Metabolic Bone Disease and Species

I think it would be interesting to discuss the UVB needs of particular species.
Almost every animal I have seen (in real life or in pictures) that suffers from MBD is an Arabian Peninsula species, ie: calyptratus, calcarifer, etc.
I have rarely (if ever) seen a mountain animal or a Madagascan species with MBD.
The lower dwelling species (pygmies, etc.) certainly do not have the UVB requirements of canopy dwelling animals.
I would not change from a 5.0 tube for a panther or oustalet's, but it is interesting that veileds seem to need a great deal more UVB.
It is also interesting to me that research (Dr. Talent) attempting to determine if D3 supplementation can substitute for actual UVB has been done exclusively with Panther chameleons. I wonder if the same level of success would have been possible with calyptratus.
Again, I am not suggesting any alterations in husbandry for any animals ... my brain is just hungry for a topic beyond "why does my chameleon hate me" or "how do I gut load my crickets"

-Brad

Maybe we don't see mbd in other chams besides veileds is because veileds are what the majority of people buy.
It's rare on here for a newbie to say "Hi i just got my first chameleon, it's a sambava"
Usually it's a veiled for the first time cham owner,it seems alot of experienced owners usually have other species.
No doubt MBD does exist in other locales it's just depending on their owner.

Also, most people on here recommend using a 5.0 uvb for all species it seems, when i first got my chameleons, i was asking a friend of mine who is a vet here in phoenix. He is really big on reptiles and have met on several occasionals with the boyer brothers of arav. He told me 10.0 is the most suitable for a chameleon as the sun produces much higher amounts of UVB. And if i was to use a higher output of UVB that my dusting schedule can be really light.
That is why i usually suggest using 10.0. My dusting schedule consist of Repto-cal w/d3 once a week or every 1 1/2 weeks. Both of my veileds are extremely healthy.

I think this is a great topic and would like to add to it.
Is location to the equater relevant to UVB reaching the earths surface?
For some reason I dont think it is true.
Yemen is right in line with the Sahara desert, could this be a reason?
Just yesterday the weather had a rating on UV exposure for the beach.
I think it was a 9 out of 10, which is about 45 minutes in the sun and you are fried.
Dosent Austraila desert get the highest amount of UVB?
That is where Bearded Dragons come from and they do require a lot of UVB.
Super Rad has a point about the amount of Veileds that get bought as first time chameleons.
A majority of people dont do any research and buy on impulse.
I think the pet stores that sell these animals could be at fault too.

Edit: link https://www.chameleonforums.com/site-polls/poll-33-your-first-chameleon.html

On www.uvguide.co.uk they did a study on UV-B penetration of the skin of different kinds of lizards. They basically put pieces of shedded skin over the UV-B meter and held that up to a UV-B light at a set distance and angle.
Pulling from memory I belief the results showed that the skin of animals that are naturally more exposed to direct sunlight blocks more UV-B than that of animals that live in a more shaded habitat.
Gotta get back to work, but just wanted to add this.

- Suzanne

Brad,

I think there is some question to weather the UV given should be change much at all from species to species (With some exception). The sun emits massive amounts of UV that reptile bulbs really only come close to in extremely short distances. And in the grand scheme there won't be too much difference in UV from say, Kenya to Cameroon. But a chameleon might live in 80% full sun (20% shaded) in one place, and another in 40% full sun (60% shaded). Shouldn't we technically use the same bulb, increase the size of the cages, and provide more or less vegitation and shade to simulate UV differences? All speculation of course...

A note about 2.0, 5.0, and 10.0 bulbs. A 10.0 bulb does not necessarily produce five times the amount a 2.0 bulb does, nor twice the about produced by a 5.0 bulb. These bulbs have wavelengths within the UV spectrum that are not consistent along all three bulbs. The spikes in certain wavelengths produced by a 10.0 bulb will likely be more intense than that of the highest spikes from 5.0 bulb, but certain wavelengths produced by a 5.0 bulb, can be higher than the same wavelengths in the 10.0. The bulbs have different points of intensities within the UVB/UVA and visible light spectrums.

I agree that the best possible situation is to provide the animal with options.
Having a well planted enclosure that provides shade as well as a places to bask under the UVB light or a heat lamp (independently) is ideal.
Again, this discussion is purely academic and not meaning to suggest that we stray from what is currently believed to be optimal for these animals.
The prevalence of MBD in the middle eastern animals is still an interesting phenomenon to me.
I don't necessarily believe that a veiled chameleon needs more than a 5.0 light (I have had good success using this)
Certainly all Panthers have not been kept under perfect conditions, yet we don't see MBD as much with them.

