Lifespan active producing females?

[Sonny13]

As I´m reading more and more horror stories about troubles with Veiled females passing their eggs correctly, especially for 3 or 4th time. This made wondering about their lifespan in relation to the number of clutches.

I know we try to reduce the number of clutches temps and feeding; however I think some girl are more active in producing then others. My Bella for instance, has all the right parameters, but still she keeps producing them (in a small amount luckily) and with a very consistent pace, always with an exact 4 month interval, exact as close to one day. She´s now doing her thing again, and if prediction and observations are right, she starts with digging the 20th of this month and this will be her 4th time with an age of around 18 months.

What is the experience of the older keepers (@kinyonga @jannb), how old did your girls get and how many clutches did they lay?

 

[jannb]

My oldest girls were the ones that were spayed. They made it to 5ish. The arerage age for my egg layers is about 3.

I know Lynda has Kept hers alive for much longer.

 

[javadi]

I've gotten 8 from a female veiled, but they were all fertile clutches. She died due to factors outside of my control, so who knows how many she could have had. A female carpet chameleon I had produced 13 clutches of eggs over a few years prior to passing. They are supposed to be a shorter lived species, so if one could produce that many clutches, I think into the double digits might be possible for various other species including veileds.

 

[kinyonga]

Most of my female veileds lived to be over 6 years of age and even to be over 7 many times. I didn't breed any of them over and over again although I usually bred them all a few times.
Females that came from other people seemed to live shorter lives than my own...but I had to keep adding bpnew females from time to time so that I didn't breed related ones together.

They were all put on "the diet" and temperatures kept at 80F as much as possible...some produced clutches even when on the diet and some stopped producing eggs altogether when on the diet. I think just like people and other animals, they are all individuals and can vary in their metabolism to some extent.

They could be turned back on to producing eggs by feeding them more or sometimes just mating them.

I had no set in stone regime...some I left turned off and others I would have produce eggs at times.

I never bred any of them over the age of about 4.... I felt they deserved a rest by then!

Unless there is a physical reason (deformed reproductibpve system, deformed eggs, etc.) they don't usually have problems laying a normal sized clutch several times a year as long as they are happy with the laying site and not disturbed much during the process. IMHO.

Follicular stasis and dystocia both seem to be the result of poor husbandry and especially over feeding. Many of the ones that develop follicular stasis seem to develop MBD, prolapse more often than usual, and are obese. Dystocia also IMHO depends on the provision of a proper site to lay eggs and disturbances in addition to husbandry issues.

Hope this helps!
There are still more studies that need to be done to learn more about reproductive issues in chameleons...and some studies are in the works already.

 

[Sonny13]

I've gotten 8 from a female veiled, but they were all fertile clutches. She died due to factors outside of my control, so who knows how many she could have had. A female carpet chameleon I had produced 13 clutches of eggs over a few years prior to passing. They are supposed to be a shorter lived species, so if one could produce that many clutches, I think into the double digits might be possible for various other species including veileds.

13 clutches? That’s unbelievable, especially for a carpet chameleon

 

[Sonny13]

Most of my female veileds lived to be over 6 years of age and even to be over 7 many times. I didn't breed any of them over and over again although I usually bred them all a few times.
Females that came from other people seemed to live shorter lives than my own...but I had to keep adding bpnew females from time to time so that I didn't breed related ones together.

They were all put on "the diet" and temperatures kept at 80F as much as possible...some produced clutches even when on the diet and some stopped producing eggs altogether when on the diet. I think just like people and other animals, they are all individuals and can vary in their metabolism to some extent.

They could be turned back on to producing eggs by feeding them more or sometimes just mating them.

I had no set in stone regime...some I left turned off and others I would have produce eggs at times.

I never bred any of them over the age of about 4.... I felt they deserved a rest by then!

Unless there is a physical reason (deformed reproductibpve system, deformed eggs, etc.) they don't usually have problems laying a normal sized clutch several times a year as long as they are happy with the laying site and not disturbed much during the process. IMHO.

Follicular stasis and dystocia both seem to be the result of poor husbandry and especially over feeding. Many of the ones that develop follicular stasis seem to develop MBD, prolapse more often than usual, and are obese. Dystocia also IMHO depends on the provision of a proper site to lay eggs and disturbances in addition to husbandry issues.

Hope this helps!
There are still more studies that need to be done to learn more about reproductive issues in chameleons...and some studies are in the works already.

This helps for sure, thank you for your reply. And I’m definitely comparing it with humans or other animals. That’s why I’m interested in the average, because I know my girl is in upper metabolisme and I trust my husbandry, things just aren’t in my hands anymore. Hopefully, 13 clutches is what Bella can produce, on the other hand that would give me theoretically only 3 more years with her