Veiled Ages...

Julirs

New Member
Would the long term keepers here that have kept Veileds please give me an idea of how long they lived? I am not talking average life span, but the life spans of actual animals.

I see the range is posted anywhere from 3-8 years, and I am sure in the wild it is probably closer to 2, if that.

I would just like to see some collective information from the people on this forum. Most people that are super active on this forum have been keeping chams for less than 3 years I would guess, so it would be good information for them also. At this time I am thinking the average life span is really closer to 3-4 years.
 
Juli you can call Lee, she would be happy to talk to you but the way she kept "the old man" is not at all how we do it now. But maybe she can help. I will pm you her phone number.
 
The things talked about in the thread seem to be what is going on. 4 years went by really, really fast.
 
I started keeping Veileds in 1997 and my first male lived 4 years 7 months. Next longest male only lived about 3 1/2 years, but he had some injuries as a baby where he lost part of his left front foot and right back foot. Those were the longest lived Veileds I've had.
 
I have been keeping veileds now for almost 7 years, Arnie was my first. He lived 4 years and was subjected to my learning about chameleons, poor boy. Fortunately he wasn't subjected to MBD, but he was almost blind from those darn twisted bulbs. He could only eat out of a cup because he couldn't see well enough to shoot except in a cup but preferred to scoop up his meals.

Anyway, I have 2 health 3 year old males that I am hoping will live longer because their care has been so much better. I only mention males because females tend to have more problems with their egg situations. I try not to over feed them and keep their temps lower so they don't produce large quantities of either fertile or infertile eggs and have started to drips in all my cages at least for a few hours a day. They all seem to enjoy their showers, but still spray the cages so the leaves are wet and they are stimulated to drink.

My females only live about 3 or 3.5 years.
 
I started keeping Veileds in 1997 and my first male lived 4 years 7 months. Next longest male only lived about 3 1/2 years, but he had some injuries as a baby where he lost part of his left front foot and right back foot. Those were the longest lived Veileds I've had.

Thank you so much for that info. That is the kind of specifics I am looking for.

I think as with most animals we artificially extend their lives beyond what nature intended.
 
I have been keeping veileds now for almost 7 years, Arnie was my first. He lived 4 years and was subjected to my learning about chameleons, poor boy. Fortunately he wasn't subjected to MBD, but he was almost blind from those darn twisted bulbs. He could only eat out of a cup because he couldn't see well enough to shoot except in a cup but preferred to scoop up his meals.

Anyway, I have 2 health 3 year old males that I am hoping will live longer because their care has been so much better. I only mention males because females tend to have more problems with their egg situations. I try not to over feed them and keep their temps lower so they don't produce large quantities of either fertile or infertile eggs and have started to drips in all my cages at least for a few hours a day. They all seem to enjoy their showers, but still spray the cages so the leaves are wet and they are stimulated to drink.

My females only live about 3 or 3.5 years.

Again-thank you-good info. I have lost several females due to reproductive issues, but a few of those were rescues with sub par care before I got them. In fact most of everything I have ever lost has been females, they are just naturally the weaker gender.
 
Not sure, but that is a good topic. I hope to have my guys until they're at least 8+.

Likewise, Homer is a bit over 2 yrs now, I intend for him to make the very best of captive life, I will be very sad indeed when he passes, I must be getting old and soft, perhaps he's a grandchild substitute LOL :)

Im sure genetics plays a part in longevity as much as quality of care.
Fortunately I have a healthy female too now and In time I hope they will breed and I intend to keep his line going, In this way Homer will live on well beyond 8 years.
:)

I am wondering though how long you can line breed Healthy animals from a single (hopefully unrelated) pair, nature may cut short my plans eventually since genetic variety will be sadly missing here.
 
Karma was over 6 years old. That was pretty long. I tried to research how much longer she lived but got too lazy to look through all the threads.

Several of the veileds in that thread were over 6 and one over 7. I kept veileds for over 8 years and had several males live to over 6 and several females to over 5 but I was not breeding much.
 
Generally my veiled females live to be at least 6 but some have lived for more than 7 year. The males generally live to at least 8.
 
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Generally my veiledcfemales live to be at least 6 but some have lived for more than 7 year. The males generally live to at least 8.

So with all of this information, we need to consider if genetics is an issue. or is it husbandry, etc.

We still don't have enough collective information on animals that did not die from some health issue, or accident, as I would think most of them do. Aging animals are more succeptible, and again people don't usually do a necropsy to determine cause of death.

I would have to guess that kinyonga has animals that are closer to WC that the ones new keepers are getting that are multiple generations CB? I am wondering if these CB are living shorter lives?
 
Someone at a reptile show mentioned to us recently that bearded dragons only average 7-8 years now whereas several (captive) generations ago they often lived close to 20 years....
 
I had a male that died a while ago that was in my care for around 3 years and he was 2 years old when I got him. So he died around 5 years old...he was such a good looking veiled..
 
With the veileds, I had two pairs to begin with....all CB and when they had babies I would hold back a couple of females each time. I would add in males when I needed to ao that there was no inbreeding going on and the males were all CB's too. The original two pairs I bought in about 1995 (could be off a year or two since I didn't look it up). I can't tell you how many generations the originals went on for without looking it up. (Guess my memory is getting dim in my old age!)

With C. chamaeleons I had 2.3 WC's...they bred and produced babies for two years (second year was retained sperm). I didn't hibernate/brumate them after that so they never produced again. Four of the WC's (2.2 I think) were with me for about 5 years in spite of being full grown when I got them. I kept a lot of the babies and almost all of them were with me for 5 or 6 years. One had an issue from the get-go and didn't grow...it only lived a year. (This is the one that I've talked about a couple of times that had a vitamin A deficiency in spite of being given prEformed vitamin A.) One more that I remember was weak from the beginning and didn't live for more than a year.

I'm sure genetics and husbandry have something to do with it.

I always took my chameleons for a necropsy unless they died of old age...and even some of them went. I haven't taken them in the last few years though.
 
My first chameleon was a cb veild named oscar that i got at 3 months old. He lived for about 5-6 years with me before he passed away.
 
Someone at a reptile show mentioned to us recently that bearded dragons only average 7-8 years now whereas several (captive) generations ago they often lived close to 20 years....

12 to 15 yrs is average here for experienced keepers, one of mine is 9.
American feeding trends in comparison to ours seem to dramatically shorten lives.
We tend not to pump them full of food during the first 12 months to reach breeding size early, though sadly that trend seems to be catching on here now.
Most American beardies look fat to me.
If you look at beardies in the wild, you simply dont see fat ones, and by experience, keeping them on the lean side seems to work well for them.
Perhaps its this tendency to overfeed thats having the effect you describe.
 
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