Agnes ...

[kinyonga]

Brad said..."She is well filled out, but not obviously carrying eggs"...I thought that she was carrying eggs the other day when I saw a picture of her. I thought I emailed you about it but obviously I forgot.

AFH said..."they usually lay aroud 30-40 days"...that has always been true when my females laid fertile eggs...with a "virgin" female there is no real way to tell when the day should be. Also, when you mate a virgin female for the first time, if they were already in the process of producing the first clutch you will often find that the first clutch will laid be less than 30 days from the mating. Its like they are dumping the infertile eggs that are too far along to be fertilized so that the next clutch they produce can be a fertile one.

I have also seen a virgin females who were producing eggs show full non-receptive/gravid coloration.

 

[pohchunyee]

She looks like she is circulating eggs now. Give her a couple of weeks and see if she is going to lay her eggs then show her to Kitty again

 

[Eric Adrignola]

A problem I've faced in the past few years is clutch size. I intentionally limit the food intake of my females to prevent large clutches. More importantly, to prevent FREQUENT clutches!

No way I can handle more than 2-3 clutches a year right now. With my space and money constraints, I'll wait until I finish anf finalize my animal room before I do that (I better get in gear. I'll have 4 breeder females in a couple months... when they finish growing up)

I've kept my last few clutches under 30. In fact, the last one was less than 20 I think(can't remember number details...)

This results in huge eggs and babies and very small gravid females!

And that's the problem. If it werent' for the gravid coloration ({when I show her to a male), I'd not realize that she's gravid.

The last time, I realized she was ready to lay when she was digging.

I do like the fact that my female doesn't even break a sweat during th eegg-laying process. She loses no body weight (eggs don't count), doesn't seem stressed, etc.

I like to try to keep my females as long as possible. even thogubh it's got nothing to do with the quality of the babies, I still feel that having an older, healthier, less stressed female makes the babies "better" than if she were laying 80 eggs at 6 months old, then 80 more at a year and dying.

It's a personal feeling based on the overall process.

Of course, it's been my expereince in the past that females seem to lay clutches of 35-40 eggs with little or no problems. Sho when I'm in a better situation (more room), I'll probably feed them a bit more.

 

[Brad Ramsey]

Eric we have a similar philosophy about this, which Lynda Horgan shares as well. Have you read her article on my site?
My situation with Agnes is that she has only been here a short time and her situation was slightly different with Josh.
Not too much though .. we talked about her diet and she certainly wasn't being over-fed. Her temperatures were a bit higher I believe ... and then there is the question of that "group shower"
HA!
Lynda and I talked a little bit about her last night and we both agree that she seems quite healthy, robust and up to the challenge. I'm not too worried.
Thanks for your comments though. I think one of the most important things we can do with this species is continue to share information (particularly about females) and tweak our husbandry.
I would also like to Thank Josh, again, for sending me such a healthy girl. I don't think I publicly revealed that she was a gift to Kitty and the continuing veiled chameleon site research ... etc.

-Brad

 

[joefarah]

Well Brad, good luck with whatever happens. That chocolate brown color with electric blue and yellow is what I saw with my female veileds only after they had mated with my male for the first time.

Also, can someone briefly explain to me why it is bad for a young/small female to lay a clutch of fertilized eggs but not to drop infertiles? Is it that much more taxing on a female to lay a clutch of fertilized eggs?

I guess I'm not sure why anyone would think that Agnes isn't perfectly ready to breed.

 

[Brad Ramsey]

She is ready Joe.
I think the ideal situation (in theory) would be to keep a female from producing any eggs at all until she has finished her first year of growth and development.
Females that have been kept in such a way as to prevent any egg production, live much longer lives.
Egg production takes it's toll whether or not the eggs are fertile.
The same emphasis put on not breeding before a certain age, needs to be applied to over feeding and over heating. All these conditions can result in development of eggs.

-Brad

 

[joefarah]

She is ready Joe.
I think the ideal situation (in theory) would be to keep a female from producing any eggs at all until she has finished her first year of growth and development.
Females that have been kept in such a way as to prevent any egg production, live much longer lives.
Egg production takes it's toll whether or not the eggs are fertile.
The same emphasis put on not breeding before a certain age, needs to be applied to over feeding and over heating. All these conditions can result in development of eggs.

-Brad

Sure. I get all that.

I guess the way I see it is these animals live fast and die young naturally. That's kinda how they're "programmed" and that's how it goes in the wild. It's hard for me to imagine a female of appropriate size health and age not producing eggs. The only reason I could think of a veiled not producing eggs when she was the right size is if she wasn't healthy and her body refused to initiate the reproductive cycle. I understand how overfeeding can bring on reproduction a bit early, but we're talking about 4-6 months old in those cases.

