Here's what I found...

[Chameleon Company]

Julirs,
Here's an edited portion of a PM I sent a couple days ago on this subject:

Forum dynamics seem to too often be that too many want to post absolutes based on their own personal preferences, without helping to define or explain the parameters by which they formed their preferences. Put more simply, rather than post "this is the way it is", it is far more informative and helpful when folks post "this is what you need to consider".

Julirs. I know you made no statements about me. I also know that you err on the side of caution, and have enormous knowledge and passion for the animals in your care.

 

[WelshOneEmma]

Karebare dont freak out that female is totally receptive. Julirs is just being a hater. She looks to be in perfect shape and size. If that were my female she would be laying a few clutches by now. Jim is 100% right. If you dont know what a non receptive female looks like you will in a few days with that one. She will turn black and try to bite his head off.

Can I just say, I would NEVER call Julirs a hater. She is passionate about the hobby and the animals and there is nothing wrong with that. I also think that she has many years of experience behind her, and I find that she is always happy to provide advice should you need it. That comment was down right rude.

Having only had a cham for 6 months, I would not dare to provide advice for someone as, despite reading this forum daily, I am still not qualified to comment on health issues. I also feel that people often skim read, and don't take into account their location, how they are raising the cham etc when they make decisions with regards to things such as breeding (for example the indoors/outdoors comments). At the end of the day, most people come here for advice, so why would you not err on the side of caution? Just because a healthy 14 yo can get pregnant, does it mean she should? I think the same should apply to animals, but that is my personal opinion and how I would treat mine. Then again, I would never breed as I would never be able to sell/give away the babies!

 

[Chameleon Company]

Emma,

Good words, but I must take issue with an analogy that you made, which has been made by others in the past, and which I believe is fundamentally flawed:

Just because a healthy 14 yo can get pregnant, does it mean she should?

You are comparing warm-blooded homo sapiens to cold-blooded chameleons. Growth rates and maturity in 14 year old girls is not temperature and sunlight regulated (even is she's a "hot" 14 year old ). In chameleons, crickets, and many other critters that we must deal with, temperature is everything.

 

[WelshOneEmma]

Good words, but I must take issue with an analogy that you made, which has been made by others in the past, and which I believe is fundamentally flawed:



You are comparing warm-blooded homo sapiens to cold-blooded chameleons. Growth rates and maturity in 14 year old girls is not temperature and sunlight regulated (even is she's a "hot" 14 year old ). In chameleons, crickets, and many other critters that we must deal with, temperature is everything.

True, I was. My point is we all want the best for the animals and therefore, as nice as it may be to have babies, we need to think about what is best for the animals. They say a similar thing about cats (I know cats are different to chameleons! ). In the wild, they will breed earlier and die earlier, but if we are keeping them as pets, they often recommend that you wait until they are a year old. As cute as baby chameleons are, I think they they are tough on the female (to lay), copulation may be stressful (i don't know, thinking aloud here) and bloody hard work to look after once they hatch. I have been on this site since November (ish) and am astounded at the number of people who buy a cham without doing the right research (lets face it, most of us here came here because of that) but then proceeded to breed the females. I think that's an incredible amount of responsibility, that if not handled correctly leads to untold heartache for the owner and the chams that aren't raised in the best conditions.

We can't 'judge' in this situation as it was an accident, but i think we all need to be careul in how we word things as someone who really wants to breed without really researching, will see "9 months is fine" and not see "if the weight is good, kept outdoors in natural sun etc", becuase it's the chams bred in these situations that most likely end up in the pet stores. Just my thoughts.

 

[Chameleon Company]

My point is we all want the best for the animals and therefore, as nice as it may be to have babies, we need to think about what is best for the animals.

Yes, ...... but ! Decisions about what is "best" need to be made on the "best" information that we have available, which usually means to get as much info as possible, then to sort through it. The OP was told that the animal was too young, without evidentiary support. Most of us agree that maturation for breeding is very environmentally dependent, and that the conclusion that "it was too young" was made prematurely, ie without knowing the history of the animal. Since I raised the animal, I noted that this particular animal was not "too young", and gave evidentary support. There is no suggestion here that anyone is not thinking about "what is best for the animal". In my limited experience , there are two primary issues to consider regarding when it is OK to breed a female:

1) Does her biological clock tell her she is receptive; and more importantly

2) Have we properly prepared her nutritionally, as her biological clock will not compensate for inadequate husbandry.

Again, based on my limited experience the injection of a longer artificial time delay does nothing in and of itself to improve results. I base that on having produced over 10,000 chameleons (I stopped counting long ago). IMMHO, it only matters if we are using that time to address a deficiency in the preparation of the female. If there is a flaw in someone's husbandry, continuing with poor husbandry for a couple extra months will not improve results. However, I do recommend that people wait to breed an animal until they have insured that they have done the best they can to prepare that animal. If they do not know what they need to do, that they use that time to find out, address husbandry issues that they may then become aware of, and proceed prudently, with calcium and vitamin needs usually needing more attention than most novices are aware of. That, however, is a whole different reason for waiting than some conditional conclusion that all females need to be a year old before you breed them (my paraphrase).

What has been disappointing in this thread and others on this issue has been the direct and indirect insinuations that some folks care more, or have better breeding ethics, etc., than others.

 

[karebear41486]

Is it harder on the female to produce a fertile clutch rather than in infertile one? Because even if she didn't mate with a male, and she was biologically ready to breed, wouldn't she produce an infertile clutch anyway? Wouldn't that be just as hard on her if she were "too young" to breed?

I would also like to say, just for the record, that I am not one of those people who buy animals without the proper planning and consideration. I joined the forums in 2007, well before I acquired my first chameleon, because I wanted to make sure that I had as much information as possible. Just wanted to throw that out there, I realize that no one is directly attacking my methods or character here, but with all of the general insinuations being thrown around, I wanted to make sure I cleared that up!

 

[Chameleon Company]

Is it harder on the female to produce a fertile clutch rather than an infertile one?

In our experience, we see no relative difference between females that could be used to compare the above.

Because even if she didn't mate with a male, and she was biologically ready to breed, wouldn't she produce an infertile clutch anyway?

Again, in our experience, only about 10-20% of females that are not bred go on to produce a first infertile clutch. The rest just seem to wait However, once bred, a female may then go on to produce 2-3 fertile clutches, in succession every 7-9 weeks, without being bred again.

Wouldn't that be just as hard on her if she were "too young" to breed?

If I have your question correctly, I would answer in the affirmative, that Mother Nature might ignore some of our parameters, and do what she usually does anyway.

 

[Julirs]

If I have your question correctly, I would answer in the affirmative, that Mother Nature might ignore some of our parameters, and do what she usually does anyway.

Exactly.

Mother Nature does things very differently from we humans keeping animals in captivity.

The strong survive-the weak meet demise-suvival of the fittest-natural selection-predation-harsh environment-less than abundance of food-wide open spaces.

 

[Chameleon Company]

Exactly.

Mother Nature does things very differently from we humans keeping animals in captivity.

The strong survive-the weak meet demise-suvival of the fittest-natural selection-predation-harsh environment-less than abundance of food-wide open spaces.

And with all those hardships, she is also far more successful at propagating chameleons than we are with our captive husbandry ..... and she does it without parental controls

 

[Julirs]

A strange thought-but imagine people in a "captive" environment with all aspects "controlled"-food, daylight hours, introduction to only certain members of the opposite sex.

 

[WelshOneEmma]

A strange thought-but imagine people in a "captive" environment with all aspects "controlled"-food, daylight hours, introduction to only certain members of the opposite sex.

In some ways, that would make life so much easier!!