posing some ideas for experiments on husbandry, feeding, etc.

[Eamon]

Hello, I know this is kind of a strange post but I want to get some ideas I have out into the world. I would love if some of you guys would like to discuss the plausibility of my ideas and maybe how I can improve or achieve them. I'm relatively new to chameleon keeping but I'm extremely exited to continue my journey and take things to the next level ASAP, even though I've only had my guy for a couple months I've noticed that I have become very passionate about chameleon husbandry I've already spent hundreds of hours researching, stressing, rambling about them to family members and, working on improving my knowledge. eventually at some point in the future of my journey I want to start doing experiments with husbandry, some examples include: researching the effects of different and exotic feeders, research the effects of different forms of entertainment, and maybe even experimenting if a chameleon can be trained and taught to do puzzles and such like how some dogs and crows can(I know its very unlikely). if and when I eventually decide to start these very ambitious projects I need to know as much as possible about what has already been done and get as much background info as possible. saying that, does anyone know where I can find research papers and stuff like that? In these experiments I plan on using the scientific method (question, research, hypothesis, test, analyze data, and present conclusions). for example in the feeder experiment, I will need a control, dependent variables, and independent variables. with the feeder experiment I will start with three eggs of the same species, once they hatch I will begin using the feeders, one will be raised on the normal diet of insects, one will be raised with a mix of insects and other invertebrates, and the last will be raised with a mix of insects and vertebrates. The insect diet will be the the control (baseline) and the others will be the independent variables (what I'm changing) and finally the dependent variable (the result) will be a multitude of things, including but not limited to; color, mood, energy, apparent taste, health, and observation of comfort in daily life. The feeder experiment is currently the only one I've actually begun to think about and research due to its likely possibility to show varied results. Of course I will immediately discontinue the experiment if harmful or negative effects are observed. I've also considered the difficulty of finding small enough vertebrates to feed to the one that's being fed with insects and vertebrates, due to this I've considered starting each one off with a normal baby diet until they are large enough to consume their respective experimental feeders. I'm extremely interested with your guy's opinions and thoughts and how my ideas can be improved or if there even viable. If you do decide to respond to this, don't be concerned if my feelings will be hurt but please try to keep the criticism constructive (meaning - don't be a dick). also if your interested with helping conduct these experiments it would absolutely be a great help and be much more fun if others are participating as well. replicating experiments and comparing respective findings is a huge part of getting accurate data and help remove any bias that may affect the final results. I look forward to your opinions on the matter!!!!! also if you do decide to respond I would like to thank you for spending you precious time on my crazy ideas.

 

[MissSkittles]

I’m curious about what type of vertebrate feeders you are thinking about using. Are you thinking like pinkie mice or feeder anoles? While tiny vertebrates likely are a part of a wild chameleon’s diet (especially the invasive veileds in Florida), I personally wouldn’t be feeding those. My concerns would be for passing on parasites, even with captive bred/raised feeder anoles and the protein levels being too high and causing kidney issues and gout. I don’t think experimenting with diet like you propose is such a great idea. For there to really be any measurable results, there would need to be regular labs done to monitor nutritional status and organ function. Best to leave something like that to the pros.
Training a chameleon? I don’t see much of that happening beyond where to find their food and whether or not you can be trusted. You have to keep in mind the limitations of the lizard brain. Some of the areas needed for certain things just aren’t there.
@kinyonga is our chameleon/research queen. She has a rare talent for finding amazing research papers and info. She might have some ideas of things you could research. I’ll give it some deeper thought about possible research items as well.

 

[kinyonga]

One issue I can see with experimenting with diet is that you might cause the chameleon some health issues such as MBD if the diet isn’t balanced….and it will just be suddenly obvious not show up slowly enough to correct before it does damage. You need someone with more knowledge of nutritional diseases than me to tell you more about that. I wouldn’t want to do something that would cause a chameleon any pain or suffer disabilities as a result of experimenting with the diet myself.

I have had one chameleon that figured out how to open the sliding glass doors of a cage…but it was the only one and I have no idea how it figured it out. (I also had a cone head (Laemanctus) that figured out how to open the cage door). Beyond that, I have seen no real evidence of them being able to solve problems.

It would be interesting to see if they could learn to do something like access the right location, for instance, to get a certain bug as a treat though.

 

[MissSkittles]

One idea is keeping one chameleon in a fully bioactive set up and the other not. But, what differences would one expect to see and how would anything even be measured? Chameleons aren’t very good test subjects.
Providing enrichment for them is a slightly different matter. From what I’ve seen of other’s chams, they do enjoy having window views. Just have to be careful that the sun won’t be shining directly on them and overheating. A nice way to give the window views and a change of pace, is having a large free range area that one can spend an hour (strictly supervised!) or so on. In the summer, spending a bit of time outside is always nice, but again, strictly supervised! I lack any shade in my yard, so I just take mine out on my hand for just about 10 minutes or so. Any longer and we both overheat. The very best thing one can do for a chameleon is to provide spot on husbandry and a large enclosure which is as natural as possible. Unlike other animals, they really don’t play or like novelty. Let some bsfl pupate into flies and release in their enclosure or hatch out a mantis ooth in it for them. That is really enjoyable for them.