Transcript (more or Less)

 

Supplementation is a complicated subject. We still don’t even understand what humans need for nutrition, much less what a chameleon needs. Most of what we do with chameleons comes from trial and error. The more trials, the more errors we can weed out. Today I start a series on the basics of supplementation so we can all understand what we are trying to do with all those powders.

 

 

 

Nutrition is a rat’s nest of interactions between vitamins, minerals, hormones, and light, temperature, and stress. Our chameleons take in a variety of invertebrates and vertebrates that are composed of different nutrients both in body make-up and in their gut. Dust and pollen come along with these insects and through drinking. UVB and heat energies are absorbed. And water makes it all run. It is our job to provide all of this to our chameleon. With what science already has discovered we have a fairly good idea of what elements need to be presented to the chameleon. We can have this all available and let the chameleon decide what he wants and how much! It a ll sounds pretty easy! The good news is that, with a little thought, much of it is as easy as that. Give them a heat lamp and a good enough UVB source and they will regulate that intake. The bad news is that we still don’t know how to make our feeder items properly nutritious. See, it isn’t about just throwing all the vitamins and minerals we can into a powder and making them eat it. There is a need for balance and, in some very important cases, a danger in giving too much. And with very little study to go off of, we hobbyists are left to figure it out.

One way we make up for nutritional deficiencies in our feede  r insects is to add supplement powders to the feeder insects. After we gutload them and make them and their gut as nutritious as possible, we add a layer of supplement powder to the outside of the cricket, or whatever insect we are using. The idea is that this supplement compensates for the lack or imbalance of nutrients. Let’s take the most common example. Crickets are the most common feeder insect in the US. This is because they are relatively easy to breed commercially. Luckily, they have been proven to be sufficient to power our chameleons. But crickets have way too much phosphorus compared to the calcium they offer. The latest science pins it at calcium needing to be twice the level of phosphorus for it to be beneficial and not detrimental. Because, just so you know what kind of tightrope over lava we are walking, too much is dangerous. Too little is dangerous. Off balance is dangerous. There are consequences to getting it wrong either way. So we need to add calcium to the crickets to counteract how much phosphorus they naturally provide. This is supplementation.

 

In the upcoming episodes we will be exploring various aspects of supplementation. I’ll share what we know and what we don’t know. It will be a winding road, but you all have done a pretty good job at sticking with me through all the curves of this fascinating, but sometimes crazy chameleon world. So strap in and let’s figure out where we stand on supplementation.

 

In this first installment I want to lay down the foundation from which we will go forward. I want to lay down the methods you can use to intelligently analyze a supplementation routine. Once this foundation is laid down we can effectively discuss the supplements out there and the routines to use them.

 

First, let’s lay out our major considerations when dealing with supplements. And I need to caution you on two things. First, there are many moving parts. I am going to do my best to simplify and generalize without going so far that the information is watered down. Hang on and let’s see how I do. My job here is to bring all the pieces into a coherent picture and distill it all into an understandable concept. To do this with nutrition will be my greatest challenge. Second, this topic is even more complex than can be explained and, unfortunately, more complex than we understand with today’s science. So please take this episode as a first most basic step. My goal for this episode is that you understand enough about nutrition that you can make intelligent decisions about your supplementation product and routine. Asking more experienced people for advice is helpful and where you should start, but nothing can replace the effectiveness of understanding it yourself and making your own decisions. We have done many episodes on nutrition so this is looking at it from another perspective. And, we will continue to explore this subject for the entire life of this podcast. This is a growing science and understanding will change! Now, as I said, in this episode I am going to be distilling things down into basics. We cannot ignore that all the items I do not talk about today also are critical for everything to work, but we need to start somewhere.

 

As we look at each of the components I will make a point of explaining how the chameleon gets this in the wild and what the danger of overdose is. These two items are related as if we provide the element as the chameleon would normally get it in the wild then we are able to use the naturally occurring checks and balances within the chameleon’s body to prevent overdose. If we provide the element in a different manner and we bypass the normal checks and balances within the chameleon’s body then we must be very careful not to give too much or we can kill our chameleon. It is that serious. In this overview, we will look at three main elements: Calcium, Vitamin D3, and Vitamin A. We will then take a look at the supplements available and do some real world analysis on what they offer us.

 

So, let’s jump in and start with the most important components to supplementation. The first is calcium.

Calciumis a building block for our bones and critical for proper organ function. It is so important that there is no debate as to using it as a supplement. Calcium is a curious mineral as it is so plentiful all around, but we are not sure how chameleons get their calcium. Insects are usually poor sources of calcium and vertebrates with those calcium skeletons are rare prey items. Whatever the source of calcium, babies need a lot of it and they provide the biggest challenge to explain how they get it. Possibilities include certain rare insect species and invertebrates which do have calcium, licking dust infused water from leaves, and eating insects which have plants that contain calcium in their gut. Whatever the path, one thing that is important to this discussion is that we know that calcium in the wild is ingested orally. So this means that our oral supplementation of calcium is giving it to them in a way that they were designed to take it in. And calcium overdose from calcium itself has not been a problem for us. I am sure we could give too much of anything, but our main problem with causing hypercalcaemia (which is too much calcium in the blood stream) is with too much Vitamin D3 which facilitates the absorbtion of calcium from the gut. Otherwise unused calcium is just flushed out of the system. We hear about how we humans can takes too much calcium carbonate (aka Tums), but I have not heard of creating hypercalcaemia in chameleons with just plain calcium. The take away here is that calcium can be dusted every feeding without it being a health issue. There are other things we will worry about.

Now, there is a balance we must be familiar with. And that is with phosphorus. This is also an important element in building our, and our chameleons’, bones. The thing is that calcium and phosphorus must be in a certain balance. You need to have a two parts calcium to one part phosphorus balance. Crickets, and many of our feeder insects, have a tiny amount of calcium, but a relatively huge amount of phosphorus. So our feeder insects are naturally high in phosphorus. How do we balance this out? We add calcium powder to the phosphorus high feeder. This is why calcium is supplemented every feeding in every routine I have done or have encountered. And it is important to understand this when shopping for a supplement. In some supplements, they brag about having the 2:1 calcium to phosphorus ratio. Sound good? A perfectly balanced supplement! Well, no, because if you put a perfectly balanced supplement on an imperfectly balanced feeder insect you can never get the proper balance. This is why we need to be aware of what is important. And, don’t worry, at the end of this episode I will go over some major brands and we will discuss the pros and cons of each. We’ll tie it all together in the end.

