Deadly Chameleon Myth series

[LizardLurkin]

I've just lurked this thread because some interesting discussion is coming out of it.

I know I for one am never a fan of people on the internet accusing one of killing their pets, throwing all sorts of words at them. 100%, there are some terrible people out there, and ignorance does harm animals all the time, but I don't think it's a helpful modality. I think it pushes people into standing their ground and being stubborn more than anything, because they feel like they have to defend themselves.
But in general, I don't believe in tough love.
I can understand using buzzwords like pain, suffering, certain death to encourage change, but I don't know if it's the kind of phrasing that fills me with motivation rather than dread and self doubt.
But I do understand it comes from a place of loving the animals.
It's just, individual people? We can be pretty sensitive, and we are deserving of compassion and understanding too.

Re: enclosures and pet keeping in general
I operate as far away from pet guilt as I can. So many reptiles are put out there in the pet trade, and I don't know how to phrase it exactly but...A lot of people will guilt people for buying from big box stores, and I totally understand the reasoning but...That's an entire life behind those glass enclosures. It's a life worth living, if that individual speaks to you. I think without the potential for impulse, we wouldn't have a lot of the star players we have here today. Those who became so, sooo knowledgeable about chameleons and willing to help...And now you all are committed to giving your chams, or other reptiles, the best homes you can. I think the intent of everyone here is far more important than being sad about how they're not living the same as their wild counterparts. That cute petsmart baby chameleon was never going to have that, and might've not even had a 2x2x4!!! I just think what I see here is awesome and pushes far beyond the boundaries I see for a lot of other reptiles, so I don't think anyone should feel bad for the fact that they're in a cage for their lives...In the wild they live like 3 years. I think that the lifespan of chameleons is going up in captivity is a beautiful thing personally. I love to know that they can reach 6, 7, or who knows what under the specialized care advice given here.

Aaaand I'm yapping, but. Yeah. If I get a lot of money and more space, I am always taking it to mind, the double wide enclosures @MissSkittles. Chameleons are so active, I just know all the sapce would get used.

 

[kinyonga]

@Sticktongue …you said…”For my dry dry dry air in Idaho… solid sided cages with fog works WAY better than screen, or even 3 sided and screen fronts.. it simply isn’t ideal and IMO not cutting the mustard unless they are 4 solid sides. If I said that 15 years ago on here I would been crucified”…I was keeping chameleons in all glass cages back in the early to mid 80’s…and I never had any issues with RI’s in chameleons. I never fogged cages. I don’t have any issues with people fogging cages, BTW…I just never did it because I would end up with mold in my house. I talked about the glass cages on the ADCHAM forum and I was surprised when Chris Anderson later wrote the article about the glass cages. I didn’t think anyone would use glass cages because of all the people saying it was a no-no.

I had tried screen cages…they got too cool and dry here. I tried screen fronted cages…same thing. I would end up

 

[MissSkittles]

That's an entire life behind those glass enclosures. It's a life worth living, if that individual speaks to you.

Beautifully put.

 

[jamest0o0]

I’ve been one of those people harping on chain stores in the past. These days I don’t care as much. I’d still discourage it, but if someone must save something from a pet store then so be it. I think it’s just kind of looked at as you may be saving one, but condemning even more. Then we argue with each other and half defend the poor conditions in stores without saying it. Or side step the main issue which is that the chains are why the chameleons need to be saved in the first place… BUT I feel like some of the chains around have made some effort in improving care as well. Also wanted to mention, we see beautiful Cham’s come from chain stores because they are resilient and a good keeper can nurse them back to health. It’s not that anyone is saying these chameleons are all ugly and hopeless. It’s just that people don’t want to encourage how the chains do business. But back to my original point… I get where people that do “save” are coming from, mean well, and I don’t think all the stores are all that terrible these days.

