Panther Chameleon Care by Bill Strand

Thanks for the post @Beman ! I wanted to do something different with this care summary and do more explanation so, hopefully, the viewer will come away with not only a solid care regimen, but also some understanding along with it. I put a lot of infographic charts and animations to try and communicate the concepts.
The care regimen presented in this video is very close to the official Chameleon Forums Caresheet. But if there is something on here that makes you wonder then just ask!

And, don't think making these videos is easy. Lots of challenges. Frickin' goose.
 
Thanks for the post @Beman ! I wanted to do something different with this care summary and do more explanation so, hopefully, the viewer will come away with not only a solid care regimen, but also some understanding along with it. I put a lot of infographic charts and animations to try and communicate the concepts.
The care regimen presented in this video is very close to the official Chameleon Forums Caresheet. But if there is something on here that makes you wonder then just ask!

And, don't think making these videos is easy. Lots of challenges. Frickin' goose.

Great video! I was just wondering why you didn’t go into baby/younger juvenile and female basking temps
 
Do your females lay more/bigger clutches and/or have shortened lifespans with the higher temps?
I have not seen excessive clutch size with a 85-90F basking temperature. Though I also keep a close eye on their weight. The extra production of eggs requires the excess of food along with the heat. And as far as longevity, that is something still in testing. Though longevity will be a difficult parameter to nail down because it is the combination of everything in husbandry. Parsing out basking temperature would require a side by side comparison with everything else equal over many individuals over the lifetime to really put a finger on it. I do believe that lower temperatures and slower growth will contribute to longevity, but where that point is and whether basking temperature or ambient temperature has more of an effect will be a major question.

What are your experiences with basking temperature and clutch size/longevity?
 
My experience is just from on here, as I don’t own any females. But with reduced temps (basking 78-80 at the top of the female’s back when on her basking branch) and strict feeding, females are living longer, partly due to less frequent laying and smaller clutch sizes
 
Excellent video, always @DeremensisBlue !

For years I kept the temperature for mature female veileds at 80ish...I mainly did it with the hope that it slowed their metabolism a bit and made them just a bit less hungry.
Almost all of my veiled females lived to be 7 years old by controlling the diet and the temperature...and clutches were almost always non existent.
 
My experience is just from on here, as I don’t own any females. But with reduced temps (basking 78-80 at the top of the female’s back when on her basking branch) and strict feeding, females are living longer, partly due to less frequent laying and smaller clutch sizes
Yes, this is the current thought and this will play out to lower basking temperatures in the future being standard. The challenge is communicating this in a way that does not get people in trouble. Lower basking temperature also slows their growth and if someone does it wrong they will have a stunted female. So I have to balance out how I communicate this. When I make a care sheet I have to consider that I do not know the person that will read it. I am not personally presenting it to them. So I need to be careful to have a conservative element to it. I learned a valuable lesson introducing the naturalistic hydration approach and all the ways that was executed incorrectly in ways I did not imagine.

I have a group of pardalis females I raised up with an 80s basking and they are doing great. They grew slower, but I don’t have a problem with that. Perhaps I’ll feel like I have fool proofed it by the 2022 annual update. But when I introduce a new concept I am also responsible for what happens with the rest of the conflicting information out there. So I have to go with what I feel has the best balance for the reader combined with what I feel I have the information and data to back up. Because no matter what value I put down, there will be someone who believes I have made an error. And I need to be able to provide more than anecdotal evidence for whatever value I want to stand behind. Pushing for longevity is a long term game for me. I am okay taking a few years working out the bugs and all the ways people can mess it up before fully committing to it.
 
Excellent video, always @DeremensisBlue !

For years I kept the temperature for mature female veileds at 80ish...I mainly did it with the hope that it slowed their metabolism a bit and made them just a bit less hungry.
Almost all of my veiled females lived to be 7 years old by controlling the diet and the temperature...and clutches were almost always non existent.
I have been trying this out myself trying to nail down temperatures and feeding schedules that work in a way that I am confident someone could recreate the benefit.
I got four years before having one infertile clutch so I have to figure out what went wrong!
I think hammering out a lower basking temperature and diet for female veileds to where any beginner can follow it and get no infertile clutches is one of the holy grails for the community. I know many people are doing it and so it is just a matter of time before we work this out.

I am much more aggressive in my push for lower temperatures for female veiled chameleons than I am for pardalis because we have veiled females dying within the first year due to dystocia. But I have to totally revamp how I teach judging the point where you back off on feeding. I have already had people stop feeding ad libitum too early using a time based measure. So I would welcome hearing how you handled tapering down the food amount as your Veileds were growing up. I need to get another clutch to experiment with to try another round of “recipes”.
 
@DeremensisBlue said..."Yes, this is the current thought and this will play out to lower basking temperatures in the future being standard".... Hopefully there will be a standard basking temperature in the future.