 

So, do we need to supplement the rare feeder that has calcium, such as the Black Soldier Fly larva? No, you do not have the supplement calcium on BSF larva as they, as far as the studies we have available, already are balanced enough. It will not hurt anything to add more calcium to them, but I don’t for a totally different reason. The more powder we put on our feeders the more we throw off their hydration value. Chameleons get a significant amount of hydration from the food they eat and we throw that off with all this powder that they have to then use up their water stores to rehydrate. This is not a real problem to worry about because, unlike the wild, we provide plenty of water on a daily basis. But, it never hurts to give their body what they expect. I do not know how much value this actually brings, but if my chameleons end up living twice as long I am going to attribute it to this natural hydration and start my own chameleon husbandry cult. Stay tuned for membership information.

 

Any discussion about calcium quickly becomes a discussion about Vitamin D3.

Vitamin D3is the main component that allows the body to extract calcium from the gut and bring it into the body. There the calcium is directed to go where it needs to go which is mostly to the bones where it is used for structure and is stored to be released as needed for proper organ function. Vitamin D3 is created in the chameleon’s body. The body uses the energy from a very specific narrow wavelength band of ultraviolet light and through a process which goes from the skin to the liver to the kidney, creates the end vitamin D3 product.

Vitamin D3 is a fat soluble vitamin which means it is stored in the body. Here is where it gets important. Vitamin D3 is manufactured by the body and stored. The body measures the levels of D3 and turns on and off manufacturing to maintain a certain level. The problem is that there is no mechanism for restricting the amount of D3 absorbed from the gut. This is not a problem in nature because there is very little dietary vitamin D3 around to be eaten. There are small amounts here and there, but not enough in the normal chameleon diet to require evolution to build a defense mechanism from dietary D3. Now, you see where this is going. By us giving dietary D3 we bypass the natural checks and balances and the chameleon’s body will store vitamin D3 into overdose. So if we give supplements that have dietary D3 then we are responsible for providing a safe amount. Except no one knows what a safe amount is for each species. And if we did, our delivery mechanism of powder on an insect which will fall off with a function of time is grossly inaccurate. That said, Vitamin D3 has been used in supplements for decades and has been used effectively and safely. It was dietary D3 that allowed indoor chameleon breeding before the advent of the UVB light.

Fat soluble vitamins such as D3 and A, which we will get to soon, can, when in excess, cause a condition known as edema. This is where the body reacts to the imbalance by retaining excess fluid. This is often seen as a bulging fluid collar around the neck. We got this a lot in montane chameleons such as Jackson’s Chameleons, any of the high altitude Cameroon species, johnstoni, etc.. Panthers and veileds seemed to have more of a resistance to this condition. So the dietary D3 which allowed indoor keeping of chameleons was causing issues in some species. The great news with Vitamin D3 is that we have enough UVB technology that we do not have to play that guessing game any more. With the powerful UVB lamps and the Solarmeter 6.5 to measure the effective UVB levels we can now tune our environments to where full vitamin D3 requirements can go through the natural channels. So you may ask, why do most supplementation routines we see include dietary D3 in them? Two reasons. 1) most people do not have solarmeters to dial in the levels so there is a level of nervousness and 2) for all of our collective bravado talking on UVB, there seems to be a lack of faith that it actually works and people want that safety net. To that I say, go ahead and have the safety net. Supplementation once or twice or four times a week according to species and amount of D3 in your supplement..I also want to add that you can get rid of D3 in your supplementation. People that provide a UV Index of at least 3 at the basking branch can do away with D3 in their diet . I know people will be nervous to try this without the D3 safety net. But I am not the only one who has done this successfully. You can too. It does take a little effort because you have to make sure that you are getting at least UVI 3 at the basking branch so there is some fine tuning that needs to be done. Chameleon keepers will recognize this as something we have to do with just about every other aspect of husbandry so this isn’t anything new. And this is where we should all be.

 

Now, to all you people out there giving advice, it probably is a good idea to keep a dose of a supplement with D3 in there one or two times a month just to make sure bases are covered. If you are talking to a beginner you need to have as simple of a routine as possible with the most margin for error. If you are only telling them the bulb strength to get like 5.0 or 12% and aren’t guiding them further then a safety net is a good thing. We’ll talk about specifics per species in a little bit. We have to take into account the amount of D3 as well. 

 

 

And for those keepers listening who are invested in the art of chameleon husbandry enough that you have a Solarmeter 6.5 and are monitoring the UVB levels, I invite you to get a range between UVI 3 and 6 and back off of the vitamin D3. Try it. It works. And this removes an unnatural part of your husbandry. If you are going to go through all the expense and effort to set up a solid UVB system, you may as well get the full intended benefit from it! The ability for us to emerge out of giving D3 orally and into providing it through the natural means that the body expects is a victory for captive husbandry. Let’s take full advantage of it.

 

 

Vitamin A:

Our final member of the big three is Vitamin A. Vitamin A is, by far, the most troublesome of our supplement components. And this will take a little explanation. You probably have heard of something called pre-formed vitamin A. This is vitamin A in what we call the Retinol form and can be used by the body to create retinaldehyde and retinoic acid which contribute to eye and skin health. Pro-vitamin A are things called carotenoids. The most famous of these being Beta Carotene. This is what gives carrots their orange color. And our bodies use Carotenoids to generate retinol. This is great for humans. We can eat pre-formed or pro-vitamin A. The danger with pre-formed vitamin A, or getting retinol from animal organs is that there is no checks and balances to ensure it stays at a safe level. Pro-vitamin A, though – the carotenoids, must be transformed by the body and the body will only do that when it is necessary to replenish the stores. Yes, Vitamin A, like D3, is a fat soluble vitamin so it takes a front seat on our watch list here.