I mean I just got a puppy from a random breeder which is discouraged, but any adoption agency wanted me to have a fence when I live on a side road with woods. Then they also wouldn’t let us have pretty much anything, but a tiny dog with kids. So screw em, how desperate could they be for homes if they’re that choosy… (sorry tangent)

 

[LizardLurkin]

I’ve been one of those people harping on chain stores in the past. These days I don’t care as much. I’d still discourage it, but if someone must save something from a pet store then so be it. I think it’s just kind of looked at as you may be saving one, but condemning even more. Then we argue with each other and half defend the poor conditions in stores without saying it. Or side step the main issue which is that the chains are why the chameleons need to be saved in the first place… BUT I feel like some of the chains around have made some effort in improving care as well. Also wanted to mention, we see beautiful Cham’s come from chain stores because they are resilient and a good keeper can nurse them back to health. It’s not that anyone is saying these chameleons are all ugly and hopeless. It’s just that people don’t want to encourage how the chains do business. But back to my original point… I get where people that do “save” are coming from, mean well, and I don’t think all the stores are all that terrible these days.

I mean I just got a puppy from a random breeder which is discouraged, but any adoption agency wanted me to have a fence when I live on a side road with woods. Then they also wouldn’t let us have pretty much anything, but a tiny dog with kids. So screw em, how desperate could they be for homes if they’re that choosy… (sorry tangent)

Oh yeah, I know 100% why it's said! And I agree with the rationale. but at the same time...No one specifically breeds veiled chameleons. It's just not possible to compete with the prices millbreeders put out, which at it's core is a fault of chain stores ultimately. Most veileds on morphmarket are wildcaughts, or their lineage is unknown because they started breeding the ones they got at stores or plucked off some tree in florida. I did search for a time during the winter, and the best bet seemed like flchams, but I saw people here are wary of them...So basically if you want a veiled it's petco, wildcaught, or sites people are cautious of.
That's the dilemma I faced, and I got a chameleon with an eye oddity because of it But rescuing was not in my head. I just really wanted a veiled..

 

[jamest0o0]

Oh yeah, I know 100% why it's said! And I agree with the rationale. but at the same time...No one specifically breeds veiled chameleons. It's just not possible to compete with the prices millbreeders put out, which at it's core is a fault of chain stores ultimately. Most veileds on morphmarket are wildcaughts, or their lineage is unknown because they started breeding the ones they got at stores or plucked off some tree in florida. I did search for a time during the winter, and the best bet seemed like flchams, but I saw people here are wary of them...So basically if you want a veiled it's petco, wildcaught, or sites people are cautious of.
That's the dilemma I faced, and I got a chameleon with an eye oddity because of it But rescuing was not in my head. I just really wanted a veiled..

From what I’ve heard of flchams, you might be better off going to petco lol

 

[LizardLurkin]

From what I’ve heard of flchams, you might be better off going to petco lol

See, that is exactly what I saw when searching the site name here
That it used to be good, but now it's pretty apparent they kind of send off millbred chams from states outside of Florida. Maybe if you buy one of their premium bloodline babies it's better?
My saggy eye'd man is from petco. He is constantly at odds with buildup. But still...No regrets. Love him.

 

[JacksJill]

As for the powder, if its just calcium powder, yup you can have little donuts running around. Perfectly fine. The issue comes up when you start powdering with non water soluble vitamins/minerals such as D and A. We have all seen what happens if you get the high D powder and have donuts walking around.

I agree with this statement except for the exaggerated safety of phosphorus free calcium. While the occasional oops I over dusted insect is okay excessive amounts of calcium can slow digestion and lead to constipation. It can also block the absorption of other nutrients and medications. I would hate for people to get into the more is better habit.

 

[Lucas00-]

I consider myself a people person and I also love animals/nature. I have in the past felt the frustration with how humans can be, but it’s amazing how far you can get with people when we just change how we come across. He could learn a thing or two from that lol. I know I’ve had to over the years.

Through my career in corrections so far, I have realized fully that the way you come at someone in conversation can dictate how the rest of the conversation/ future conversations will go. If you come respectfully and try to understand someone else's point of view it goes a long ways.

 

[jamest0o0]

I agree with this statement except for the exaggerated safety of phosphorus free calcium. While the occasional oops I over dusted insect is okay excessive amounts of calcium can slow digestion and lead to constipation. It can also block the absorption of other nutrients and medications. I would hate for people to get into the more is better habit.

The same could be said for bee pollen regarding the more is better habit.

 

[jamest0o0]

Through my career in corrections so far, I have realized fully that the way you come at someone in conversation can dictate how the rest of the conversation/ future conversations will go. If you come respectfully and try to understand someone else's point of view it goes a long ways.

Absolutely !