It may seem cold, but the females of a lot of these commonly kept chameleon species seem to have evolved to mature quick, breed hard for a few years then die. When we talk about females who don't breed till they're older living "much longer lives"... are we talking about maybe one or two more years at the most?

 

[Brad Ramsey]

Lynda Horgan has a female veiled that has never produced an egg and is 7 years old.

-Brad

 

[joefarah]

Lynda Horgan has a female veiled that has never produced an egg and is 7 years old.

-Brad

That is very cool. I would consider that an extreme rarity though. I know a lady who is infertile and doesn't produce eggs, but most women start producing them automatically when they hit puberty, as do veileds.

I suppose you would expect a female who never produces eggs to have a lifespan comparable to a male's....

 

[Brad Ramsey]

That is very cool. I would consider that an extreme rarity though. I know a lady who is infertile and doesn't produce eggs, but most women start producing them automatically when they hit puberty, as do veileds.

I suppose you would expect a female who never produces eggs to have a lifespan comparable to a male's....

Apparently not so rare with Lynda's animals.
She has had success keeping more than one female veiled this way.
This is why I asked her to write the article for my site.
http://raisingkittytheveiledchameleon.blogspot.com/2007/12/keeping-female-veiled.html

-Brad

 

[joefarah]

To me it seems veileds just start producing eggs when the weather is right and physiologically they are ready. It doesn't seem to me that we can really control when a female veiled starts producing eggs unless we deprive them adequate food while they are growing up, thereby delaying how long until they reach breedable size. Now this is not to say we should power-feed them so they start producing eggs at four months...

Until someone does a statistically valid study that correlates age of first egg production with age at death, I'm not too interested in trying to prevent my chams from producing eggs until they are at least 1 yr old.

It doesn't matter anyways, the cham is going to produce eggs when she's ready, and you can either get a fertile clutch or an infertile one because you were waiting and hoping she'd not start producing yet...

 

[joefarah]

Apparently not so rare with Lynda's animals.
She has had success keeping more than one female veiled this way.
This is why I asked her to write the article for my site.
http://raisingkittytheveiledchameleon.blogspot.com/2007/12/keeping-female-veiled.html

-Brad

According to that article, she is only able to prevent the females from producing eggs by keeping them cool and not allowing them to get above 80 degrees. So i guess if you manipulate their captive "weather" conditions and keep it permanently winter so the animals are always in cooling, sure. Its the lengthening day cycles and warming temps that spur reproductive cycles.
She is muting out the natural changes in day length and temperature that most people's chams are exposed to.

Lynda, if I'm wrong please correct me. But it seems that most people's female veiled's who are kept in a house that naturally gets warmer in the summer and lighter for longer each day, will start producing eggs...

Are these female veileds of yours in a temperature controlled room with no windows?

 

[Brad Ramsey]

I find Lynda's article to be fascinating and the result of many years of experimenting and gradually adjusting husbandry.
Incidentally, this did not work with Panther chameleons who continued to produce eggs.
As stated in the article, none of Lynda's animals are undernourished.
What attracted me to her husbandry was the possibility of removing some of the stresses keepers may have about females (egg binding etc) thereby making the female veiled a more attractive choice for those not necessarily interested in breeding.
Certainly there is more than one school of thought here and still a great deal to be discovered about these animals (as I have reminded people before: we've only had them in captivity in the States since the early 90's)
I personally choose to keep an open mind in regard to this, and look forward to new discoveries and reports.

-Brad

 

[Eric Adrignola]

I'll repeat what I said before, as it's a good point to remember: I have NEVER had a female produce infertile eggs.

i see what you mean Joe - in th ewild, in nature, they tend to grow up fast, and produce as many eggs as quickly as possible. This is evidenced by the way they respond to varying forms of care in captivity. If they are ina time of difficulty, they won't produce many eggs, if at all. If there's bugs galore, lots of water, and overall good times, they take advantage of it by laying large clutches of eggs.

All these are buffered by natural selective forces. In captivity, we can eliminate thigns and alter aspects of their biology. An unnatural amount of food will result in massive clutches of eggs. An unnaturally SMALL amount of food will result in no eggs, and for lack of a better term, an unnaturally long life.

All in all, we have to face facts - captive chameleon husbandry is NOT natural. If we really wanted to replicate nature, we'd factor in predation, drought conditions, famine, fighting - and most of all, every chameleon keepers favorite, parasites.

It's amazing how parasites have coevolved with hosts. Take them out of the picture, and it's 100% impossible to fully replicate natural dietary habits.

We eliminate parasites, seasonal food availability, seasonal water availability, territorial behavior, interspecific fights and the "lessons" learned from them (a whole other story, but very interesting), stresses associated with the daily search for food and saftey from predators... It goes on and on.