Vitamin A, or retinol, is rare in insects as far as we know at this time. So it is assumed that insectivores get their vitamin A from ingesting insects that have eaten plants and the carotenoids within. And then the carotenoids are transformed into vitamin A and all is good. But, unfortunately, it cannot be that easy. In a 2002 study, Dr. Dierenfeld, with help from Dr. Ferguson who is well known in chameleon circles attempted to figure out the relationship of carotenoids and vitamin A in panther chameleons. The end result was unexpected that dietary beta carotene did not seem to be converted into vitamin A. This left big question marks as to how chameleons got their vitamin A. In a subsequent 2003 roundtable discussion printed in the Journal of Herpetological Medicine and Surgery, Dr. Ferguson hypothesized that female panther chameleons could be driven to eat vertebrate lizards for the preformed vitamin A to provide that within the eggs to give the babies enough vitamin A until they get big enough to eat vertebrates on their own. He emphasized that there is more investigation that needs to be made to determine whether and under what conditions chameleons can “do the vertebrate thing” and convert carotenoids to useable vitamin A.

 

Although vertebrate ingestion is certainly possible for panther chameleons and larger chameleon species that hypothesis gets improbable for the smaller species of chameleons. That does not mean that Parson’s Chameleons and pygmy chameleons do the same conversion so there is room for different methods across the different species. Does the fact that we know next to nothing about such a basic part of chameleon nutrition make you wonder how we are bumbling through this whole thing? Well, it is certainly an adventure!

 

Now, it is good to be aware that the 2002 Dierenfeld study which showed that panther chameleons did not convert beta carotene has been oversimplified across the veterinary community to the effect that allchameleons do not convert anycarotenoids and require preformed Vitamin A. It is true that this statement is valid within veterinary circles. The job of a veterinarian is not to extract the secrets of the universe. They need to get your chameleon back up to health. Up until recently, the only carotenoid used in supplements has been beta carotene. So, practically speaking, there would be no supplement available to their clients that would provide anything that would convert to vitamin A. With all the tools available to bring this chameleon back to health and maintain health, pre-formed vitamin A is the only thing that has been proven to work. So, until someone somewhere proves that there is a more effective method to cure and prevent the effects of vitamin A deficiency (this is called hypo-vitaminosis A) the veterinary community will continue to advise their members that chameleons cannot convert carotenoids.

 

That is what works for their purposes. We in the chameleon community have different purposes. We have more of a long term vision of striving to provide as natural of a husbandry as possible. Dietary pre-formed A is not, as far as we know, natural for chameleons. And this is more than just a high ideal we strive for. Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin and is dangerous and deadly in overdose. By switching to the correct carotenoids we can use our chameleons’ internal system to ensure that they always have the exact level they need. No matter how much carotenoids we give them it won’t matter because they will shut off production when they have enough. Cracking this mystery has the direct benefit of healthier chameleons. Just as we have worked so hard to get vitamin D3 out of the diet, so we need to continue to work to get preformed vitamin A out of the diet. But, we are not there yet. So preformed vitamin A is something we still need to discuss on this episode.

 

Though I do want to say there is work done and there are successes on this front. We do know that other herps convert other carotenoids so it is not unrealistic to assume that chameleons would do so as well. It could be that it takes a combination, or balance, of carotenoids to convert. I have raised veiled chameleons up to successful reproduction using only the Arcadia EarthPro-A supplementation and gutloading. So there was no pre-formed vitamin A supplementation. Mario Jungmann has his complete long term breeding facility thriving on gutloaded insects and a mix of calcium and bee pollen. So it can be done. I am personally experimenting across different species using the Arcadia EarthPro-A, which specifically includes a wide range of carotenoids for vitamin A production. But you can’t judge a supplementation routine until you test it over multiple generations. And then you have tested it for only that species. And then individuals within clutches will respond differently so you need multiple generations to really get a feel for what is going on. So I will report what is working for me, but I am not to the point where I can speak with the confidence that someone like Ed Kammer of Kammerflage Kreations with eight years of experience testing one routine with one species under controlled conditions can speak.  But that is to be expected. Ed needs as bullet proof a system as possible for beginners to be successful. He is not interested in great ideas. He needs generations of proof. He will not get behind a supplementation routine until it has at least three years and two generations of success behind it. Me? I am working on the cutting edge where there is an enormous amount of ambiguity. Both have their place and their value. The veterinary community, Kammerflage Kreations, and this podcast. We all have different reasons that drive what we do. So when you go out into the social media jungle, realize that there are many ways that work for different purposes. Me being frustrated that the vet community gave this subject the broadbrush does not mean they are wrong to do what they did. It is saving chameleons lives and that is what they care about. That is their job! The Kammerflage routine that includes D3 and A has been refined over years and chameleon generations to provide the simplest way to raise healthy panther chameleons. My drive to get D3 and A out of our supplementations does not make that routine wrong. It is the most tested and proven out method we in the community have. And if I hit dead ends in my quest to rid us of D3 and A that does not mean I shouldn’t do what I am doing. All these approaches have their place in our community. And they are not exclusive. Ed Kammer and I just had a conversation about how we can reduce our dependence on preformed vitamin A. He is just as interested in giving better nutrition as I am. But I can tell you that whatever I/the community/whomever comes up with as a true step forward will go through two generations and three years of testing before he will publicly get behind it. And that is how it should be. I and the people who are dedicated to naturalistic husbandry are on the front lines testing these things out. We have the experience necessary to fix the plane while we are flying it. Ed is working with people who are just starting out with chameleons and need the sure thing. Do you want adventure and do you feel comfortable figuring things out? Well, you have come to the right place! Do you want security and the sure thing? Meet my friend Ed. We are all part of the same effort. And I don’t want to make it seem like I am the vanguard of this naturalistic diet movement. I talk a lot. I mean, that is my job here. But people like Arcadia’s John Courteney-smith have dedicated their professional lives to pushing us forward. It is no coincidence that John has been a frequent guest here. Our missions are closely aligned. The thing with John is, he is distracted by having to consider all the lesser reptiles. I am lucky that I am able to concentrate on chameleons – the purest manifestation of awesomeness.

