Reproductive issues...

K

kinyonga

Chameleon Queen
As many of you know I seem to be able to stop the reproduction in female veiled chameleons through diet accompanied by slightly lower basking temperatures.

For many years I have been trying to figure put why/how this works and why it is that most of the cases of follicular stasis and eggbinding in the veiled females seems to involve obesity/overfeeding and MBD.

In a study done a few years ago studying the hormones in unmated female veileds they did not come to any solution but did learn a lot about the usual hormones involved in reproduction.

For many years I was also interested in another hormone and whether it could have any involvement in these reproductive issues since it is involved in obesity/appetite, bone strength, luetinizing hormones, folliculargenesis, FSH, etc. in other creatures. Since the study was done I aslo wondered if, since it's connected to all of these things, it could be involved with the reproductive issues in chameleons but since I have never had access to a lab. All I could do was try to find a connection that someone else had made and wonder if I was barking up the wrong tree...so I decided to put it out there and hope someone else can figure it out. The hormone is leptin.

Anyone????
 
Last edited:
Interesting topic if I come across any more information about this topic that your mention in regards to Leptin I shall post.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich
 
As many of you know I seem to be able to stop the reproduction in female veiled chameleons through diet accompanied by slightly lower basking temperatures.

For many years I have been trying to figure put why/how this works and why it is that most of the cases of follicular stasis and eggbinding in the veiled females seems to involve obesity/overfeeding and MBD.
Click to expand...

OK so my thoughts aren't along the same lines and your line of thinking with hormones is very interesting and will be interesting to see what is learned in the future.

But as for "simple" thoughts about these first two paragraphs- the "whys".

Egg binding and links to obesity and MBD- most reptiles will produce larger numbers of offspring when fed larger amounts of food. The "purpose" of life when you are a snake or a lizard seems to be to put out as many offspring as possible when there is plenthy of food to help ensure the survival of the species. Even species which produce few eggs will multi-clutch when environment and food supply is favorable. Obesity leads to all kinds of complications in any species, and MBD is often the most obvious sign of all kinds of other poor nutrition- MBD, and you can guess that other vitamins, etc have been poorly provided as well. Seems like obesity would lead to reproductive activity and MBD reproductive complications.

Temperature and feeding less-

1 of 2 ideas. Maybe they are really 1 in the same, I'm not sure. The first, kinder thought- lower temperatures and reduced feeding imitates "winter", shutting down reproductive activity in a way that would normally be seasonal.

The second, less kind thought- if you take any animal, even humans, and put them under stress, their ability to "cycle" and produce offspring, will often cease. I'm assuming nearly any female reading this can probably relate and understand. Constantly cool conditions and hunger might do the trick for a chameleon. A stressful job or living in a concentration camp might do the trick for a human.

And maybe that is why a winter shutdown would be similar in a lizard- maybe brumation brings on the same hormonal activity in a lizard.

I'm no expert on hormonal activity, but if I was interested in linking it to its role in shutting off chameleon reproductive activity, I'd probably check into research done on humans whose cycle stops because of stress and then check back and see if there is something similar going on with the chameleons.

I'd probably also check to see if any studies had been done with chickens- there would be money behind trying to solve egg production deficiency or maximizing and therefore there might be related studies involving stress, light cycles, or even hormonal stuff.

That's just me though- most of your post is above my level of education or interest, at least without tying it back to quality of life in the end.

Edit- oh I see you found a study with chickens- missed that.

Edit edit- maybe there are studies of hormones in brumating chickens. This might be most similar to what is going on with your chameleons, rather than stress per say- probably is what is going on. Stress should shorten life and your lizards have lengthened life. Maybe they are brumating their way to long life?
 
Last edited:
I have often though about anorexia. I know Lynda's females were not underweight but I couldn't help but think about all the girls my daughter's use to dance with in bailet that had anorexia. They never had cycles. When my daughter gave me her panther female Bertha, she was over two years old and never laid a clutch. She was shinny. I gave her what would equal about 12 crickets a week and she gained weight and laid a clutch within six months of being with me. I still kept her basking temps in the low 80's.
 
Fluxlizard...just to explain... I'm not freezing my female veiled chameleons only lowering the temps from about 85F to 80F...so I don't know how much that would be stressing them since it's not like putting them into winter temperatures. The only reason I do the lower temperature is to slightly slow their metabolism so that the decreased diet will satisfy them sort of. The diet does not make them thin either...and its nutritious since I feed/gutload the insects well and supplement as I expected explained in dozens of posts on the forum.

Almost everyone of them has lived past six and most past seven....and I have taken almost every one of the bodies for autopsy. None showed any organ damage or other things that would have indicated poor nutrition or overt stress. None of them had MBD.

My original idea for putting them on a "diet" was that animals in the wild that have a "lean" year (less food...not starvation) produce smaller "clutches" than in "fat" year. I'm sure it's a bit of stress when this happens but not a death sentence.

