Hoehnelii Care

[eisentrauti]

As far as I know they are so called "farm-raised" ones - but obviously WC. A blind person will see it. But the quality is good, especially regarding the low prices which are payed for hoehneliis.
A year or some months more ago a guy imported probably hundrets of hoehneliis too, but those were let's say "suboptimal". I don't know if they landed in this bad condition but from the sold animals only a handfull is still alive. Another indicator for the bad quality of the shippment was the fact that just a few very experienced keepers who buyed some hoehneliis get some juvenils. Based on the pure number of adults which landed here I expected a flood of juveniles.

 

[Texas Panther Man]

Yeah Chris, Katy is big time now. It used to be out in the sticks but now its all built up and Houston has grown all the way out to Katy. I remember as a kid we'd go duck hunting on the katy prairie now its all shopping malls and housing develpments.

 

[frankpayne32]

Sorry for the delay in my reply. I've treated T. hoehnelii with panacur and I'd have to go back and try to find my notes on it, but I seem to recall with individuals with known extremely high lung worms loads (based on necropsy of multiple individuals from the same shipment) we used 3 treatments at 2 week intervals.

As for heat stress in this species, I've had them at an ambient temp of about 85F during the afternoon with no visible issues as long as adequate hydration was provided.



Are the Kenyan specimens you guys get in Europe also from this farm in Kenya that is supposedly farm raising them? That is where the US ones are coming from and I've been generally less than impressed.



Sorry to hear about the female but the male is definitely looking better. The only think I'd generally caution about is the MV bulb. I only use them on the largest of my chameleon enclosures (6' tall+) as they give off high radiance levels and quite a bit of heat. It looks like you have it a good ways away but just make sure the radiance levels aren't too high where the chameleon is basking. There used to be a bunch of general radiance info on these bulbs on http://www.uvguide.co.uk but it looks like they've taken them down. You can still see it in the web archive, however: http://web.archive.org/web/20080605134549/www.uvguide.co.uk/mercvapourfloods.htm



I lived in Katy a number of times as a child and every time I'm there to visit family I'm amazing how much that area has changed since I left.

Chris

Thanks for the help again. I only keep the MV bulb on for eight hours a day and the closest the cham can get to it is 12". It creates a perfect thermogradient in the enclosure this time of year. I'm sure in the summer I will either move the cham to my basement or use a fluorescent UV bulb.

 

[frankpayne32]

Some more pics. He's doing better and better. This is only the second species that I've worked with that was WC. I had success with a WC jacksonii xantholophus pair years ago but I have always shied away from WC chams. I feed him crickets every other day and fruit flies on the off days. He eats and drinks very well. He even tongs feed crickets every time. Thanks again to all that posted here with advice. If he continues to do well I will try to get a female to pair him with, preferably CB or LTC. If anyone has any leads please let me know.

Some pics of him chewing after tong feeding:

Another couple top-down pics. They show it a little but he has some really bright blue eyes (the skin around them):

 

[Chris Jury]

Great to see that he's looking happy!

As for the question of using screen vs. glass aquaria/solid sided cages, I'll echo Frank's experience. I bred Ch. calyptratus for several years in the late 90's and early 00's while living in Michigan. Over several years I used a combination of fully screen indoor, fully screen outdoor (June-August), and aquaria with partial or full screen tops for caging. Initially I always used fully screen cages for babies through adults. Adults were resilient and never had problems, though keeping them well-hydrated in winter was more challening. Babies that hatched during or just prior to the warm season (~May-Sept) always thrived regardless of what sort of caging I used (from fully screen to mostly glass).

However, it took a good bit of failure and the death of more baby Veileds than I care to admit or remember to realize that fully screen caging during the winted where I lived was practically a death sentence for many of the babies. Now, this might not be the case for someone that lives at a high latitude with a dedicated room where temperature and humidity can be maintained in a range appropriate for the neonates throughout the room (and therefore throughout the screen cages). In my case, at room temperatures and humdities many of the babies simply became dehydrated and died, or simply failed to thrive the way they did when born during the warm season. This was in spite of using a room humidifier along with misting them several times daily. They just didn't do well in screen cages.

Eventually I got to the point of housing them in glass aquaria or rubbermaid tubs with screen tops that were partially to mostly covered in plastic (leaving spac for a basking lamp and UV producing fluorescent). In these conditions they thrived, just as they did during the summer.

This is perhaps for another discussion, but I really feel that the dogma of using exclusively screen cages for chameleons has probably been seriously detrimental to their care in many situations, and downright deadly to a lot of chamelons (many in winter at higher latitudes; probably some due to air conditioning drying things out at lower latitudes). Screen cages are great when the ambient temp and humidity are appropriate for the species you're keeping. However, IME it is simpler and often works better to use substantially enclosed enclousures (including aquaria) for many chams in many situations. They've been doing this sort of thing in Europe for decades. Simply put, I think the screen cage dogma is wrong, and has sometimes held back progress.