 

Magnesium. Now I want to bring up one more part of this. And that is magnesium. Everything is complex. And there are many other interactions that are going on. So much so that your head would spin and I would break down sobbing into my keyboard trying to chart it all out. This is not simple. I’ll bring up one example and that is of magnesium. This little heard from mineral tells the calcium where to go in the body. Without the right amount of magnesium you get calcium deposits in strange places.  So it is very difficult to determine what the problem is without a bloodtest. Lack of one vitamin and overdose of another vitamin can have similar external effects. Do you see the danger of being so quick to diagnose vitamin overdose or deficiencies when you are not a vet? We have to be careful with what we do with a little bit of information.

 

 

So with that background, lets take a look at the field of supplements we have to wade through.

 

We start with calcium. This is the easiest. Just about every supplement manufacturer has plain calcium. The one thing you have to watch out for is that many manufacturers have two products. Calcium and Calcium with D3. Just make sure you are getting the right one for your purposes. Plain calcium is great for dusting every feeding because, we do not have to worry about overdose by giving calcium and we need to balance out the high levels of phosphorus in the most common feeder insects. So, not only is it safe, but it is necessary.

 

Now, while we are on the topic of every feeding supplementation I want to bring up bee pollen. Bee pollen has been a staple in the chameleon community forever. It is recognized as having an incredibly rich blend of nutrients that it is a chameleon super food. And, if you have ever seen how excited your chameleon is to snag a bee you can imagine that they ingest a great deal of bee pollen in the wild. You can use bee pollen as a gutload, but also as a supplement. It doesn’t stick by itself, but when you mix it with calcium it becomes a great powder. You have to crush it up. I put calcium and bee pollen in a mortar and crush it up with a pestel. My wife makes fun of me for not using premade powder, but I enjoy this connection with the ancient stone age chameleon keepers that crushed up their powder supplements for their chameleons. Never forget where you come from. Although, I admit to embracing my 21 century luxury and not grinding up limestone for calcium like they had to.

 

Though it does get easier than all this. The power I have been using for the last couple years is the Arcadia EarthPro-A. And since there are no fat soluble vitamins in this supplement I can safely use this every feeding with worrying about how much is going in. EarthPro-A has bee pollen and has been formulated to have a wide range of carotenoids. With the building blocks but none of the final form, it is safe to give every feeding. So that makes getting calcium and bee pollen in very easy. I’d like to clarify something. Arcadia EarthPro-A does not have preformed vitamin A. It has a wide variety of carotenoids that reptiles can use to convert to vitamin A. We’ll talk more about this when we talk about vitamin A because this is important.

 

Calcium is often included with other vitamins and minerals. If you are using supplements that have something in them besides calcium check for phosphorus. As we touched on before, calcium and phosphorus need to be in a 2:1 ratio. This is why we have to add calcium to crickets. But check the ingredients list to see if the supplement has phosphorus. Most d  o not.The noteable exceptions are ZooMed’s Reptivite product and RepCal’s Herptivite. Repcal’s Herptivite goes the beta carotene route so the only use for us is calcium and there are much better alternatives so this will be the last you hear about Heptivite on this episode. The ZooMed Reptivite doing 2:1 calcium/phosphorus ratio is personally disappointing because Reptivite without D3 is one of only two commercially available supplements that has Vitamin A, but not Vitamin D3. As UVB has solved our need for D3, I’d like a solution for vitamin A. Since it pains me to accept the phosphorus hit I mix in some of my Arcadia EarthPro-A or just plain calcium. But more on that later. The point is to watch the label for phosphorus. We chameleon keepers don’t want that in our supplement because we have an excess of it already in most of our feeder insects . Though I suppose I need to include the caveat, if your feeder insects lack phosphorus then go ahead and look into a supplement with a 2:1 ratio. ZooMed’s Reptivite would be the first place I would look for this.

 

But now it is time to get to Vitamin D3. Vitamin D3 is easily found in supplements and it is added to calcium to provide the combination necessary for making the calcium useable. Obviously, I now run a D3 free household. I have supplements that have D3 in them for use only when I am experimenting, but I am for all practical purposes a D3 free Jurassic Park. If your adviser wants you to include D3 in your routine or you just want the safety net then you need to consider the amount of D3 you are giving. Excess D3 will cause problems including edema. And montane species such as Jackson’s chameleons are especially sensitive to these fat soluble vitamins. It appears that species such as panther chameleons, veiled chameleons, and carpet chameleons, can handle Repashy Calcium Plus every feeding. This means that they are given doses, if we can call it that, of 20k International Units/lb of D3 along with 200k IU/lb of Vitamin A every other day. This is from long term breeders keeping them under a variety of lights from T8 to T5.

And here is where we need to take a serious look at UVB. We know that UVB hits the skin, gets transformed, goes to the liver where it is changed some more, and then to the kidneys where it is changed again into the final form that is used in the body for the calcium absorption. If there is enough D3 in the system then no more is made. If we give dietary D3 we bypass this system and that is why we are working towards getting out of D3. But a question we also need to consider is whether the body reads the levels of dietary D3 and shuts down production if there is enough in the system regardless of where it comes from. This is a worthwhile question because if the body accepted the dietary D3 then, if you gave enough it wouldn’t matter what UVB light you are using. As long as there was less than “too much” D3 given dietarily you could have various levels of UVB and it wouldn’t result in overdose to have higher levels of UVB. It would just be more UVB that is being ignored by the body. Ed Kammer of Kammerflage Kreations tested giving Repashy Calcium Plus to chameleons under Reptisun 5.0 T8s and Reptisun 5.0 T5s, both in single bulb reflectors and noticed no change in outcome. One possible explanation is that the D3 levels in Calcium plus are sufficient or else the T8 light was enough to top it off. So going to a higher power UVB light had no effect because the body just ignored the more intense UVB. The significance of this is that you would have a certain safe area to work with as far as D3 supplementation and that we could take the Repashy Calcium Plus levels of 20k IU/lb   every other day as safe. Now, this is not meant as me giving a revelation and putting an axiom down in stone. When we talk about levels we have to talk about how many feeders per feeding, how soon the feeders get eaten, and how densely dusted the feeders are. This is a discussion for those of you that want to dig in and figure this stuff out. The one take away from this is that we have an idea of the safe levels and if your D3 supplement is 20k IU/lb or less it should be okay for panthers/veileds/carpets, and like species.

