Breeding Ethics

[pantherchameleonpal]

Breeding chameleons is always a very sensitive topic to some. As for me, I believe in the importance of the neonate care and development. But eventually you have to decide what to do with 20 - plus reptiles. I would like to know what some of you all do. Do you sell them? And if you do: to family/friends, businesses, other breeders? Or do some of you try to make your own business of raising them on your own? These are things every future breeder needs to be concerned about, and I would love to hear some of your all's advice and stories.

 

[kplatvoet]

As someone who doesn't intend to bred this topic still interests me a great deal - in the 60's as a child my parents were in to dog shows- I recently went to a dog show and saw the results of what made my parents give up shows way back then- I wonder about what will happen in the next 20 years- - i know with out all the work that has been done I wouldn't be able to keep chameleons. Now I worry about the future - I don't want to see "panther mills" I hate going into a petco or petsmart knowing that 6 out of 10 of the chameleons they sell is going to someone who will listen to what they tell and it just will not work- I hate that a week after a big show somewhere there is a poor kid trying his best to keep alive a sick chameleon that never had a chance .. I just hope that the old farts on this site keep helping out and don't give up- and that the kids who are now starting out teach us more -

 

[CarlC]

Sorry to say it but pardalis and calyptratus mills are out there and they are pumping out the babies. The demand is more then the supply judging by the frequency of posts from the huge distributers on KS.

Carl

 

[sandrachameleon]

I usually pre-sold several. The rest I sold carefully - it was more important to try to sell to the right people than for highest dollar. made sure the buyers knew the basics, including the importance of prey variety and gutloading made sure they knew they could phone me with questions or if they needed some help or even if they were low on feeders etc

always kept a few too
had to stop breeding because of the time it took, and because I was inclined to want to keep more than I should LOL

 

[SaintJimmy]

I think maybe someday I will breed them, just once or twice though. Just for the experience. I think selling to the RIGHT PEOPLE is a huge factor. I would keep the babies until two months and feed them well and only sell to people I know have correct setups and are related in some way to me

 

[Chameleon Company]

Sorry to say it but pardalis and calyptratus mills are out there and they are pumping out the babies. The demand is more then the supply judging by the frequency of posts from the huge distributers on KS.

Carl

All due respect, there is no such thing as a "pardalis mill". or a "calyptratus mill". Further, the number of ads for chameleons on KS, which you site, is not half what is was 5 years ago. I doubt you know what a "huge distributer" is !!!

If these animals could be so easily "milled", then they would be selling for $25 apiece. As we have had more than a decade for "demand" to catch up with "supply", if these animals were so easily "milled", don't you think it would have happened by now ?

As politely as I can say it, you don't know WTF you are talking about.

 

[CarlC]

So Jim who is supplying the 1500 Petco's or the 1500 Petsmart stores around the country? How about the 100's if not 1000's of mom and pop shops and show vendors with cheap veilds and pardalis. The big distributers are still more then present and willing to buy what ever clutch's they can get their hands on for cheap.

Carl

 

[little leaf]

I am not a " breeder", but I did have one of my Jax give birth to 6 babies - in March of this yr- I had such a hard time "selling" them - not because ppl did not want them, but I did not want to ship, and I was really picky about who I let them go to- so picky that I still have 2 of them I think alot of people would like to try breeding - but as others have said , it is not that easy - not like the ones who do it often make it look- lol they do such a good job, them make it look like anyone can do it- but you need to be ready to keep those that do not sell, and I would not even let any of mine go until they were at least 4 mos - you also have to remember that you may end up with 30+ babies, the cost to feed that many, is huge - and then if you are going to be as picky as I was/am - you will have them a VERY long time- just be ready to care for that many - but , hands down - there is NOTHING cuter than a baby cham

 

[Chameleon Company]

So Jim who is supplying the 1500 Petco's or the 1500 Petsmart stores around the country? How about the 100's if not 1000's of mom and pop shops and show vendors with cheap veilds and pardalis. The big distributers are still more then present and willing to buy what ever clutch's they can get their hands on for cheap.

