Had anyone been successfully CB Parson Chameleon? I read a lot of journal suggesting that there were around 10,000 known Parson Chameleon imported into the States right before CITES place them in endangered list. Yet, only a handful of CB Parson were produced. I wonder if anyone who success in breeding and hatch some Parson chameleon would share their methods; especially those in Europe.
Ken Kalish hatched a few baby parsoni back in the mid '90's. Rob Velton hatched a fairly large clutch in the late 90's. Donovan Swafford hatched at least one clutch in 1999, early 2000. That's when I lost track of the hobby al together due to other interests and responsibilities.
I was successful with a trio of wild caught parsoni from 1991 to 1997. My collection started with a juvenile male and female and I later introduced a second young female.
This trio started breeding in 1994. Both females laid clutches in 1995. One full clutch went bad within a few months. The other clutch went 25 months without losing a single egg. In 1997, two babies were hatched from this clutch and I was so excited. However, they both died a few hours later. The remaining 39 eggs all had full grown babies, but none made it out of the egg. It was very depressing. I believe I added too much humidity to the eggs the months prior to hatching as the egg sacs were very tough and leathery, making it difficult, actually impossible for the babies to work their way out.
I had 2 other clutches of eggs, one from each female, from 1996 and one in early 1997, that all went bad, either to mold or other causes.
I was so depressed that I sold off my trio in 1997. I do know that the new owner, Donovan Swafford mentioned above, was able to continue the breeding success and he actually had a clutch hatch sometime in 1999 or early 2000. Its highly possible that some of the cb parsoni in the country today are from my original trio.
After an 11 year hiatus, I'm desperately searching for new parsoni to begin my breeding trials again.
To me the trick was keeping them well fed on a variety of foods, super well hydrated, and in the proper free range enclosures.
I would hibernate them for a few months each winter.
After each hibernation/diapause period, I would stimulate the male into breeding with images of his own reflection! I would simply place my wife's make up mirror in front of him on the branch a few times each day. He would actually charge the mirror and do breif combat with his own reflection.
After about a minute, I would remove the mirror and introduce a female. He would almost immediately seek her out and mate.
It worked everytime.
Its really too bad the incubation parameters on the eggs are so demanding. It took 25 months, with a diapause each winter, to bring my single clutch to fruition. Even then, a simple oversight on humidity killed off the clutch.
I so hope I can try my luck with them again soon.
Hope this has been a good read with some good, albiet brief, info.
Sean
Oh crap, i dont speak German.