Jackson’s Chameleons are a different story. They tend towards edema at those levels. For Jackson’s Chameleons, Repashy Calcium Plus LoD only has 8k IU/lb and has been shown to work with Jackson’s a couple times a month. This amount is tribal knowledge. A long time ago I used Repashy Calcium LoD with Jackson’s Chameleons that were outdoors. I would never do that now, but there is situation where I was learning.  The chameleons were healthy and there was no edema. So this is where I am suspecting that higher UVB is not going to create a D3 overdose situation if dietary D3 levels are within the acceptable body level limits.

But please consider, if you are spending so much energy working the strong T5 lighting – especially if you are going to the higher powers of UVB  like 12% or 10.0– consider just putting this whole mess behind you and going full natural D3.

 

 

Okay, who out there has their heads spinning trying to hold this all together? Well, it is nice to have company.

Is anyone out there wondering what an International Unit is? You will love this. It is a measure of biological activity. So the mass of an IU of vitamin A will be different than the mass of an IU of vitamin D3. Don’t even try to fully grasp it at this point. It really doesn’t matter what it means as long as every supplement manufacturer is using the same system. This way we can make experiments and we know the relative strengths. That is all that is really important to understand about International Units.

I do want to say for vitamin d3 that It is also important to keep track of vitamin A in the supplements. We know there is an interaction between D3 and A so this is a possible characteristic we need to keep an eye on. If we have too much vitamin A it might skew our test with vitamin D3. And then we couldn’t recreate it with a supplement that had only D3. Once again we take our supplements as a whole and test them as they are as a whole.

 

Vitamin A is even more mysterious, but easier in some ways. When planning out your supplementation schedule look at the ingredients list. Some manufacturers include beta carotene in their supplements and call it vitamin A. We chameleon people, with what we know now, can’t accept that. Noteable products with beta carotene instead of vitamin A are Rep-Cals Herptivite (oops, I said I wasn’t going to talk about that one again) and Exo-Terra’s Multi-vitamin. Although having beta carotene is not a bad thing in itself and some supplements such as Repashy’s Calcium Plus and Fluker’s Repta Vitamin have both beta carotene and vitamin A so you don’t have to throw something out because it has beta carotene.

The same considerations we went through with vitamin D3 apply here as well. The Repashy Calcium plus and the Calcium Plus LoD that we have tested with those species listed also have vitamin A so the limits established there can be used as a foundation for figuring out vitamin A levels.

If you are going for a Vitamin D3 free routine then finding a supplement for A without D3 is actually challenging. You have two commercially made powders. Reptivite without D3 and repashy Vitamin A. Reptivite without D3 gives 100k IU/lb compared to Calcium plus at 200k IU/lb and Calcium plus LoD at 80k IU/lb. So Reptivite is on the lower end of these widely tested Repashy products. The other supplement available is the Repashy Vitamin A plus. No D3, but this powder has 2 million IU/lb so that is quite the leap beyond the 200k IU/lb reference level. I did use the Repashy Vitamin A for a little while. I would dust one cricket in this vitamin A, make sure it was eaten, and then go on with the standard everyday Arcadia EarthPro. I am now trying the Reptivite and cursing under my breath that they included phosphorus. I’d like to do a control group of some babies with and some without vitamin A. My last test focused on D3 and A just happened to be part of it. I’d like to specifically show to myself that I can use the carotenoids in EarthPro-A and get rid of vitamin A in our supplements. Yes I did it once under controlled conditions with four veiled chameleons. That is a good indication, but I do want to repeat this for more individuals over a couple generations. Ed Kammer has pretty much set the standard for how a supplementation routine should be tested. I think we all ought to step up to the plate and do the same with our favorite routine before we get too emotionally invested in it.

 

Okay, dust settles. What should we do. Well, let’s summarize

Calcium? Dust every feeding. Plain calcium is pretty much the same across the manufacturers. Pick the bottle with your favorite color. Successful breeders, including me, include bee pollen with the every feeding dusting. You can make your own by mixing calcium and bee pollen or just use Arcadia EarthPro-A for the calcium and bee pollen together.

 

Vitamin D3: I’d love it if we all provided between UVI 3 and 6 and did away with D3. If you want to have a safety net then a suitable calcium with D3 supplement can be used every month to every week depending on species. I actually like Repashy Calcium plus LoD because I can use it with my Jackson’s which is montane, but also with panther chameleons. Kammerflage has shown that Panther chameleons are able to take much more so I know I have a lot of room to work with and not worry about overdose. ZooMed Reptivite with D3 has just a little bit more D3 (and A) than Calcium Plus LoD. So they can be considered equivalent. Except that Reptivite has phosphorus. And yes, I’ll keep repeating myself because I am disappointed.

 

Vitamin A: Obviously another one I am working to get out of the diet. I am currently working on figuring out if one or many of the carotenoids in Arcadia EarthPro-A will do the trick for us chameleon people. I am currently working with Jackson’s and veileds as my test groups. I’ll expand to panthers once I have the veileds down. It looks good so far, but I want to have a much better understanding before I claim any public victory. To give preformed vitamin A I have used Repashy Vitamin A under very controlled conditions of one well dusted feeder insect per two months because of it’s high levels. I am going to try Reptivite without D3 as well. It has a lower level of A so I feel like I have more control over amount going into the system. And, yes, I mix in plain calcium to balance out the added phosphorus in the Reptivite.

 

Magnesium: Both the Reptivite and Repashy Calcium Plus products have magnesium in them, but, for a regimen without D3 or A, Arcadia Calcium/Magnesium is a special blend developed to make sure magnesium is there in force. I do use the Arcadia product as that is best for my purposes. I have only recently become aware of magnesium so it is something I am keeping an eye on, but cannot say much at this time. Other than that the EarthPro-A and Ca/Mg routine is working for me.

 

How to advise

To close this up I want to talk about how you should go about advising other people about supplementation. If you have waded through this podcast and are still listening then you have shown tenacity. It is frustrating having so many questions and so few answers. So much of what we are doing is a guess. And the lack of solid answers leaves a wide open space for people to make up what they want to say is right.