Getting back to the Ch. hoehnellii here: my feeling is that at least part of reason for the dark coloration and unhappiness may have been due to the animal simply being unable to get warm enough. Adding the mercury vapor bulb, I think, may have fixed that. Ch. hoehnellii along with many other mid and high elevation chameleon species, interestingingly enough, prefer to maintain body temperatures similar to lowland species. For example, see here: http://compphys.bio.uci.edu/bennett/pubs/155.pdf

All sorts of species from all sorts of environments choose to maintain their body temps in the mid to upper 80's F, which is warmer than ambient for species from higher elevations (achieved by basking/selective sun exposure). While they are active and behave fairly normally at lower temp, it seems like they operate at these lower body temps only when the environment doesn't allow them to warm up to their preferred body temps. It seems like providing sufficient access to warm basking temps is critical for all species, including those from normally very cool or montane habitats.

Chris

 

[Chris Anderson]

Chris,

Just to reiterate part of your post that might not have been emphasized explicitly enough, while providing the ability to bask and elevate their body temperature is important, these species are very efficient at elevating their body temperature through basking. Even with very low ambient temperature, they are able to elevate their body temperature considerably provided good basking spots are provided. I think its important to note with these species that increasing the ambient temperature too significantly can be detrimental. In a glass enclosure, you need to be very careful providing a basking spot for this type of chameleon with a MV bulb. With proper monitoring and precautions, it can be done quite effectively, but it isn't a setup I'd recommend for a novice keeper.

Further, as a side note, while their preferred body temperature, where metabolism and other body functions may be optimized, is often higher than ambient temperature, these species operate much more effectively at low body temperatures than most lizard species. Their ability to be active and even feed at low body temperatures where other lizard species are inactive is quite remarkable.

Chris

 

[Chris Jury]

Chris,

Strongly agreed with the above. Chameleons from all sorts of habitats and elevations seem to be very good thermoregulators, and basking is an important way they do that. However, in order to thermoregulate effectively they (and any other animals for that matter) must have access to an area that is warmer than they want to be, and an area that is cooler than they want to be. Without access to an area where they can bask and warm themselves up along with an area where they can cool down, they're not going to be able to achieve normal metabolic function. For most chameleons, that probably means they need access to a basking area where they could, if they were to stay there, warm themselves up to at least the low 90's, as well as an area where they can cool themselves down to < 80 F. The smaller the enclosure, or the better insulated it is, the more challenging it can be to attain an appropriate gradient (e.g., 75 F to 90 F). However, I would also suggest that, in a cool house, like many northerners have now that it's winter, the relatively low ambient temps (e.g., 65-70 F) they might achieve in many screen cages everywhere but close to the basking area could present a challenge to some chameleons in that it forces them to bask much more than they normally would. This also seems to present a risk of burns, IME. The only times I have ever witnessed reptiles of any species get so close to heating fixtures as to burn themselves is when they were exposed to relatively low ambient temps, and a single, small area to warm themselves. With that choice, sometimes they get closer and closer and end up with severe burns, in an attempt to maintain appropriate body temps.

Also, while it is certainly true that chameleons tend to operate at somewhat lower body temps than other diurnal lizards, and show better body function at low temperature than most other reptiles, I don't think this is necessarily a reason to deprive them of the temps they prefer and, presumably, those at which their metabolism is optimized. They do definitely seem to have an advantage over a lot of other ectotherms at lower temps. I can't help but wonder if the reason we see so many chameleon species native to higher elevation areas is largely a result of their physiological advantage over other reptiles at low temperature. In other words, do these species really need to live in these high elevation areas, or are those simply the places where they're able to outcompete other species due to their phyiological tolerance (but not preferance) to cooler temps.

I guess the point I'd like to make is that the ability to thermoregulate and therefore access to temperatures both warmer (e.g., 90 F) and cooler (e.g., 70 F) than the chameleons are going to want to be are critical for their ability to do that. If they can't, long term I think they're going to be in some serious trouble, even though they clearly tolerate low temps and still behave normally at least for a while. Depending on the individual situation, sometimes screen cages provide for their needs very well, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes more enclosed cages are better suited to meet their needs, and sometimes they're not. I think that focusing more on the method and less on the goal (appropriate temperature, humidity, etc.) has held back progress for at least some people.

Best,

cj

 

[Chris Anderson]

Chris,

Agreed, however I would also comment that some species require seasonal temperature fluctuations and a period of cool down and relative inactivity in order to cycle into mating. These are often the species that do live in cooler, higher elevation areas. Their habitat itself probably selects for that seasonal temperature fluctuation dependent breeding to ensure optimal conditions for the offspring.

Also, I definitely agree that chameleons' physiological ability to perform at low body temperature is part of their success. Being less active foragers than many other lizards, the ability to eat at virtually any body temperature is advantageous and likely allows chameleons not only to take advantage of opportunities that other lizards would miss out on, but probably also allows them to expand their thermal niche. Here is a paper of mine that talks about some of that: http://www.pnas.org/content/107/12/5495.full.pdf

Chris