Carl

Carl,
You made the claim that it was such as a "pardalis calyptratus mill". Now you are saying that it is the "big distributors". Read my post again, and then look up the difference between a "mill" and a "distributor". I said there were no "mills". You seem to now confirm what I said.

As for folks who actually do buy and "distribute", is it not the proper business model to buy for as little as possible that they then believe they can resell for a profit ? What business model would you suggest ?

 

[ridgebax1]

I just love my little Clouseau and I would love to breed but would have a very hard time parting with the babies because I think they are the cutest things ever! So I think I will just enjoy from afar and look at everyone else's pictures.

It is not so much that I hate the pet stores selling animals but I hate that the best interest of the animal is not the foremost concern. Just think how wonderful this hobby could be if everyone got the proper care information and a chameleon that was properly housed in the store. Then there wouldn't be some kid devastated that his new pet died and perhaps never keep chams again! It is through a pet store that I became a cham owner and although I was given wrong information that lead to an early demise of my first chameleon, I was lucky enough to find this source of knowledge and am happy to have 2 chameleons now that are being kept they way they should be. I know the stores are in a business and part of that is profit but I think they could in the long run make more money by selling proper equipment. The supplies wrong ones or right ones are both costly, why not sell the right stuff to begin with, have healthy animals out there and owners who need to buy supplies?? It's really not a difficult concept and the correct info is just a keystroke away!

 

[Chameleon Company]

I just love my little Clouseau and I would love to breed but would have a very hard time parting with the babies because I think they are the cutest things ever! So I think I will just enjoy from afar and look at everyone else's pictures.

It is not so much that I hate the pet stores selling animals but I hate that the best interest of the animal is not the foremost concern. Just think how wonderful this hobby could be if everyone got the proper care information and a chameleon that was properly housed in the store. Then there wouldn't be some kid devastated that his new pet died and perhaps never keep chams again! It is through a pet store that I became a cham owner and although I was given wrong information that lead to an early demise of my first chameleon, I was lucky enough to find this source of knowledge and am happy to have 2 chameleons now that are being kept they way they should be. I know the stores are in a business and part of that is profit but I think they could in the long run make more money by selling proper equipment. The supplies wrong ones or right ones are both costly, why not sell the right stuff to begin with, have healthy animals out there and owners who need to buy supplies?? It's really not a difficult concept and the correct info is just a keystroke away!

There is no doubt that some stores do a poor job of caring for their stock chameleons while they are presented for sale. Many stores do a fine job. Agree or disagree, it is a bit of a self-correcting mechanism, as stores that lose animals before the sale, or have animals wither on them, are disinclined to repeat the process. It is one of the beauties of Capitalism ! Those stores that cannot keep their animals healthy and customers happy will lose out to those that can. Breeders and "distributors" likewise.

Still, it is ultimately up to the buyer to protect their investment with knowledge. Which, as you mention, and unlike just 20 years ago, is literally now at their fingertips.

 

[pantherchameleonpal]

Okay WHOA! We are completely almost off topic of the original question.

 

[Chameleon Company]

Okay WHOA! We are completely almost off topic of the original question.

How so ? Your thread title is "Breeding Ethics", but then you don't touch on ethics in your post, which leaves things ill-defined and wide-open, as you did not raise any point of "ethics". Just pretty much "who do you sell to", etc.

Frankly, I see most of the other posts addressing some of the ethical concerns inherent with producing and selling.

Please explain.

 

[Olimpia]

When I had my two panther clutches I didn't really need to advertise either, nearly all of them pre-sold before they were even out of the egg, and most of the ones left were reserved before they were a month old. Out of the two clutches I only kept 2 for some time and then put them up for sale several months later.

But I did filter the inquiries. All of the buyers found me through this forum and most jumped at the chance to get a baby from my pair because they loved my Faly mix so much (from you, Jim!) I gave first dibs to members who I knew had experience and then to other members who had a lot of drive to be good keepers. But I turned lots of people down, especially people who gave me a huge red flag by asking to buy 10 cross females at once "without any plans to breed." Uh-huh, yea I believe that! I didn't care if they bred, but I wasn't about to sell to someone who was going to blatantly lie to me or turn around and flip the chameleons for more money. Especially when dealing with crosses, you want to be more careful/ethical and make sure they go to responsible people. So I definitely filtered out the people who struck me as shady characters.