So what can you do? Here are a few points

• Stick to your experience. You have a supplementation routine. Pay attention to it and the effects on your chameleon. Speak about those experiences. With supplementation so confusing it is best not to decide that your experience with a few individuals equates to how chameleons should be globally taken care of. Speak truthfully and openly about your experience. Use words like “this is what works for me” instead of “this is the one true way”.
• Realize your experience translates. If you use Repashy Calcium Plus and are trying to figure out how to help someone that is using ZooMed Reptivite, well then you can look at the ingredients of both and realize that Calcium plus = 2 times reptivite with D3 and A. Now you have a direct way to make your experience relevant to their situation. Just make sure you look at the units.
• Acknowledge that different groups have different priorities. This is not a zero sum game. There can be multiple effective methods and approaches. If the end result is a healthy chameleon then it has achieved the definition of success in chameleon husbandry. Let it live and just concentrate on your own studies and experiments. If your method works for you then it has achieved the definition of success in chameleon husbandry and there is nothing that is taken away by other methods also existing.
• The more you know the more you know what you don’t know. Just listen to the episodes where I interview the master level breeders. Do you notice none of them say X is what you should do? They just share what works for them. They don’t try and force anything on you or make fun of or disparage what other people have used successfully. Even when something is working for them they are hesitant to say this is the solution. Because they know there are many variables are at play. Just go back and listen to the interview with Frank Payne with Furcifer minor. I loved that episode because in it you could hear the humility of a true expert. Aspire to that. I’ll be publishing an episode with Ed Kammer of Kammerflage Kreations next week. You are going to hear the same humility from a man whose expertise could easily make him the world’s top authority in panther chameleon captive husbandry. And I can tell you he will be uncomfortable with that kind of praise because he knows how much he does not know and is careful to speak on only that which he has proven over and over again to himself. Imagine the community we would have if we all aspired to that.

 

Thank you for joining me here. If you came for answers then I have responded like a Madagascar exporter – sure, you can have five answers, but you also have to take seven questions and three unanswerable mysteries. At the very least, I hope you came away with an understanding of what is important in our supplements and things to look for. There are many opinions swirling around. It can be very confusing. But we will have more supplementation episodes where we will put some of these concepts into practice to try them out. And we can discuss the different aspects.

So, this week, take a look at your routine. You should be able to give it a high level analysis. Read the posts of others and analyze (to yourself) their methods. Before long you’ll find questions that come up to ask that will help you further your understanding. And that is how we learn from each other and move forward.v

Marc and a Trioceros hoehneli on Mt. Algon in Uganda.

If you have the opportunity, I highly encourage hopping a plane and visiting chameleons where they live. It is definitely an eye opening experience both in being in a foreign land and also in how, dare I say, similar conditions can be during certain times of the tear where you live. The key is to know what conditions those are! But there is a level of preparation that you should go through and part of that is to get comfortable with the idea. To that end I am sharing a conversation I had with Marc Vaillant. Marc works for the United Nations clearing land mines from war torn areas. This has him seeing areas that aren’t normally visited by people expecting fruity drinks by the poolside, but it gives him a great opportunity to enjoy a passion of his, field herpetology, in some interesting places. So enjoy my talk with Marc and perhaps we can start thinking about a visit of our own. You can follow Marc’s travels at his Facebook page below!

Marc and a female Trioceros deremensis in Tanzania.

Marc and a juvenile Chameleon chameleon in Lebanon

The Parson’s Chameleon has a smaller subspecies that isn‘t always in the limelight, but has a fierce and dedicated following. Calumma parsonii cristifer is a popular chameleon that has become available as captive bred. Today I am joined by Aaron Allred who breeds this species and he shares with us his experiences in keeping them healthy and breeding them.

In this third part of the Calumma parsonii series we focus on the smaller of the two subspecies, Calumma parsonii cristifer. It has parson’s charm, but not all of the challenges of it’s larger cousin Calumma parsonii parsonii. Even though this subspecies isn’t as well known it is amazing how many people have requested an episode specifically about it! Well, here it is. Aaron Allred hails from the Pacific Northwest and has been working with C.p. cristifer for a number of years. He is a great example of someone who used the information available, figured out where to dig deeper, and was able to succeed in hatching them out multiple times. As I play this interview with Aaron, you’ll get the basics such as temperature and humidity and some husbandry tips, but when I bring on these breeders, the greatest value actually ends up being hearing their answers to questions you didn’t think to type into Google.

Aaron Allred’s Instagram account. Join up here to keep track of what is going on with Aaron!

Project Cristifer is a Facebook group where you can meet with other like minded individuals that are working with Calumma parsonii cristifer.

The Parson’s Chameleon has been the holy grail with chameleon breeders. With an incubation that traditionally reached 24 months there was much that could go wrong. But we are lucky to be in a time where captive bred babies are available!

In this episode, Craig Durbin of Primo Chameleons returns to share how he has been successful reproducing Parson’s Chameleons.

This series on the Parson’s Chameleon has three parts. The first one was my talk with Craig Durbin on the husbandry of the Parson’s Chameleon. This episode is a talk on the breeding of Parson’s Chameleon. On the next episode I bring on Aaron Allred who has bred Calumma parsonii cristifer, the smaller subspecies of Parson’s Chameleon.

You can find an amazing amount of information on the Chameleon Forums. This recipe was published there and you can find it at the following link.

Garrett Recipe from the Chameleon Forums

This is an old thread. It is amazing what you can find by searching the archives!

The Parson’s Chameleon is one of the most sought after species and, for good reason. It is a wonderful chameleon to keep. The challenges in reproducing this chameleon have kept the Parson’s chameleon rare. But recent successes by some dedicated breeders have given us a chance to enjoy the holy grail of chameleon keeping – captive bred specimens. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Craig Durbin of Primo Chameleons as he shares his experiences with the Parson’s Chameleon.

The Parson’s Chameleon is a genus that consist of two subspecies. The most common is Calumma parsonii parsonii. This is the impressive giant of a chameleon that most people think of when they hear the name. The other subspecies is Calumma parsonii cristifer which is a bit bigger than a full grown male panther chameleon. They both come from Madagascar.

