forests is a myth though. There are species such as Furcifer pardalis and Furcifer ousaleti along with others that thrive in degraded habitat or secondary habitats. However too say everyone should quit a great hobby that has got conservative import quotas (especially compared to the 1990's), because of issues of freshening up breeding programs occasionally I think is foolish. This hobby provides a home based hands on experience with biology for children and adults. Which is a distraction for children and adults from drugs and less constructive activities. Which I think is something that should be kept and a hobby that should be conserved. However it is important if you are going to stay in this hobby to keep in mind what importation is going on, as Ardi saw more than her fair share of negative of outdated practices. This being our responsibility of preventing a regression to something similar happening again 1990's importation or non quotas. However thanks to educated keepers much of that sloppy importation has been cleaned up since then and much accomplish conservation has happened in Madagascar, such as two huge preserves Makira and Zahamena Reserve that have recently been established.

To the best of my knowledge I almost hate to say it though Seeco is not breeding Kinyongia multituberculata anymore he is 100% family man. F10 is great.

Motherlode Chameleon said:

Keeping and working with chameleons in captivity is a privilege of accomplished wildlife conservation in that species of chameleon native habitat. For the hobby to continue habitat conservation has got to continue I have always concurred with Ardi about that. The idea that chameleons only live in pristine forests is a myth though. There are species such as Furcifer pardalis and Furcifer ousaleti along with others that thrive in degraded habitat or secondary habitats. However too say everyone should quit a great hobby that has got conservative import quotas (especially compared to the 1990's), because of issues of freshening up breeding programs occasionally I think is foolish. This hobby provides a home based hands on experience with biology for children and adults. Which is a distraction for children and adults from drugs and less constructive activities. Which I think is something that should be kept and a hobby that should be conserved. However it is important if you are going to stay in this hobby to keep in mind what importation is going on, as Ardi saw more than her fair share of negative of outdated practices. This being our responsibility of preventing a regression to something similar happening again 1990's importation or non quotas. However thanks to educated keepers much of that sloppy importation has been cleaned up even since then and much accomplish conservation has happened in Madagascar such as to huge preserves Makira and Zahamena Reserve that has happened recently.

To the best of my knowledge I almost hate to say it though Seeco is not breeding Kinyongia multituberculata anymore he is 100% family man. F10 is great.

Click to expand...

Yes I knew the entrance of his baby would change everything. but that is wonderful for him. Do you know how far he got when breeding?

laurie said:

Yes I knew the entrance of his baby would change everything. but that is wonderful for him. Do you know how far he got when breeding?

Click to expand...

I'm going to say F4 or F5.

I clicked on his facebook page link in the "Rise of the Super breeders" article, didn't see much on chameleons. The article mentions F3 getting ready to hatch, and that article is from a while ago.

sandrachameleon said:

good point. for me, F3 X F5 = F3

Click to expand...

Yeah, so the way you are breeding them makes it a bit harder to get past F5 because you would need two animals of the same filial generation to advance (F3 X F3 = F4). However, if others were using the higher parent (F3 X F5 = F6) then they could just keep breeding the animals to wild caught animals ( F1 X P = F2, F2 X P = F3, F3 X P = F4, etc.) And get to F5+ generations easily. It would totally negate Ardi's observations of having trouble with F5+ without new blood/wildcaught blood. So people who are breeding this way might not be seeing what she saw because they are not breeding the same way she was. Does that make sense? Or am I overlooking something?

I've been to F3 with lateralis. l never kept great records. All I know is it always seemed like lateralis were hatching.

Carl

Reports from friends of mine who have gone to the Usambara mountains have stated that Kinyongia multituberculata are the Panther Chameleons of the Usambara region and thrive in somewhat degraded and secondary habitats and are a species not overly threatened by deforestation. Meaning as far Seeco's breeding group goes they were not essential however it is always great to have access to captive bred Kinyongia and a group such as his was extremely inspiring.

pssh said:

Yeah, so the way you are breeding them makes it a bit harder to get past F5 because you would need two animals of the same filial generation to advance (F3 X F3 = F4). However, if others were using the higher parent (F3 X F5 = F6) then they could just keep breeding the animals to wild caught animals ( F1 X P = F2, F2 X P = F3, F3 X P = F4, etc.) And get to F5+ generations easily. It would totally negate Ardi's observations of having trouble with F5+ without new blood/wildcaught blood. So people who are breeding this way might not be seeing what she saw because they are not breeding the same way she was. Does that make sense? Or am I overlooking something?

Click to expand...

To really discuss this we would have to know how she was doing it. We may find that we are making assumptions that aren't accurate and perhaps do not have the full story. I had some of the blue pardalis line she was working with, but do not know what protocol she was using. Nick, do you have some of those records of what she did?

Ardi was also doing this over 15 years ago. A great deal has changed as far as nutrition. Even having automated misting systems can make a difference in how healthy a chameleon grows up. And, as experienced as she was, Ardi is still one data point. I know breeders that had F3 that just stopped breeding because they couldn't place the babies. It was not due to health.

The more stringent definition of F5 makes that level difficult to test with multiple data points, but F3 by two F2s is not hard with pardalis. My F3 was with two F2s. I did not notice reduced fertility or health. (Although my breeding included bloodlines from the Ken and Ardi project I do not know if they were part of the troubled project Nick is referring to)

I do not look forward to the day we cannot infuse wild blood, but it is sneaking up on us species by species. Ready or not.

DeremensisBlue said:

I do not look forward to the day we cannot infuse wild blood, but it is sneaking up on us species by species. Ready or not.

Click to expand...

I hope that statement turns out to be a statement that is not accurate. I think with management and conservative quotas countries in Africa are justified to make a business of selling some chameleons species to the rest of the world. If that privilege is justified through conservation of those species in their natural habitat. If done properly it is a positive on our end with a rewarding hobby/business and is a positive on the exporters end by providing some economy to a third world nation and placing worth on chameleons in regions where chameleons are occasionally collected and farmed. This worth does help to conserve chameleons in there natural habitat as they are viewed as a source of economics to the region and are not demonized. When demonization (not positive PR with the locals) happens less consideration goes towards chameleons and chameleon habitat when they are seen in this perspective by some African peoples.

Carlton said:

And, the limited gene pools breeders are drawing from are a bit larger than those Ardi would have had access to. The stronger individuals would have survived longer and passed those traits to their offspring more often. We also don't know anything about the range of collection points exporters would have available then compared to now. Maybe that hasn't changed much but its still not very clear. I'm sure nutrition, husbandry advances, early detection and treatment of health problems helped!

Click to expand...

All excellent observations I had not thought of.

Nick

pssh said:

Okay, how are you labeling your filial generations? I was under the impression that when two animals are bred that have different filial generations you pick the lowest one and use that for reference. (ex: F3 X F5 = F4, not F6) I have seen some people label animals the way I just described and then others who do it using the highest number (ex: F3 X F5 = F6) I though it was the way I described because filial generations describe how far away the offspring are from the wild generations (P) so the offspring can only be as far away as the lowest parent.

I think the way people label the offspring is going to make a big difference in this convo.

Click to expand...

My understanding is the lower number would be used, as Sandra states.