Shauna_T
Avid Member
She is so pretty
2 years of happiness, congrats Bella
- Thread starter Sonny13
- Start date
Sonny13
Chameleon Enthusiast
Thank you
Andrew1283
Chameleon Enthusiast
Your free range is so beautiful and clean looking. Even your lighting arrangement. One question, do you feed her from the bowl every other day? If so, that’s adorable that she climbs down on your sleeve to eat.It´s now exactly 2 years ago that our beautiful girl Bella came into our life. At that moment a first time chameleon keeper, with the necessary beginner mistakes, till a full grown full time free range beauty with 5 successfully laid clutches.
We love you Bella and thank you for being in our life
Some shots of her growing up.....
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And her castle
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Sonny13
Chameleon Enthusiast
Thanks
. It also contains an automatic misting system (one nozzle) and fogger tube. I feed her with a cup. Just putting it next to her basking branch and before the feeders can blink their eyes, they’re consumed by her
Andrew1283
Chameleon Enthusiast
If I didn’t have dogs I would free range. Maybe when I get my reptile room set up! I’ll save the picture of yours and try to model mine after it
Sonny13
Chameleon Enthusiast
Sorry for the delayed answer on this…it’s been crazy around here lately and I’m trying to catch up.
With the panther chameleons, I noticed slight difference between some of the males and females I got…such as nose ridge formations and shapes of the nose… and then I would find that if I mated two that had those differences, sometimes the whole batch of hatchlings would not do well and there would be a big die off…or sometimes the eggs wouldn’t even make it to hatching. I’m not great with genetics, but I put it down to not being able to tell if the males and females were the same colour “morphs“ or not (as we kinda called them morphs back then)…so I decided I would stop breeding them until I could figure out how to tell what males and females were the same “morphs”. Maybe I wasn’t even right about the whole weakness thing, I wondered at one point…since I’m not good at genetics.
I also noticed some odd differences between some of the Mellers and some of the Deremensis that I got way back then, to do with their crest shapes…but I can’t find my notes anymore. I think Susan James also noticed what I was talking about on the Mellers…but we never came to an answer about it. (I wish we could get back into the old emails on the ADCHAM forum…there was a lot of bits and pieces of information there that I wish we could still read.)
Regarding stopping the reproduction….it really seems to have to do with the “diet“ and temperatures…but I also think the supplements and gut loading/feeding the insects is involved too. I never used bee pollen (not saying it was wrong to do so by any means…I just didn’t) and for many years, I used Herptivite as the vitamin for veiled chameleons …and it doesn’t contain prEformed vitamin A.
The thing is though, that I don’t want to tell people to go too far and end up pushing their chameleons to the point of being unhealthy if they cross the line. If you have experience with chameleons, you will likely notice when you’ve crossed the line and be able to go back a step, but newbies wont likely see that.
I’m also not sure if there is truth to them being only able to produce a certain number of clutches. There are still a lot of things that need more research to be done to figure out.
I‘m still looking into foods, etc that we use that might be affecting the reproduction and preventing it from being stopped. I’ll post anything I find…of course.
With the panther chameleons, I noticed slight difference between some of the males and females I got…such as nose ridge formations and shapes of the nose… and then I would find that if I mated two that had those differences, sometimes the whole batch of hatchlings would not do well and there would be a big die off…or sometimes the eggs wouldn’t even make it to hatching. I’m not great with genetics, but I put it down to not being able to tell if the males and females were the same colour “morphs“ or not (as we kinda called them morphs back then)…so I decided I would stop breeding them until I could figure out how to tell what males and females were the same “morphs”. Maybe I wasn’t even right about the whole weakness thing, I wondered at one point…since I’m not good at genetics.
I also noticed some odd differences between some of the Mellers and some of the Deremensis that I got way back then, to do with their crest shapes…but I can’t find my notes anymore. I think Susan James also noticed what I was talking about on the Mellers…but we never came to an answer about it. (I wish we could get back into the old emails on the ADCHAM forum…there was a lot of bits and pieces of information there that I wish we could still read.)
Regarding stopping the reproduction….it really seems to have to do with the “diet“ and temperatures…but I also think the supplements and gut loading/feeding the insects is involved too. I never used bee pollen (not saying it was wrong to do so by any means…I just didn’t) and for many years, I used Herptivite as the vitamin for veiled chameleons …and it doesn’t contain prEformed vitamin A.
The thing is though, that I don’t want to tell people to go too far and end up pushing their chameleons to the point of being unhealthy if they cross the line. If you have experience with chameleons, you will likely notice when you’ve crossed the line and be able to go back a step, but newbies wont likely see that.
I’m also not sure if there is truth to them being only able to produce a certain number of clutches. There are still a lot of things that need more research to be done to figure out.
I‘m still looking into foods, etc that we use that might be affecting the reproduction and preventing it from being stopped. I’ll post anything I find…of course.
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MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
That is definitely something to consider. While I try to buy organic produce for my animals and insects, it isn’t also possible. Modern agriculture uses so many chemicals and hormones in our non-organic food that I wonder how that may play into everything. Some various chemicals and hormones used by USA are banned in Europe and vice versa probably. Then there is the matter of air, water and soil pollution and I wonder how that varies from Europe to N America.
Andrew1283
Chameleon Enthusiast
Don’t think of organic as necessarily better. Remember…Cyanide is organic. Organic pesticides work in much the same way, by attacking the nervous system of pests. I wrote a paper on it in college after giving organic kale to some crickets, without washing it first. Within minutes, all crickets were on their backs twitching. Organic….
elizaann2
Chameleon Enthusiast
yikes!!!
Andrew1283
Chameleon Enthusiast
This is a very well written article about the subject. Some studies suggest 95% of people view organic as pesticide free and better for the environment. Yikes is right!
https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/
elizaann2
Chameleon Enthusiast
Ugh. What a bummer.
Sonny13
Chameleon Enthusiast
Thanks, it’s very insightful
Reducing her more on the food, will be tricky I guess. She’s pretty healthy skinny and don’t trust myself pushing that line. I know this needs to go together with temperature to slow down her metabolism. But she only basks till 11.00am (basking turns off at 12.00am) and then goes down in her tree the rest of the day.
Food and supplements should be more the thing to look for I guess.
Sonny13
Chameleon Enthusiast
Good point there and experienced this first hand. When I did a tour to Afghanistan in 2008, our base was supplied with food from the states. After a few weeks I started to notice a change during training, I slowly became stronger and for someone who sports whole his life and knows his body, that’s suddenly strange. After a month or an half, I also started to gain weight, muscle weight, even more strange. I know I‘m high in my testosterone, and I’m sensitive for it, therefore my guess was the meat. It’s well known that the cows and bulls in the state are raised with steroids to gain weight and because I’m sensitive for this my body reacted to steroids in the meat. Back home again, I lost this extra weight pretty quickly, as for that 10-20% more strength.