 Putting together a podcast on the Parson’s Chameleon is not an easy thing. Although their care and husbandry for a long lifetime are no more complicated than any other chameleon, their incubation has long been a source of challenge. And it is only in the last couple years that a reliable method has been shared publicly. And now we are starting to see the fruit of that sharing. Captive bred parson’s chameleons are now available on a regular basis. Parson’s Chameleon breeders tend to be secretive and I am very happy to be able to talk with Craig Durbin today. Craig is one of the leaders in the effort to establish Parson’s Chameleons in captivity.

This series on the Parson’s Chameleon will come in three parts. This first one is part 1 of my talk with Craig Durbin on the husbandry of the Parson’s Chameleon. The next episode will be a talk on the breeding of Parson’s Chameleon. I then bring on Aaron Allred who has bred Calumma parsonii cristifer, the smaller subspecies of Parson’s Chameleon.

This episode is all about shopping with more in mind than money. We have a community that we are building and it will be filled with businesses that reflect our values. When you support companies that represent the best of what we can be the entire community is lifted up. When price is the only thing that drives where we put our money then the community will be filled with businesses that excel at the lowest price. The assumption that the quality will not change is naive.

There is more at stake than just how long our product lasts. There are living animals that are affected by the quality of our community. When we demand the lowest price where do you think corners are cut? There is no reason to throw money away, but since lives are at stake we have an added responsibility to demand quality over price.

Our high ideals are only worth the money we put behind them and what we are willing to sacrifice to keep them.

The reptile community of which we chameleon people are a part of is like any other community. It is made up of hobbyists and businesses catering to their needs. Today we are going to look into the pet business at the corporate level. I am going to talk about how we as consumers create and shape the community at that level through our decisions. And how “actions speak louder than words” is more than just a cliché.

 

Most of you know me as the host of the Chameleon Breeder Podcast, but I do have an alter-ego. A secret identity. When I put my glasses on, no one in the chameleon world recognizes me and I move about unnoticed as a mild mannered Product Marketing Manager for the consumer electronics industry in Silicon Valley. This requires me to create business plans around each and every product I create and those business plans need to fit together over the next five to ten years to get the company where it wants to go. It may surprise you to know that these plans have more to do with how people work and how businesses are more an extension of human beings than they are about the product.

 

It is through this lens that I’d like to share some views on our industry. The overall pet industry to start with and then we will end in the reptile industry. To understand our industry we need to start with what was the most basic building block – the pet store.

 

Pet stores. How do they stay in business? The answer is, of course, many don’t. It is a very tough arena to make some money. But the basic formula is you sell pets and then sell the pet supplies for that pet’s life. Pets themselves are a very dicey product. They can die on you for a complete loss and the longer they are on the shelf the less profit you make due to their feeding and care. To all of you that want to have a pet store so you can have animals all around you, reality is not going to be kind to your dream. But the business person sells the pets to get the customer that will come back every week and buy food and dry goods. And this is where the profit is. Now enter in some clever business people who had the thought that they could remove the risk of live animals and just get the safe profit of dry goods. Sounds like a perfect idea and something that made that MBA program pay off! And thus was born Petco. For all the grousing about animal care at Petco do you remember that when they first opened they did not have live animals? Petco was boring for me as a kid. So what happened? Well, what happened was that everything was going according to plan until one major glitch appeared.

 

Petco followed the plan perfectly. They allowed the independent pet stores to sell the animals and then they, with their volume deals, were able to offer lower prices on dry goods and snapped up that business from the independents. I am sure those MBAs got healthy bonuses for their genius. Until it wasn’t going as well as it was supposed to. If you remember, the sale of pets was not the profitable part of being a pet store. It was the sale of the dry goods. When the profitable part of the business disappeared, so did the business. There were no longer as many people buying pets – because the pet stores were going out of business due to Petco out competing them on price. Without pets, people did not need pet supplies. Petco was forced to carry live animals so that they could maintain a flow of dry goods customers! They would love it if someone would take over the sale of live animals. Live animals are a major headache and then you get all these internet activists coming in and whining about husbandry. But until there is a way for someone to be profitable selling animals they are stuck doing it themselves. Here is a very real world example of how our spending habits mold our community. I am not passing judgement here one way or the other. Were animal care conditions better at the pet stores? Maybe not. I am sure some were and some weren’t. The point is, that in our quest for the cheapest price we created the Petco situation. Now, we reptile people are a small slice of the pet industry so I am not sure how much we ourselves can influence the Petco situation, but we have the exact same dynamics going on in the reptile industry and we do have a measurable influence here. I ran across quote not so long ago that was to the effect of “I highly dislike this company because they sell unhealthy animals and have subpar practices when it comes to their animal husbandry. Nothing wrong with their products though. They have the cheapest price.” That caught my eye. There is a lot going on in that statement. With the wonderful internet we can search for the lowest price and we snag it. It doesn’t matter where it comes from. We saved $10 and $10 means a couple of Frappuccinos from Starbucks we didn’t have before. It is important to be wise with money. But remember that the sale of animals is the gathering of customers for the dry goods in this industry. Every breeder here who accurate tallies up their costs realizes that profit is not easy with live animals. And this is why importers want to move the animals ASAP before they die or have to be fed obnoxious amounts of profit. So if you do not agree with a certain company’s treatment of animals, buying dry goods from them is not the best way of reacting. We seem to have this idea that criticizing one product or part of a company while dumping money into another side of the company is effective. It is not. You have to look at the entirety of the picture.

 

For example, what do you think about the care of animals in the company you support – meaning where you put your money? The easiest way to sell animals is to bring in wild caught and turn them before they die or eat your profit up. But animals are what initially bring in the interest with us in the reptile world. Unfortunately, that takes a huge amount of investment, care and attention to produce and offer captive bred reptiles.  But this is what Josh’s Frogs does. Josh Willard who started Josh’s Frogs has said that he will sell only captive bred reptiles and amphibians. He has put his money where his mouth is and has set up both the facilities and the management to make this happen. Josh’s Frogs is a business that started in Josh’s apartment with frogs and fruit flies and is now on Inc magazines top 5000 fastest growing companies list. Part of Josh’s success is due to getting into dry goods and you can now buy all the standards there. He has played the game. Get big enough that you can move volume enough that you can offer the low prices. It is not easy to do that and is very risky. I don’t know their financial numbers, but I can guarantee you that a newly minted MBA would look at their operation and tell them to drop all the captive breeding stuff. This captive bred policy is a decision based on a personal vision from Josh of how the industry should be. Do you agree? Purchasing from Josh’s Frogs and being vocal about why you are doing it makes a huge difference. Do you see the difference between “Go buy from Acme reptiles. I don’t like what they do, but they have the cheapest price.” This says that price is more important than how they conduct their business. And, of course, as long as they are getting your business and your recommendation there is little incentive to change. The alternative is “Go buy from Josh’s Frogs. They really are making a difference in what they do”. This says that price isn’t the most important thing and who they are as a company is.