 

[DocZ]

The same could be said for bee pollen regarding the more is better habit.

I agree, and have seen the issues that people have had that were associated with bee pollen
IMO I think bee pollen is important enough that I always used it in my gutload for my bugs, but do not usually dust my bugs with it (but I’m not certain that’s not ok too)

Two things I guess. Number one is Petr is very likely right about bee pollen being a fairly ubiquitous part in a lot of Chams diets they will be ingesting it from their evolved diet in the wild. And he is also right about its nutritional value. It’s pretty impressive. Throw some on your breakfast. With your evolved digestive system you will be very unlikely to develop gular edema if you put some in your Frosted Flakes

This might be three things, let me talk it out. However, as we know it is being applied to animals that don’t, and many never lived in an environment that they were exposed to this nutritious treat that our wild Chams were, and their dietary nutritional profile from the stuff they have been eating is a lot different than the animals in the wild. He is probably right that the diet they are eating in the wild is much less calorie dense, less protein, less fat, and glucose and protein have far less calories as compared to fat (more than 2:1 fat calories vs protein/glucose). So when you add a nutrient rich supplement in a heavy fashion, it could cause an imbalance of important and potentially dangerous nutrients in an animal that has adapted to an imperfect diet and cause problems. Food for thought so to speak, is it the pollen or the diet? Second question, does it matter? My answer to the first is you probably will never know which is the problem. You will adjust one of the parameters (the one that is easy to change) we will call “Z” and see if it helps. If it helps, you will say Z is why I was having problems. I eliminated Z and my problems improved. Z is not safe.

It was three points. This is an association, and moreover an anecdotal association. This is something you observed, you changed one thing, the situation improved, and decided you knew something was causing problems, and began using that singular experience as the reason to do or not do something. And you probably told somebody else about it. In that moment you were absolutely correct. Cham is sick, I removed Z, Cham got better, Z is bad. But as @javadi pointed out earlier, there is little real evidence to call much of what is being asserted here as fact. You can even group together similar experiences with other keepers who also removed Z and had a problem resolve. That still is not reliable proof of your hypothesis. It is an association. This community is built on observation of natural habitats and attempting as best we can to emulate them, a whole S load of associations, and in relative terms a very small amount of substantive research.

And when I see all of your amazing Chams and some of the incredible breeding projects some of you are doing I think we are doing a pretty good job. Just remember, almost none of what you think about their care is “proven”, we just know it seems to work for them in captivity. I am with petr in that I don’t think that’s enough either. I think it should be a constant push towards more natural. I don’t care if it works here with our captives. Make it closer and closer to what they evolved to do. I will not tell you your Cham is dying a slow and painful death if you don’t follow every “natural” ideal because done well, what we do works, but doesn’t mean it’s good enough. Old study more than ten years old. It looked at mortality rates of reptiles in captivity with hobbyists. It is a random interview style study done at two UK reptile shows. Very low level of evidence, but the rate of Cham death was very high compared to their other scaly friends. I hope they repeat this study and show we do better

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0141460&type=printable

Petr is Petr as has been said, and I don’t think that’s the important issue in this discussion. Petr seems to come from a deeply natural perspective for Chams. He wants it as close to nature as possible, and I think he’s right. If you can make an unnatural environment as close as possible to the natural environment, it is always the right choice, and I also don’t disagree that many (most probably because most of them aren’t interacting in places like this) are deliberately cutting corners to make things easier for themselves and not maximizing their efforts for the health of their animals

 

[DocZ]

And three pages of discussion in a week is a pretty good example of how Petr is doing great work for your cham

 

[DocZ]

This community is built on observation of natural habitats and attempting as best we can to emulate them, a whole S load of associations, and in relative terms a very small amount of substantive research

I forgot to add a lot of incredible success from many amazing keepers. Sorry. Yall deserve most of the credit because none of the rest happens without you

 

[jamest0o0]

@DocZ agree with so much of what you said, but I have to say, he is the one stating things are proven and he is right etc etc. Not us. We are offering anecdotes based off experience that have worked. If he was doing the same it would be fine, the problem is he makes factual claims without actually backing it up.

