younsaid..."I should have baby Parson’s hatching for the next couple years so hopefully you have a chance to get one. Cristifer’s are an amazing species. They are generally very chill which makes keeping them all the more enjoyable imo"...I'm always glad to hear that people are able to hatch them now.
You said..."Many of the Yellow Giant babies have gone to new homes but I still have a few along with my holdbacks. They are doing fantastic and I really believe they are the most robust baby Parson’s I’ve ever seen at this age. Having these babies and getting to watch them grow really makes all the hard work, time and expense worth it"...getting to watch them grow definitely would be worth it!
I started working with Parson’s in 2010 and since then some of the successful oldtimers that were on these forums have moved on from working with Parson’s. Other long time keepers still haven’t been able to produce any babies or have had poor success incubating eggs or raising quality babies. During these 12 years since I started working with them there has been less than a handful of new keepers that have managed to produce babies in the US that I know of. Some have done a good job and some, not so much. Many of the people working with Parson’s chose not to be on social media or are not transparent about their successes or failures so it’s hard to get a barometer on where we stand.
Every time a new import comes in and I see people getting pairs of Parson’s I think “ ok, now we will see some people hatch out some Parson’s” but it never seems to happen. I’m not sure why that is. I’ve seen several people acquire pretty large groups of Parson’s but still they struggle to produce babies. It takes a huge commitment in time, space and money to breed Parson’s and I don’t think everyone is cut out for it.
Working with Parson’s is not easy. Getting them to breed is not easy. Getting them to lay is not easy and raising babies is a bit of an art form imo. So we still have quite a ways to go before we see multiple clutches being born each year. The Europeans seem to be doing quite a bit better than people in the US. I hear there are quite a few clutches due to hatch there this year and next.
What is nice is that advances in husbandry have greatly increased the lifespan of Parson’s in captivity. I have read that before Parson’s we’re banned from export in the 90’s that 1000’s of Parson’s were imported into the US and pretty much all of them died due to improper husbandry. Now there are quite a few people that have kept Parson’s alive for 10 years to nearly 20 years. This is great news! It also bodes well for the babies that are produced through captive breeding.
This is all just my personal opinion and observations.
As far as Calumma parsonii cristifer goes, I only know of one or two people in the US that have an unrelated pair of Cristifer and so far they have not had success breeding them. I always struggled a bit when it came to knowing just when to pair them. I kind of hate having to give up working with them because there is still so much to learn about them and their captive care. I produced 5 clutches of CB Cristifers and I still don’t feel like I have their care parameters down.
I have had the great pleasure to see them in their natural habitat several times and that was one of the highlights of my trips to Madagascar.
