Is it just me, or is this person crazy???

AmberNichole

New Member
On a different forum this person was asking if her male is a late bloomer, because he has no interest in breeding. Come to find out he is only 5 months old!? I'm no expert by any means, but seems crazy to me. What are your guys thoughts? Am I out of line?

HER: Are some male panthers just late starters? Mine is easily big enough to mate the females (I've had to use his smaller brother as a stand-in because my female hit 65g and I really didn't want to risk waiting!) but he just ignores them. It's as if he doesn't see them, he doesn't even react to them going in his enclosure.
Is he likely to get better at it as he gets older? He's not full grown yet, but he's pretty big

HER: he's only 5 months


ME:Wait until at least 9-10 months to even consider introducing him to a female. Mating is stressful, even for the males. Males usually about 9-10 months, females 12 months.

HER: A female is 2/3 way through her life at a year! She'll long ago have started laying infertile eggs and really be too old to assume she's still good to breed from!
They start to develop ova ready to lay from about 50g (sometimes as young as 4 months if they're a fast grower) and will start to develop them to eggs mated or not by about 65g at the latest.
To make sure they're fertile it really is recommended to mate them at about 55-60g to prevent any problems.
Remember that in the wild life expectancy on a female anther is about 8 months. Hatch at the beginning of the season, grow, mate, lay eggs, die before winter.


HER:Males can mate very young and can start to show an interest long before their colours develop!

I'm still talking panthers here, other species, other rules. Although I don't know of any species (parsons/mellors and the BIG species excepted, I think they grow much slower?) where a year old female is sensible to start breeding, it's just far too old


ME: Control temps, control food, and do not breed too young and your femals can easily live past 2 years and produce fertile clutches every few months. And yes I am talking about panthers.

HER:That's how the big wild world treats them, not me
I'm not sure why you would want to restrict food to an animal that has evolved to grow fast and eat a lot whilst it's doing so. These animals are not here to be adjusted to our keeping pleasure, to restrict the things they need to make them age more slowly than is natural. Is that even possible?!
We should keep them as well as we are able. Offer food and water regularly, mate them if we are able to prevent them from having to lay infertile clutch (which are HARD on the girls!) and care as well as we can!


ME: How you are doing it is wrong, IMO. It shortens the life of the females and IMO shows a complete disregard for the females welfare. Panthers in the wild get a HUGE assortment of natural foods that we cannot replicate (hence all of the supplements), they get 100% natural sunlight and the optimum temperatures. They may breed sooner under THOSE optimum conditions, but in our care they should not. We cannot give them the OPTIMUM conditions and it is our responsibility to make sure that their bodies can cope. If your females are 2/3 the way through their lives at 1 year old, you are not fulfilling that responsibility as a chameleon owner.
 
She sounds like a 'mister know it all'...... It's hard to help people with attitudes like that! i'm actually MAD right now!!!! All i can say is WTF while reading what she said !!! i'm out of words!!
 
Its all about weight not age. Yes they are preprogrammed to eat like horses, get as big as fast as possible, mate and lay eggs, and if you live long enough to see your clutch hatch you are the 1%.

That being said here in captivity they have unlimited food compared to hunting in the wild, so food should be restricted for fast growing females. As for males, they are ready to mate at 6 months(full color and tail bulges) , but i would never mate a 6 month female. its kind of a dance to get the female at a good weight, and not have the first clutch be a dud. But then again im fine with the first clutch being a dud, but im not running a cham farm.

Still what is a breeding females life span? I hear 5 years is good for any female and 7 for a male. So would 3 years for a breeder be considered good?
 
She sounds like a 'mister know it all'...... It's hard to help people with attitudes like that! i'm actually MAD right now!!!! All i can say is WTF while reading what she said !!! i'm out of words!!

I agree. I know SQUAT about breeding panthers but even I could tell this lady is full of crap!
 
Did she mention her sources for this information? I would be interested in a natural history study that shows the breeding behaviors, ages, and natural life span.

In general captive husbandry is considered a failure if you can't exceed an average natural life span.

Logically as you point out, in captivity there is much we can't provide so it makes sense to me to offer every advantage.

There are many on here who have successfully bred and kept panthers and even some who originally established best practices most use today, maybe some of them will speak up...
 
just cuz you can breed a dog at 8 months to a year old doesnt mean you should...seems like the same concept to me...but some people learn from others knowledge and mistakes some people =will only learn from their own...

the part that got me was, she asked a question about breeding and got an answer but obviously thats now what she wanted to hear and then defended the reason for the question.. i knew the answer was going to be something like that before i read it and im no breeder and know nothing about prepping to breed chams lol if you didnt want the question answered you shouldnt have ask it....
 
By her logic humans girls should be getting pregnant at 13 because technically their bodies are ready for it and back in the day that was the normal age for pregnancy because people only lived 30-40 years. We've come a long way since then to improve lifespan and pregnancy conditions. Just because she thinks that's what happens in nature (proof?) doesn mean it has to be the same in captivity. I bet she thinks if a female isn't mated that she'll get egg bound - one of the oldest myths in the book.

In general captive husbandry is considered a failure if you can't exceed an average natural life span.

Yes!
 
Thanks guys! I don't feel so bad for being completely dumbfounded! LOL She ended up deleting the whole thread once some big chameleon breeders chimed in defending me LOL
 
I would say on a 1 to 10 scale you had about 12, well into the complete crazy range - well past the range. Talk to a stuffed animal, you will get more intelligent responses.
 
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