You said..."The challenge is communicating this in a way that does not get people in trouble. Lower basking temperature also slows their growth and if someone does it wrong they will have a stunted female. So I have to balance out how I communicate this"...this is exactly the issue I've been having for years. If I say at a certain age to start controlling the temperture the female may not be at her full adult size...if I say at a certain weight to start, she may not be sexually mature yet.

You said.... "When I make a care sheet I have to consider that I do not know the person that will read it. I am not personally presenting it to them. So I need to be careful to have a conservative element to it. I learned a valuable lesson introducing the naturalistic hydration approach and all the ways that was executed incorrectly in ways I did not imagine"...this is exactly the problem...how the person reads it.

You said..."I am much more aggressive in my push for lower temperatures for female veiled chameleons than I am for pardalis because we have veiled females dying within the first year due to dystocia"...IMHO pardalis are not as easy to slow down or stop for some reason but less likely to die in the same way veileds do/can.

You said..."But I have to totally revamp how I teach judging the point where you back off on feeding. I have already had people stop feeding ad libitum too early using a time based measure. So I would welcome hearing how you handled tapering down the food amount as your Veileds were growing up. I need to get another clutch to experiment with to try another round of “recipes”.
So far the best I can work out is to have people start cutting them back on the diet and temperature earlier than what would be the perfect time to do it and let that last bit of froth to adulthood progress slower and hope that ok."...it's why I waver sometimes when I'm trying to explain the timing to prevent that first clutch from being large or preventing follicular stasis. It's hard to explain so that people understand it and get it right. I keep trying to figure out how to explain it so that people stop feeding them too much in time to prevent follicular stasis when you can't tell soon enough ahead of time when the "big girl colors" are going to come in ...by which time the diet should be have been started already.
 
@DeremensisBlue said..."Yes, this is the current thought and this will play out to lower basking temperatures in the future being standard".... Hopefully there will be a standard basking temperature in the future.

You said..."The challenge is communicating this in a way that does not get people in trouble. Lower basking temperature also slows their growth and if someone does it wrong they will have a stunted female. So I have to balance out how I communicate this"...this is exactly the issue I've been having for years. If I say at a certain age to start controlling the temperture the female may not be at her full adult size...if I say at a certain weight to start, she may not be sexually mature yet.

You said.... "When I make a care sheet I have to consider that I do not know the person that will read it. I am not personally presenting it to them. So I need to be careful to have a conservative element to it. I learned a valuable lesson introducing the naturalistic hydration approach and all the ways that was executed incorrectly in ways I did not imagine"...this is exactly the problem...how the person reads it.

You said..."I am much more aggressive in my push for lower temperatures for female veiled chameleons than I am for pardalis because we have veiled females dying within the first year due to dystocia"...IMHO pardalis are not as easy to slow down or stop for some reason but less likely to die in the same way veileds do/can.

You said..."But I have to totally revamp how I teach judging the point where you back off on feeding. I have already had people stop feeding ad libitum too early using a time based measure. So I would welcome hearing how you handled tapering down the food amount as your Veileds were growing up. I need to get another clutch to experiment with to try another round of “recipes”.
So far the best I can work out is to have people start cutting them back on the diet and temperature earlier than what would be the perfect time to do it and let that last bit of froth to adulthood progress slower and hope that ok."...it's why I waver sometimes when I'm trying to explain the timing to prevent that first clutch from being large or preventing follicular stasis. It's hard to explain so that people understand it and get it right. I keep trying to figure out how to explain it so that people stop feeding them too much in time to prevent follicular stasis when you can't tell soon enough ahead of time when the "big girl colors" are going to come in ...by which time the diet should be have been started already.
Yes...all of this...my biggest problem is that I can't accurately describe how I do it. I have been successful in reducing infertile clutches and clutch size, but too much of it is a feeling and that will take time to figure out how to put into words that are actionable and repeatable. Now, I do take comfort that there are other outspoken voices in the community that are spreading this concept so my more cautious approach does not hold back the early adopters. And my podcast episode on this should suffice as my contribution to support those people wanting to be on the leading edge. (That should count for some brownie points). But I will continue to work on how to communicate this so it is as easy as possible for someone to pick up.

Of course, my female veiled laying an infertile clutch was an embarrassing set-back (even after four years) so I have to go back to the end of the line.
Bill
 
@DeremensisBlue said..."Of course, my female veiled laying an infertile clutch was an embarrassing set-back (even after four years) so I have to go back to the end of the line"...don't beat yourself up over this one...I think there's a fine line sometimes...or a trigger we might be missing.

She didn't see a male, did she...or even "smell" one? How close is her cage to a male's cage?
Some may have a slightly different metabolism or maybe even a vibration they sense (or any number of other things as well) that sets them off IMHO. It's not an exact science.
 
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