I understand that if you breed and sell on a larger scale that you can't possibly be picky. Especially with a website that lets you pay without talking directly to the breeder, you just ship the animal and hope they do ok long-term.

 

[Chameleon Company]

When I had my two panther clutches I didn't really need to advertise either, nearly all of them pre-sold before they were even out of the egg, and most of the ones left were reserved before they were a month old. Out of the two clutches I only kept 2 for some time and then put them up for sale several months later.

But I did filter the inquiries. All of the buyers found me through this forum and most jumped at the chance to get a baby from my pair because they loved my Faly mix so much (from you, Jim!) I gave first dibs to members who I knew had experience and then to other members who had a lot of drive to be good keepers. But I turned lots of people down, especially people who gave me a huge red flag by asking to buy 10 cross females at once "without any plans to breed." Uh-huh, yea I believe that! I didn't care if they bred, but I wasn't about to sell to someone who was going to blatantly lie to me or turn around and flip the chameleons for more money. Especially when dealing with crosses, you want to be more careful/ethical and make sure they go to responsible people. So I definitely filtered out the people who struck me as shady characters.

I understand that if you breed and sell on a larger scale that you can't possibly be picky. Especially with a website that lets you pay without talking directly to the breeder, you just ship the animal and hope they do ok long-term.

Hey. Glad it went well for you. On the topic of Hobbyists producing clutches, and then hoping to move them, I know many who are not as successful, for a variety of reasons. Such as lesser-demand bloodlines, inability to hold and raise the animals to a more sellable size, poor marketing, lack of knowledge about shipping, etc. In my experience, these are precisely the folks who dump the young chams at the first opportunity, not unlike the offer made to you. Such as Kingsnake.com always has buyers trolling to purchase such clutches, paying low-dollar, but often as a legitimate solution for a hobbyist not equipped to raise 1-2 clutches.

I also want to interject something here, as I was a bit perturbed at what I felt was serious misinformation, and insinuation, earlier in the thread, regarding "pardalis and calyptratus mills". This phrase is to import the negative connotations associated with "puppy mills", more of which can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppy_mill

Here is an excerpt:

Although no standardized legal definition for "puppy mill" exists, a definition was established in Avenson v. Zegart in 1984 as "a dog breeding operation in which the health of the dogs is disregarded in order to maintain a low overhead and maximize profits."[6] The ASPCA uses a similar definition: "a large-scale commercial dog breeding operation where profit is given priority over the well-being of the dogs.

I have responded to the nonsense of suggesting "chameleon mills" in the past, and am certainly not new to seeing the phrase dropped. Yet no one out there can document a "chameleon mill", much less explain how someone can cut corners on chameleon husbandry, yet somehow succeed in the production of chameleons ! In all my experience, the serious breeders of chameleons, being those that have done it for consecutive years, are those within the hobby/business who provide the best husbandry, not some "mill" experience.

Chameleons simply are not as puppy dogs. There is no doubt that you can treat dogs like garbage, and be profitable doing it. Not so chameleons.

I am the largest producer of panther chameleons in the world, and have been for more than a decade. I have also never sold a chameleon to a PetsMart or Petco, and never sold one to any of the four entities that I know who distribute to those two chains. It is my experience that those distributors buy from desperate sellers, of which plenty abound. My own lowest prices are still 25% above what they want to pay. And I have waiting lists to buy at my current prices.

So anyone that wants to come here and allege "chameleon mills" can also come here and support that absurd allegation. Every successful breeder in this business is as far from being a "mill" as can be found in the animal business.

 

[fluxlizard]

This thread and others similar I always find interesting because as someone who is interested in developing programs for lizards in general that involve self sustaining terrarium populations these are issues I have to wrestle with to my own satisfaction- because self sustaining populations result in a fairly significant amount of offspring. Not sure yet if it can be done with chameleons- Jim says no and has a lot of experience behind his opinion...

