Mass Breeding?

[jeanjacket812]

OK this is just strictly for my curiosity but where do all the captive bred chameleons for all the big petshops come from. I mean like if you look on Kingsnake you see all kinds of ads for companies wanting to buy mass lots of veileds and panthers. Are there just a lot of people that just do bulk breeding to supply these needs? Are people running "chameleon mills" and just going through females? And if a veiled only sells for 40 bucks what do places buy them for like 5 bucks or something? I'm just curious here and maybe some of you could shed some light on the subject.

 

[xanthoman]

chameleon mills ? a xanthorant!!!

its the xanthoview and i know many wont like it, but it has to be said. i dont know if there is a lot of people who do wholesale breeding, but i do think there are quite a few. im not going to name any names cause , well for one, it would be a violation of site policy for starters, plus i dont want to step on anybodys toes, but i do think there are those that run "chameleon mills" so to speak. im not talking about the horrid conditions of puppy mills, cause i dont think you could do that with chameleons and still make it pay, and i am not saying that the primary motivation is money, but i do think that unless you are already fairly well to do, that is just part of the economics of keeping more than several chameleons. at some point, the expense becomes such that vigorously breeding and selling chameleons is the only way to keep it all going. and for those who have been sucessful at it , not just husbandry wise, but economically as well, it just makes financial sense, to increase the size of ones collection, rather than decrease it (especially if one is beginning to make money at it when they are not already making good money at something else). it wouldnt be hard to think of more than several outfits (individuals) that just started out as casual cham keepers, and somehow manage to parlay that into an outfit that now does a substantial amount of business. there seems to be a fairly long list of people who breed (or import) hundreds of chameleons a year, regardless of their motivations. if one is keeping several dozen chams or more,(unless one is already well to do)there are really only two ways to go, broke, or try to make money at it. i think there is a fairly long list of people who have managed quite well to do that, at least several on this forum. i think that maybe there is a much longer list of people who have tried and failed. if you look at most of the people who sell chams as part of a regular commercial business, few, if any have any buyer requirements, and that says at least something about the motivation of the people who are doing it. and why are so many commercial sellers not on the forums?, so they can avoid the scrutiny of it all! and if somebody has a clutch of chams that they are having problems selling all of, in part because they have already sold so many and they have so many more on the way, then what else are they to do, but wholesale out their less than premium stock. i have noticed more than one well known outfit, shamelessly sales pitch chameleons (on other forums) to young kids who obviously are unprepared and have absolutely no idea of how to keep a cham or even recognize the importance of learning something about it before they try. yet there is a never ending list of outfits (who are really just people with a company name) who are willing to send a cham out to anybody capable of coming up with the purchase price. in fact last year i was kicked off of another well known reptile forum for refusing to silence my observations on this same subject , yet the same people are still on that same forum willing to sell a cham to any 14 year old, whos parents are willing to give them the money to do it. somehow putting a company name on it, makes it ok to do what private breeders could never get away with. no wonder there is a never ending sea of people who post, "help, my cham is dying and i dont know what to do" like it or not, its mho /edit / im not saying i blame them, in all honesty if i could get to a point were i could make a decent living with chams rather than stay at an insecure job that i am not all that fond of, i would do it too, just not at the expense of a never ending stream of chams. im guessing this probably wont be my most popular cf post, but since it was asked , it had to be said.

 

[Red Island]

Xanthoman has a point, many reputable breeders do sell chameleons wholesale in bulk quantities. The reason for doing this can vary, most of the time it has to do with space requirements, food expense or any other financial reason a business may have. It doesnt sound like a nice thing to do, but many people who breed panthers do it for the money, housing and feeding are expenses that must be covered. This usually happens with the large scale breeders who run into large supply and average to weak demand. Breeders can control how much they produce but can exact control who buys how much of their product, a resonable offer comes through for a group and the deal is done, money in the bank.

 

[xanthoman]

money in the bank ! sad but true

precisely , the money is in the bank, but what happens to the 30 (or 50) chameleons, many of which will eventually go to people who dont have the slightest idea of what they are doing. how many reptile breeders/sellers , have used a never ending stream of disposable chameleons to rescue their own financial situation? im not just talking about here in the states but all the way down the chain to where they are harvested. for many both here and abroad it is a matter of survival. im not saying i have made any real money at it . infact i doubt i have even covered my expenses, but i know the ability to sell chams has saved my butt more than once (on the other hand, if i didnt spend so much money on it that i really couldnt afford, my butt probably wouldnt need saving to begin with) if it wasnt for the selling of chameleons, i couldnt afford to keep them. i think its a common scenario. sad but true

 

[jeanjacket812]

Yes that was what I was thinking anyone can log on to xxxxxxx.com and buy a 40 dollar veiled and throw it in an aquarium. I was just thinking that wow there is a huge chameleon supply available and where do they all come from? And like I said you see ads all the time for people trying to buy groups of 10 and up. I guess there are probally quite a few joe blows out there with small groups that probally pop off a clutch and sell em pretty much out of the egg as a group to make a few bucks.

