Juvenile female temperatures, feeding, supplimentation etc.

[TCMontium]

Hi,

I have a juvenile female Panther Chameleon, hatching date was listed as 05/2025, so about 3-4 months old.
She is about 2 and a half inches, or 3 inches long (excluding tail).

I have read about people talking about keeping females in lower temps than males, often even without a basking lamp, just with a UVB flourescent bulb. And I have also read that people feed females less than males, unless they want to breed them.

But they almost never mention the age of the females they treat this way. Do females not need as much heat and food as they can when they are juveniles, to grow properly?
Or would giving as much heat and food as she wants cause an early batch of eggs that might shorten her life, or risk it even?


So, I was wondering what the ideal basking, ambient and night time tempuretures would be as she grows. And whether she needs basking at all other than the UVB light?

And if I should just feed her as many insects as she wants, dusted with calcium daily and dusted with d3 or multivitamin biweekly (interchangably), as usual for most chameleons.

 

[Motherlode Chameleon]

Hi,

I have a juvenile female Panther Chameleon, hatching date was listed as 05/2025, so about 3-4 months old.
She is about 2 and a half inches, or 3 inches long (excluding tail).

I have read about people talking about keeping females in lower temps than males, often even without a basking lamp, just with a UVB flourescent bulb. And I have also read that people feed females less than males, unless they want to breed them.

But they almost never mention the age of the females they treat this way. Do females not need as much heat and food as they can when they are juveniles, to grow properly?
Or would giving as much heat and food as she wants cause an early batch of eggs that might shorten her life, or risk it even?


So, I was wondering what the ideal basking, ambient and night time tempuretures would be as she grows. And whether she needs basking at all other than the UVB light?

And if I should just feed her as many insects as she wants, dusted with calcium daily and dusted with d3 or multivitamin biweekly (interchangably), as usual for most chameleons.

There are many theories of how to properly raise baby Furcifer pardalis. If a technique does the job for you I would not overly worry about the techniques. Keeping Furcifer pardalis males and females at different temperatures is new for an old timer such as me and to me is a new technique and I think is not excessively important. However the one thing I would be concerned about is using a basking light for Furcifer pardalis babies. I think the Furcifer pardalis babies would not require a basking bulb till they are 4-5 inches long and tube light (Arcadia or ZooMed) should accomplish the job of heat and UV source till then.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

 

[TCMontium]

There are many theories of how to properly raise baby Furcifer pardalis. If a technique does the job for you I would not overly worry about the techniques. Keeping Furcifer pardalis males and females at different temperatures is new for an old timer such as me and to me is a new technique and I think is not excessively important. However the one thing I would be concerned about is using a basking light for Furcifer pardalis babies. I think the Furcifer pardalis babies would not require a basking bulb till they are 4-5 inches long and tube light (Arcadia or ZooMed) should accomplish the job of heat and UV source till then.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

I have read about keeping females colder temps, or at least same ambient temps but with no basking light, or a low temp basking spot; to not encourage egg production and extend the females lifespan. Alongside the advice to feed them not as much as a male (proportionally), unless you want to breed the female soon.

I have seen these advices for many years now, but it was never specified at what age, or size, this low temp treatment and the diet of reduced feeding amounts was supposed to be started.

Also I have seen this advice given for veiled and other chameleon species females too, not just female panthers.


And thanks for the advice!
Then I will not install a basking light until she almost doubles her size. Unless maybe if my uvb source is not as warm as the examples you gave.

Exo terra 25w uvb 100 is the only available suitable uvb bulb we have in this country (alongside the 13w version). So I have that model of 25w compact flourescent type uvb bulb.
(I know the compact flourescent lights are said to risk some health issues and not be as potent as some other lighting options for UVB radiation, but, sadly this is the only option I am allowed to have in this country right now.)

The bulb is about 4 inches above her basking spot. She is almost always sitting under it so far, as long as the light is on.(but it has only been 1 full day since I got her, I will need to observe her behavior for a bit longer to make sure)

 

[MissSkittles]

Female panthers are a bit different than veileds in that they don’t grow so fast, so you do provide them more time to grow and mature before limiting food. Since babies and young chameleons temperatures shouldn’t exceed 78-80F anyhow, you don’t need to reduce basking temps. It’s been a few years since my panther girl was young, but I didn’t worry about cutting her food back for quite some time. With my young male, I didn’t even really bother much to count how many feeders I was giving him. If he was supposed to have 10-12, those were the numbers I stopped counting at but still gave more than that. With my female, I did count and if I did go over, it was just by 1-2.
Regarding your mention of only having Calcium Plus available for a multivitamin/D3…if that is all you have available, there’s no choice but to use it. I would still use it for one feeding every other week, but I would make sure to dust very lightly and maybe dust only a few of the feeders instead of all of them. You do have a phosphorus free calcium without D3 available for use at every feeding?
I don’t know what to tell you really about having only a compact uvb bulb. Your girl is at high risk for metabolic bone disease without better uvb. Are you anywhere that it is warm year round and you can take her outside for some sunshine a few times a week? Never leave a chameleon unattended outside - not only are they fast when they want to be, but there are many predators which are even faster. When I take any of my animals outside, I hold them.