The food thing is a good point, carb/protein is 4 cals per gram, fat is 9 (I remember this from my obsessive weightlifting days lol). I think bee pollen is fantastic and I was using it before Petr even brought it up, for my own smoothies. I have heard it is questionable on how well we digest it though, plus you can probably get the same nutrients from other things in higher abundance than bee pollen. It’s true there’s of anti nutrients out there too, that’s why it’s good to rotate greens and veggies even for us. I have been of the opinion that a well raised feeder is more important than gutload, same with variety of feeders. Like some good roaches or crickets as a bulky staple once in a while and then a lot of small feeders. I used to give mine all kinds of things, spirulina, pollen, mushroom powders, etc lol. I loved mixing it up.

Something to add about the wild, my suspicion is a lot of them are eating some sort of vertebrate prey at some point, even a tiny lizard or frog. Or eating insects that are feeding are a carcass. This would be a huge nutrient boost if they did even once a month.

 

[jamest0o0]

Talking myself up a bit , but I’ve been on the natural and bio bandwagon for a pretty long time now… Myself and others didn’t need him to get aggressive on here for changes to be made. If he cared as much as he says, he’d share his info in a civil manner and it would get through better. Personally, I don’t care if someone insults me. If they have good advice I’ll still take it, even if they piss me off, BUT many people are not like that.

 

[jamest0o0]

please excuse my grammar/run ons. I type this stuff out while in a caffeinated frenzy

 

[DocZ]

@DocZ agree with so much of what you said, but I have to say, he is the one stating things are proven and he is right etc etc. Not us. We are offering anecdotes based off experience that have worked. If he was doing the same it would be fine, the problem is he makes factual claims without actually backing it up.

The food thing is a good point, carb/protein is 4 cals per gram, fat is 9 (I remember this from my obsessive weightlifting days lol). I think bee pollen is fantastic and I was using it before Petr even brought it up, for my own smoothies. I have heard it is questionable on how well we digest it though, plus you can probably get the same nutrients from other things in higher abundance than bee pollen. It’s true there’s of anti nutrients out there too, that’s why it’s good to rotate greens and veggies even for us. I have been of the opinion that a well raised feeder is more important than gutload, same with variety of feeders. Like some good roaches or crickets as a bulky staple once in a while and then a lot of small feeders. I used to give mine all kinds of things, spirulina, pollen, mushroom powders, etc lol. I loved mixing it up.

Something to add about the wild, my suspicion is a lot of them are eating some sort of vertebrate prey at some point, even a tiny lizard or frog. Or eating insects that are feeding are a carcass. This would be a huge nutrient boost if they did even once a month.

That is his Achilles heal. He presents everything as fact. The massive problem with that is 95% of the people reading it have no background to understand fact vs likely assumptions
I am pretty sure that if anyone followed his recommendations they will have a healthy and happy chameleon. Some recommendations would be difficult to do, but even if someone followed his basic husbandry requirements very closely they would likely have success taking care of their Cham. This makes me personally willing to ignore his presentation, but I’m not a brand new keeper. I am an expert at nothing, so I don’t claim that either.

About the pollen, you bring up a great point that there may be a way to deliver the same results or even improve nutrition results with manipulation of your Chams food and your Chams foods food (had to say it that way, it was fun. I’m an idiot, anyway), but the goal of husbandry “requirements” is they need to be very easily applicable so anyone can do it. I agree rotation of feeders and rotation of your feeders food is going to yield the most results of varied nutrition until my Madagascar bee, wasp, and flying beetle farm gets going that will also receive a rotational diet to enhance their nutrition. And yeah, bee pollen, spirulina, chlorella, I added all kinds of stuff periodically

I agree they would eat anything that they can catch

 

[DocZ]

Talking myself up a bit , but I’ve been on the natural and bio bandwagon for a pretty long time now… Myself and others didn’t need him to get aggressive on here for changes to be made. If he cared as much as he says, he’d share his info in a civil manner and it would get through better. Personally, I don’t care if someone insults me. If they have good advice I’ll still take it, even if they piss me off, BUT many people are not like that.

If you need some talking up, let me know. I’d let anyone know you are a conscientious and sound keeper of many things. I love the crabs still. They are amazing

 

[DocZ]

And I don’t care how he acts. TBH I’m used to world full of a-holes that spout off whatever nonsense they believe as fact all day every day.
It has made me try to look at their message first and react less to their presentation while I decide what they are saying and why they are saying it

It is a horrible way to teach people, but I still love the message