-Brad

I dont' need studies to knw one thing: UVB is NOT 100% necessary for chameleons to grow strong and healthy. Artificial suppementation will do the trick very nicely.

Remember people, chameleons have been bred in captivity long before any good UVB bulbs were out there - vitalites were esentially useless.

I have raised multiple hundreds of veileds for generations without so much as a DAY of sunlight or artificial UVB. Never had one instance of MBD, either.

My first male was a WC adult, at just 12" total length. He had slight MBD when I bought him, and original rep-cal soon cleared that up. Every one of the babies was larger than he. From gravid females, to babies, to adults to their babies - no sunlight nor UVB (cause there WEREN'T any UVB bulbs back then!)

My current male breeder, now 7 years old, was raised without UVB to adulthood. I had a great distrust of uvb bulbs, so I didnt' use them until I saw some REAL research.

A CB deremensis I purchased from the Kammers went from a little 2 month old to a full size adult with not a minute of sunlight or UVB bulbs - and not a single basking light, either. Just repcal, minerall reptivite and herptivite.

UVB is good, it minimizes the amount of supplementation you need to give, improves their behavior and color (UVA is more important here, really). But it is NOT necessary in the sense that you cannot make do without it.

I bred veileds for nearly a decade before I was convinced of the benifit of reptisun bulbs - so many other manufacturers proved to be worthless, I doubted all of them.

I've seen ousteleti with MBD - I think it's the "type" of chameleon that matters. Some species have a set growth rate, others seem to be able to grow faster as food becomes available. I'm pretty sure ousteleti can grow as rapidly as veileds - onyl seen one clutch grow up,and they were massive at 6 months.

Montane species seem to just have fatter babies, not faster growing ones.

Eric,

You bring up a good point.
The rate of growth could certainly contribute to bone density problems.
Veileds (if allowed to eat as much as they want) can grow incredibly quickly.
I know you and also Lynda Horgan have discussed controlling diet to slow the rate of growth.
This seems to me a very logical practice that would help in allowing the animal to develop properly.

-Brad

Interesting observation about the arabian chams being more prone to mbd. It's hard for me not to suspect it has to do with calyptratus being the most commonly kept species by first time cham owners and young kids with improper setups... It does seem likely that they would be more sensitive to inadequate uvb levels than a rainforest species though, so your theory could easily be correct.

I also wonder if veileds are suffering from the effects of selective breeding. This is just a guess since I don't breed or keep veileds myself.
I wonder if many breeders are choosing fast-growing animals, that reach maturity at a younger age, as their next generation breeders. If so, they would be selectively breeding for these traits and, in my opinion, increasing the risk that the offspring will develop MBD in the hands of the inexperienced chameleon keeper.
What I'm basing this on is that 5 years ago I read that veileds mature at 9 - 12 months and now I hear increasingly often about 6 month old females being gravid.
Please correct me if I'm completely off base here, I'm anything but an expert on veileds.

Back to work,
Suzanne

The big number breeders, back when veileds were first becoming popular, had a catchphrase: "baby to baby in 12 months". they were serious.

A hatchling, if fed on a constant basis, would have been breedable before 6 months of age. The eggs, if incubated at a higher temperature, would hatch in 6 months.

It's clear that growth rate is dependant on food quantity (provided everything is in the correct balance). I realized this when I saw that animals I sold were MUCH bigger than my holdback animals at about the 6-10 month range. At first, I thought I was under-feeding them. I then felt much better after the 15 month mark, where mine had caught up, and often were bigger.

So, the question is what is the prime growth rate? Should we shoot for maturity at 15, 12, 9 or 6 months?!?!? All are possible.

It varies. I do know that it's possible to grow veileds so fast, MBD or calcium problems of some sort are nearly unavoidable.

What I've noticed in all of my clutches, is that females tend to hit a growth spurt and pass up the males right around 9 months of age. As of now, ALL my holdback females are just about full size, and nearly ready to breed. The males are smaller, despite being housed singly, and eating much more food with no competition.

They're not nearly done growing at 10 months. Just like their father - who was about 10 inches long at a year. At 15 months, he was nearly 18".

I'm sure you can grow them faster with no issues. I am comfortable with females being physically ready, and showing receptive coloration, at about 12 months of age. I use that as a benchmark. It seems a healthy and problem-free age for breeding. Significantly younger, and they have a drastic rise in problems related to egg-laying. Any older, and they'll start developing infertile clutches.

I'd never breed a female at 6 months. I used to breed at 9 months, but two females in a row that were bred at 9 months of age had problems (oviduct wrapped around intestine) and required surgery. That was a very long time ago, and I think it was back when it was "common knowledge" that you HAD to mate your veileds, else they die egg-bound - to give you an idea of how long ago that was...