 

[Texas Panther Man]

There are those out there that sell their eggs also. Some breeders will breed a less than ideal female with one of their males. They know that they are not high end desirable animals that will hatch. So they wholeaale the whole clutch to a super store chain or a large dealer. Its done all the time. It doesn't make it morally right. Its one of the dark secrets of cham breeding.

 

[xanthoman]

secret ?

i dont think its much of a secret, but, like too many wrongs,for most people it is just easier and more convenient to just look away

 

[Jakedn]

What is wrong with people who have large breeding programs going on? Are you concerned that the females are used as baby makers and that it is inhumane to make them breed? I'm sure the females are more than happy to pop out 100's of eggs, considering passing on their genes is the main goal in their life.

As long as they are provided the proper caging requirements and diet, I could care less if they have the females produce clutch after clutch. All they did was put a male and female together; the female allowed the male to mate with her.

Are you concerned about the sad fact that they have to cull down baby populations occasionally if some become sick? If so, it's a part of life, if they became ill and if it was through no error of the breeder, it is fine to cull the populations. When you take out mother nature from your breeding program, the babies won't get hunted, therefore to continually provide the best chameleons, occasionally you will have to cull genetically compromised chameleons and in my opinion that is much more humane than letting it die because you would feel to guilty if you did the deed. It is also a much better choice to cull the genetically compromised so that those genes are not passed down and bred into our captive bred stock of chameleons.

 

[xanthoman]

whats wrong with it?

one look in most cham help forums will tell you whats wrong with it. common sense dictates that the more chams somebody has to sell, the less likely they are to require any sort of knowledge, commitment, or sincerity, on the part of the buyer, thats why private small time breeders often have buyer requirements and commercial entities do not. large scale breeding creates an atmosphere of disposable chams for profit, thats whats wrong with it. a sad state of affairs. i could probably sell many more chams than i can currently create, but many of them would not go to sincere or cham educated buyers, plus the more one breeds, the more special needs chams(and there are always a few)that are created. and not likely to get the long term knowledgeable care they need. sure i could probably breed more chams (and keep all of my failures private) and make money doing it. but there is a down side to it. thats why i have chosen to make public, my recent husbandry failures, so that others can see that there is a price to be paid, and the biggest part of which is usually paid by the chams, who are not given the life that they deserve. yes failures, weakness and other wrongs are part of life, thats no excuse for creating them where they would not otherwise be. part of life or not, to me chams are not disposable for profit, thats whats wrong with it. others can justify it any way they choose, i choose to not have to. jmo

 

[Jakedn]

one look in most cham help forums will tell you whats wrong with it. common sense dictates that the more chams somebody has to sell, the less likely they are to require any sort of knowledge, commitment, or sincerity, on the part of the buyer, thats why private small time breeders often have buyer requirements and commercial entities do not. large scale breeding creates an atmosphere of disposable chams for profit, thats whats wrong with it. a sad state of affairs. i could probably sell many more chams than i can currently create, but many of them would not go to sincere or cham educated buyers, plus the more one breeds, the more special needs chams(and there are always a few)that are created. and not likely to get the long term knowledgeable care they need. sure i could probably breed more chams (and keep all of my failures private) and make money doing it. but there is a down side to it. thats why i have chosen to make public, my recent husbandry failures, so that others can see that there is a price to be paid, and the biggest part of which is usually paid by the chams, who are not given the life that they deserve. yes failures, weakness and other wrongs are part of life, thats no excuse for creating them where they would not otherwise be. part of life or not, to me chams are not disposable for profit, thats whats wrong with it. others can justify it any way they choose, i choose to not have to. jmo

It shouldn't be the seller's responsibility to make sure they know how to care for the animal, it is the buyer's responsibility. The sad truth is that many seller's have to because within the mass of consumers there are many that are not responsible. Now you think that any seller that doesn't do a background check before selling a chameleon is wrong? That is ridiculous, large breeder's do not have the time to do a background check on everyone they sell to, and they shouldn't have to. Do not blame the people who sell the chameleons, blame the ignorant people who buy them without any knowledge of how to care for them.

 

[Ryan Jarosek]

xantho, I think you make a good agument and have good points. but to be honest I can't get through it

PLEASE USE PARAGRAPHS, Very hard to read your long posts.