I don't have a lot of easy answers, but I do have a little food for thought maybe that is worth consideration-

First- I think defining what constitutes a "mill" would be a useful. When I think of a "mill" immediate comparisons with "puppy mills" spring to mind. I don't think these comparisons are valid when it comes to care of the offspring because the well being of the lizard depends almost entirely on the environment of the terrarium and the diet it is fed. Puppies on the other hand, need social and mental stimulation and lots of room for their activity level. Caring properly for 1000 puppies would be worlds apart from caring properly for 1000 baby chameleons. Keep the chameleons in appropriate caging, keep them clean and in small groups, good lighting and water, and drop food in and they are going to be healthy and happy. Do the same with dogs and you end up with emotional and mental issues...

Second- I do think that there is some validity to the issues of genetic ethics as a comparison to puppy mills. Unfortunately I think the reptile community as a whole tends to be a little short sighted when it comes to some of those issues- small scale breeders tend to use "pets" selected from only a few animals from limited genetic background (meaning go to a show or store, pic from several siblings for one breeder, maybe even for both breeders) as breeders. Large scale breeders tend to select from more animals but end up selecting for traits like color over body size and proportion and general vigour.

Third- the ethics of who to sell to.

Big one and the one that started the thread really-

A story to consider-

A few years ago I produced one of the uncommonly produced clutches of mellers chameleons. True captive bred from parents that actually bred in my terraria- not just captive hatched. I took a great deal of time and care raising the babies and sold them mostly to members of the forums when they were really well started (can't remember- 4 or 5 months old). This species is special to me and I really wanted to make sure these went to good homes that were serious about providing for them. Hopefully permanent situations. I set the price pretty high to try and weed out some of the less serious. I felt really good about who bought them- a number went to pretty vocal forum participants at that time. What happened was over the next 18-24 months many of these lizards were resold/rehomed. And these were from some of the more experienced forum members.

Just a few weeks ago in fact I was contacted about another one of these as it had been recently rehomed and had experienced some poor husbandry conditions prior to the transfer, again at the hands of a forum member who was vocal and respected at the original time of sale.

Also- I've had the opportunity to see a number of private collections, some from some pretty well respected and even published and well educated members of the reptile community. I can tell you for certain that these things do not always equal a well cared for collection. Likewise I've seen many novices setups that were excellent.

I guess my thought is this- you can't tell as a seller what will happen to your animals once they are no longer your property. You can try and screen, etc, but that does not in my experience, equal an understanding of how your animals will be cared for once they change hands, even if they are going to a famous reptile author or veterinarian or breeder, and even if they go to a good home that you have found, odds are pretty high that they are going to be resold even if they are something rare and wonderful and in excellent health, and when they are resold you will have no control over the situation they go into.

The other thing I think about as well is that at the end of the day, these *are* lizards. Not dogs. Not little humans in funny costumes. They are experiencing the world from the mind of a lizard with the limited mental complexity of a lizard. There are fish that experience the world on the same complexity level. Chickens probably experience the world on a more complex level. Pigs certainly do. The mice many feed their snakes, are likely experiencing the world on a more complex level than most species of chameleon.

To illustrate- as a teen I had an oscar fish that would rush to the front of his aquarium when I approached and would leap from the water to take pellets from my fingers (in spite of a few missed tank landings!). A chameleon that shows more mental ability than that fish, is probably pretty rare. I once had some fish that cared for their eggs. That is possibly more complex than any chameleon behavior I have witnessed. Certainly a chameleon's experience of the world is closer to the complexity of the fish, than it is to the dog or human experience.

So the point- where is the line drawn? Do we become indignant about "fish mills?" Why not when some fish show similar complexity as our chameleons- simply because they lack legs? Do we refuse to eat commercially grown chickens? Where is the line drawn? At our roach mill tubs?