Obesity and bone health are connected to leptin levels in mice and other studies. Leptin is also very involved with fat metabolism which is involved with egg production so this is why I think there is a connection with the number of follicles produced. What I haven't been able to connect definitely is the stasis of the follicles (movement of the follicles into eggs/ovulation) or possibly into the eggbinding. It's because I still don't quite understand how leptin resistance connects to it all...or if it does for sure. I just don't have enough scientific background or access to a lab to study it and I can't find anyone who is interested in studying it. The vets and students keep looking at testosterone, estrogen and progesterone. (I'm not saying they don't play a part too...just that maybe they need to widen their scope.)

Jann...in people who suffer from anorexia the leptin levels are lower and they think treating them with leptin might help. People with anorexia do lack cycles. So maybe what I'm doing decreases their leptin levels...but low leptin means poor bone health and my chameleons have no MBD. So high leptin should equal strong bones and obesity....and good reproduction...no?? So how does this fit with the obese MBD follicular stasis?? This is where I get confused.. since the obese chameleons should have high leptin levels and good bones have MBD (which could be from low leptin?) To me the stasis should be because the leptin levels have fallen and can't support the movement of the follicles towards ovulation....but I still keep going back to the obesity being connected to high leptin so it shouldn't happen. However there is something called leptin resistance that I don't quite understand yet.

I just wish someone out there would test for leptin levels in he chameleons that suffer from follicular stasis and dystocia to see if there is a connection....or not.
 
I have often though about anorexia. I know Lynda's females were not underweight but I couldn't help but think about all the girls my daughter's use to dance with in bailet that had anorexia. They never had cycles.
Click to expand...

Yes- this is the kind of thoughts I am thinking. I think my reference to concentration camps is too harsh- I'm just trying to express something more along these lines such as those ballerinas and not very good at it.
 
Was beginning to worry about your reference to concentration camps! Had visions of my poor chameleons sitting in their cages peering out with their sad starving eyes there for a minute. :(
 
Was beginning to worry about your reference to concentration camps! Had visions of my poor chameleons sitting in their cages peering out with their sad starving eyes there for a minute.
Click to expand...

No, no LOL
sorry

I'm thinking more of long term low grade stress situations- low calorie diet, high performance athletes, even a high pressure job - situations like that can stop reproductive cycles in humans.
 
I'm hoping that my changes are small enough that they aren't causing much stress. If they're living seven years without any apparent health issues or reproductive issues I just feel it can't be much stress. If the stress was too much they would be having a depressed immune system and health issues I would think.
 
As I said before...the confusion to me was why there was follicular stasis if the chameleon was obese because the leptin levels should have been high...but if I've got it right...the leptin levels in the brain are low even though the blood levels are high due to leptin resistance...which might mean because the brain thinks the levels are low it keeps thinking he body isn't fat enough for reproduction. If the brain levels of leptin are low then the chameleon's body may not be moving the nutrients to the follicles sonit can ovulate so there is still follicular stasis in spite of high leptin..but as I said before because I'm not a real scientist I might be missing something...and because nobody seems to have studied leptin levels to see if they are high to do with reproduction in lizards with follicular stasis and dystocia I can only theorize.
 
jannb said:
I have often though about anorexia. I know Lynda's females were not underweight but I couldn't help but think about all the girls my daughter's use to dance with in bailet that had anorexia. They never had cycles. When my daughter gave me her panther female Bertha, she was over two years old and never laid a clutch. She was shinny. I gave her what would equal about 12 crickets a week and she gained weight and laid a clutch within six months of being with me. I still kept her basking temps in the low 80's.
Click to expand...
You are on to something . Most cycles stop with out enough body fat . When the BMI get down around 19% cycles generally stop . Body at that % starts using muscle mass for energy . This is human Im speaking of .
 
I'm not thinking that anorexia is a cause for follicular stasis because in all the cases I know of where follicular stasis (from non physical reasons like deformities, disease, etc) has occurred in chameleons it involves the females being overweight which seems to be accompanied by signs of MBD and often these same chameleons prolapse. Dystocia (egg binding) cases also often are occurring in fat chameleons as well. I'm thinking more along the lines that leptin is involved with adipose (fat) tissues and maybe transfer of the fat and nutrients needed in the egg (or inability to transfer)...but I'm not sure how yet.

In the chameleons that I seem to have stopped or slowed reproduction in they are not anorexic but they are far from obese too.

Then again I could be totally off base. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

K
Regarding female veileds and reproduction, diet, temperatures, etc...
Replies
7
Views
568
kinyonga
K
elizaann2
Possible Follicular Stasis
2 3
Replies
53
Views
2K
elizaann2
elizaann2
king.louis
Some questions on Carpet chameleon husbandry
Replies
14
Views
745
javadi
javadi
Steve A
So I think I am going to design a Chameleon Care app...
2
Replies
31
Views
1K
Steve A
Steve A
L
Introducing Peter: poop issues
Replies
11
Views
382
liajimena
L
Back
Top Bottom