 

[Chris Anderson]

As long as keeping chameleons is legal, as long as wild caught imports sell for as little as $25 (ex: Ch. senegalensis) and as long as people find chameleons fascinating (which I hope they always do), there is going to be a demand for them as pets. Unless you completely get rid of pet stores, dealers, etc., and only allow breeders to sell animals, you are going to have a demand for breeders or importers to supply these sources. Tens of thousands of chameleons are imported from the wild every year and many of those cost next to nothing from the importers. If much of the demand for chameleons in the pet industry wasn't answered by these "mass breeders" producing large numbers of Ch. calyptratus and other species in lower number, the demand for wild caught chameleons would be even higher then it already is. Our impact on wild populations would then be even worse then it is now.

I'm all for responsible selling practices but beyond increasing our efforts to educate people about their care or outright banning keeping them in captivity, I do not see any realistic way of curbing the inherent stupidity of the general public that fuels the prevalence of sick and dying chameleons you see on the forums. Unfortunately this is not limited to chameleons either.

Chris

 

[schendricks]

Ethics are complex, no?

 

[Chameleons Canada]

xantho, I think you make a good agument and have good points. but to be honest I can't get through it

PLEASE USE PARAGRAPHS, Very hard to read your long posts.

HAHAHA!!! Exactly my thoughts, Xantho I think your posts are always very informative, but I usually only scan them , because they are hard to read.

Keep them coming though

 

[Seeco]

Personally I tried to stop breeding about a year ago but my females did not agree with me (the reptiles, not the human ones) This must have something to do with what we are talking about.

 

[xanthoman]

i often have a lot to say and sorry i am not better at the punctuation issues. dont get me wrong , i am not down on breeders. i was simply trying to address the issue of why there are so many chameleons on the market. when chams disappear from the wild, which i think is a very real possibility in many of our lifetimes, it will be the breeders (both commercial and private) who save them from extinction altogether. i too thought i had put a hold on my breeding, but they just keep on coming

 

[jeanjacket812]

Well thanks for the insight guys. Gave me some food for thought.

 

[ChameleonAlley]

As long as keeping chameleons is legal, as long as wild caught imports sell for as little as $25 (ex: Ch. senegalensis) and as long as people find chameleons fascinating (which I hope they always do), there is going to be a demand for them as pets. Unless you completely get rid of pet stores, dealers, etc., and only allow breeders to sell animals, you are going to have a demand for breeders or importers to supply these sources. Tens of thousands of chameleons are imported from the wild every year and many of those cost next to nothing from the importers. If much of the demand for chameleons in the pet industry wasn't answered by these "mass breeders" producing large numbers of Ch. calyptratus and other species in lower number, the demand for wild caught chameleons would be even higher then it already is. Our impact on wild populations would then be even worse then it is now.

I'm all for responsible selling practices but beyond increasing our efforts to educate people about their care or outright banning keeping them in captivity, I do not see any realistic way of curbing the inherent stupidity of the general public that fuels the prevalence of sick and dying chameleons you see on the forums. Unfortunately this is not limited to chameleons either.

Chris

Well said. I think that it's better for people/stores to be buying from reputable breeders than constantly importing wild caughts. The chameleon movie sold on this forum made a good point, if I remember right, about how the fact that since there's a value placed on the animals, that people are more likely to preserve them.

 

[luevelvet]

This is an interesting topic and one that need to be continually brought up as the hobby progresses.

I have a great deal to say about this, but my thoughts aren't lined up enough at the moment to articulate them diplomatically. But, I think it may be safe to assume that many of those mass produced animals are the reason why some folks are on this forum seeking these answers.

With all of the good that many of us are trying to do, nothing can compare to the numbers produced, regardless of quality or ethics, and the demand for wild populations has lessened for a few species because of it. Is it a perfect industry? Of course not, but the more time that passes, the more time we have to learn from what works and what doesn't and somehow (and hopefully ethically/sustainably) progress these efforts.

It's all a matter of adaptable perspective. If you have 100's (perhaps 1000's for some) in a breeding operation, you will probably not lose sleep over one or two sick animals. But we also have to understand that the person who owns just a few do become very attached to the individuals they care for. Chameleons seem to have that affect on people.

Not to mention, Veileds do push out a good number of eggs, and if it weren't for seasonal weather variations, I wouldn't be surprised to see them producing as many as their bodies would allow.

Ok, deeper than I wanted to get into the topic... carry on...

Luis

 

[luevelvet]

Values have been placed on many things in the natural world to better estimate how much damage is actually costing us. Having just gone over a cost/benefit anaylsis for the python removal program here in Florida, it can cost us upwards of 200,000 dollars per burmese python feeding. Gosh, I hate economics.

Luis

Well said. I think that it's better for people/stores to be buying from reputable breeders than constantly importing wild caughts. The chameleon movie sold on this forum made a good point, if I remember right, about how the fact that since there's a value placed on the animals, that people are more likely to preserve them.