Basically, if one of us were to replicate natural conditions, nobody would want to do business with them!

So, we try a different thing: We try to determine what's best for our individual animals and the species itself, in captivity.

It's my belief (not a fact) that the ideal number of eggs is 20-40, 1-2 clutches per year. This leaves the female in fine condition post-laying, and results in larger, healthier babies with fewer runts. If they lay more eggs, the result will be a shorter life span for her, and a higher mortality for the babies.

 

[joefarah]

Very well said, Eric. I'll take that and chew on it a bit. Thanks for that input.

 

[Brad Ramsey]

Very well said, Eric. I'll take that and chew on it a bit. Thanks for that input.

I second that this was well explained.
Thank you for taking the time to put it in a post Eric.
Joe, your comments have been valid and a good catalyst for debate on this thread as well ... Thanks to you too.
It's a good discussion.

-Brad

 

[kinyonga]

joefarah said..."can someone briefly explain to me why it is bad for a young/small female to lay a clutch of fertilized eggs but not to drop infertiles? Is it that much more taxing on a female to lay a clutch of fertilized eggs?"...fertilized eggs are usually bigger than infertile ones which is sometimes part of the problem for one thing.

joefarah said..."It's hard for me to imagine a female of appropriate size health and age not producing eggs. The only reason I could think of a veiled not producing eggs when she was the right size is if she wasn't healthy and her body refused to initiate the reproductive cycle"...I assume you are referring to a chameleon in the wild for this last sentence too?

joefarah said..."I understand how overfeeding can bring on reproduction a bit early, but we're talking about 4-6 months old in those cases"...overfeeding not only brings on reproduction earlier, it can cause constipation and has even caused prolapses when the chameleon is continually overfed.

You said..."It may seem cold, but the females of a lot of these commonly kept chameleon species seem to have evolved to mature quick, breed hard for a few years then die. When we talk about females who don't breed till they're older living "much longer lives"... are we talking about maybe one or two more years at the most?"...I have had quite a few veileds live to be over 6 years old...and some of them even to be over 7 years old. The last 7+ year old one laid eggs until she was well passed three when I "let" her. I have one of her daughters still...she is 4+ and has never laid an egg. (Lately, I've only bred them enough to keep my lines going.) As Brad said, Mafana is going to be 7 in a couple of weeks and she has never laid an egg. She is not skinny nor fat...unfortunately she is beginning to show signs of old age.

You said..."To me it seems veileds just start producing eggs when the weather is right and physiologically they are ready. It doesn't seem to me that we can really control when a female veiled starts producing eggs unless we deprive them adequate food while they are growing up, thereby delaying how long until they reach breedable size. Now this is not to say we should power-feed them so they start producing eggs at four months"...I do grow my veileds up more slowly than most do (both males and females) so they do take a little longer to reach full adult size.

You said..."the cham is going to produce eggs when she's ready, and you can either get a fertile clutch or an infertile one because you were waiting and hoping she'd not start producing yet"...as I have said quite a few times on this forum, I have had quite a few veiled females that have not produced any eggs at all and some that I have "allowed" to produce eggs well after a year of age.

joefarah said..."According to that article, she is only able to prevent the females from producing eggs by keeping them cool and not allowing them to get above 80 degrees. So i guess if you manipulate their captive "weather" conditions and keep it permanently winter so the animals are always in cooling, sure. Its the lengthening day cycles and warming temps that spur reproductive cycles.
She is muting out the natural changes in day length and temperature that most people's chams are exposed to.

Lynda, if I'm wrong please correct me. But it seems that most people's female veiled's who are kept in a house that naturally gets warmer in the summer and lighter for longer each day, will start producing eggs...

Are these female veileds of yours in a temperature controlled room with no windows?"...If you read the article, you will see that it says..."In the summertime it isn't always possible to keep the temperatures in the low 80's but the increased temperatures, periodically, don't seem to push the females into cycling. I keep the diet the same during this time." I keep the light schedule at 12 to 14 hours on depending on the time of year.

As Eric said..." If they are ina time of difficulty, they won't produce many eggs, if at all. If there's bugs galore, lots of water, and overall good times, they take advantage of it by laying large clutches of eggs."

Your post was well said, Eric!

As Brad said, I can't stop the panther females from laying the eggs but I do seem to be able to keep the size of the clutches down.

I haven't tried controlling the egglaying with other species because other species that I have I want to breed to give me some indication of whether my husbandry is in the right ballpark or not. I figure that if they live long lives, reproduce and the offspring do likewise, I must be somewhere close to providing what they need. This goes for other reptiles that I keep as well. Some of them have environmental factors that come into play that are difficult to pinpoint.