Now before someone takes that the wrong way- I've shed tears and stayed up nights and been sick with worry and grieved and stressed and sacrificed and all the rest for the animals- but at the end of the day- I do sometimes wonder if many forum members have led extremely soft and sheltered lives that put them apart from the natural world by some of the things they post. Most are eating animals every day that were more conscious of their existence and death and who experienced a much more mentally and emotionally complex reality compared to their chameleons.

That's not to say that we should not give the best possible care for our lizards- I strongly believe we should offer a high quality of life, and that we should respect and nurture the life we choose to make our private property (and all life generally). And I've definitely mourned lizard pets and all the rest, as I said. So maybe my rational and emotional minds disagree a little on this final point.

So form your own answers- but at least consider things from all the viewpoints your own complex reality can imagine.

For me, I feel comfortable making sure I give my breeding stock the best care I can, and giving my offspring that high level care. I try to be picky over the long haul about who is kept back for breeding each generation and consider vigor over color.

I feel comfortable with the idea that my responsibility as a breeder is to educate and answer questions and tech support for my offspring and to share my experience in places like these forums if I feel it can benefit someone and their animal. As a breeder I want my animals to be in a healthy and happy home - it is the best for the lizard, and also for the owner. I also generally want that for all terrarium lizards- I feel a responsibility to promote good husbandry because I am encouraging lizard husbandry generally.

Along with that is my strong belief that the buyer of an animal needs to be responsible as well, and to educate themselves by asking their breeder questions, reading books and magazine articles and getting info from the internet, etc. If someone buys from me I make it easy by helping them along the way, but even if they buy one from a pet shop- in the end it is their responsibility to educate themselves.

Lastly- someone mentioned something about larger breeders lowering the price of animals. It's kind of funny, but I've always sort of thought the opposite was true- bedroom breeders who 1) could not afford to keep offspring around for long and 2)did not care about or need or understand if they really were making a profit or not were the ones responsible for lowering the prices of terrarium bred lizards. In addition I always figured they were most responsible for genetic weakening of breeding stock because they often bought a single pair on a single day, often from a single set of parents, to use as breeding stock often for a single generation, without thought of future or past generations.

But I guess the truth is the price problem is more spread and larger breeders, small ones, distributors, retailers and even consumers who keep shopping low price are all responsible.

 

[CarlC]

Ok so go look at the second ad on KS now. 100 lots of veilds for $18. A whopping 3-4 weeks old. Breeding for 10 years.

This is supposedly an experienced breeder. Even states almost zero mortality. Sorted by weight.

What would you consider this operation?

Carl

 

[Chameleon Company]

Ok so go look at the second ad on KS now. 100 lots of veilds for $18. A whopping 3-4 weeks old. Breeding for 10 years.

This is supposedly an experienced breeder. Even states almost zero mortality. Sorted by weight.

What would you consider this operation?

Carl

Carl, you tell us what you think it is, rather than keep coming with a bunch of unsupported innuendo. If you want to characterize it as a "mill", which is the term you injected into this, then it is for you to support. I have already provided links explaining what a "mill" is, and at least one other has confirmed, based on experience, how it is inaccurate, if not downright unethical, for you to claim anyone runs a "mill" without you supporting such. OBTW, someone producing a lot of chameleons does not a "mill" make.

So kindly "put up or shut up". You are attempting to character assassinate the legitimate business, and success, of others, but with no evidence.

Try again. With substance for once. Thanks.

 

[CarlC]

Jim it is pretty obvious you are always right and your word has to be the final say.

If you think it is acceptable to be selling babies at such a young age and putting no value on them then that's your opinion. It is not mine.

I know you are a great breeder who respects the animals you produce. You have helped many people in this hobby. Right or wrong I don't agree with you on this topic.

Carl

 

[pssh]

I don't have a ton of experience with this, but I would respectfully argue that the near 0 mortality would suggest that it is not a mill. If a mill is an operation where profit is put before the well fare of the animals, then how can a breeder with almost no mortalities be considered a mill? I get that they are sold young, but veileds are relatively hardy and owners who buy them at such young ages can often keep them alive and thriving with proper care. Now if the animals were ill or malnourished in addition to being sold young and perhaps that mortality rates were high as well, then I would think that the argument would hold true.