 

Things are very competitive in the industry and companies will jockey for who has the lowest price. Sometimes Josh’s Frogs will have the lowest price and sometimes Bob’s Mom’s Basement will win the buy box on Amazon. But you can make a real difference by being positive rather than criticizing. If the care that animals get is important to you then make that known. You don’t even have to ever mention Acme Reptile Company to get them to change. Just mention who you believe in and why. If you buy goods from Josh’s Frogs and let people know you are doing that because of how they ethically conduct their animal business then more and more people will agree with that as the reason for going with a certain company. And, yes, buying with a conscience sometimes means you pay more. In fact, even with the same discounts and margin structure I can guarantee that the ethical company will be, at some time, more expensive. What is the first thing Acme will do when it starts losing business? Before it even analyzes the market, it will run a sale or lower prices. Because that always fixed things. And if that makes you come running then take the amount you saved and you now know what your ethics can be bought for. Lower prices makes people who run after money run.

 

And, let’s acknowledge the truth. Money is important. Unless you are off the grid, if you have money you have a roof over your head and food on the table. But take a step back here. Reptile keeping is not a necessity. It is a luxury. I know there is a trend, and always will be, of being proud you saved $20 here or there. It is such a rush to think that we saved money that we will sometimes spend $75 to say we saved $50. Yes, growing your own tomatoes is worth it, but not for the reason of saving money. I know I am not going to reach people for whom money is the most important thing. As a guy who runs the Product Marketing function I can tell you that this is the #1 way you are manipulated. This is why it is better to paint your package green than it is to use bio-degradable materials. It is because the general populace likes to say they are being “green” but they do not want to pay for it. Being morale and having standards is great as long as it is just words, but when you have to give something up or pay more that goes out the window. I wish I was being cynical. Behind closed doors in these marketing meetings we talk about who human beings are and how they want to be seen. These are usually very different. And we have to give you a cover story that makes you feel good while cutting the corners so you’ll actually buy the product. This is one reason why I don’t like consumerism. I have a serious love/hate relationship with my day-job industry of consumer electronics.  And this is the main reason why my Dragon Strand Chameleon cages will never be the cheapest price. I am putting my full efforts into making a quality product and I am increasing the quality every year. I will be smart about what I do and will make it as efficiently as possible – that is all part of being a good business, but it will cost what it costs to do it right. I am so sick of being pressured to use marketing to cover up for product deficiencies that I will never do that in my personal business. I will acknowledge the pros and cons of each design and materials decision and I will work tirelessly to solve the problems I see in the design and materials. There is an immense satisfaction in creating something you know is good. As long as there are enough people who hold those same values I will keep doing what I am doing.

 

But back to manipulation. Companies know that the overwhelming number of people will shut up and fall in line when there is a sale. And you can see the dynamic before your eyes. Can you think of one product that is universally reviled in our community as being evil and a major cause of death in chameleons? Perhaps the Chameleon Kit by ZooMed? Oh, people will get in a self-righteous frenzy over that one. But what happens when ZooMed runs a sale on their X-L screen cages? The Facebook groups are falling over themselves to snap them up. And, oh, the disappointment when retailers are sold out before everyone gets the message and can load up. Do you see the hypocrisy here? Do you see how the message is muddled? And, yes, even though they are separate products, it does matter. Every purchase strengthens one entire company over another. This is in terms of cold hard cash, but also in industry influence. Companies will follow your wallet. Your words are meaningless. Oh, yes, I know, public outrage can make changes, but ever notice how when the dust settles and everyone claps each on the back for a job well done things go back to the way they were? That is because your wallet never changed how it behaved. Now let me say, I am not bagging on ZooMed here. Every company has made good for the community moves and has had to make decisions about compromise. ZooMed brought us the UVB light bulb. It revolutionized our indoor keeping. And then they brought us the Chameleon Kit which is a great concept, executed perfectly from a marketing stand point, but an ethical compromise.  Then they brought us USARK which had a questionable start, but now is the major force in defending our rights as a reptile keeping community in the US. I am glad ZooMed is here doing what they do. We just have to figure out how to deal with the dreaded kit.

 

Every company has its personality and dynamics. While each company really takes on the characteristics of the founder and owner they can be made to adjust. And you do that not by your flowery words, but with your wallet. Sorry folks, it truly does all come down to money. Let that be your action. And let people know why you support certain companies. The reason why this is so powerful is that word of mouth is the best marketing money can’t buy. If you say you purchase your dry good supplies from Josh’s Frogs because of the way they conduct their business with live animals then you are being an example for others to follow and it won’t take long before other people agree and when this becomes just the standard buzz in the community other companies will take note as to why this new company has been able to capture such a market share. And if the community has spoken that the care of animals is important enough that it dictates where dollars are spent for dry goods then present companies and new companies will meet those standards. They will realize that to get the community dollars they need to meet those minimum standards. The high ethical standard just becomes a ticket to play. And everyone wins with that dynamic. There will always be people that want to go into business and the first thing non-imaginative people do is offer something for cheaper price – because that works wonderfully. But if there is a strong community standard they won’t be able to cut corners to achieve that lower price.

And I want to make it clear. It isn’t these companies doing to us. It is our buying habits that create the companies. They will follow what you put your money behind.

 

You can even take this to Reptile shows. Good luck finding great chameleon housing at the shows! People grab a bare cage and throw in a stick and 25 veiled chameleons. People sell Jackson’s Chameleons for $40 and advertise them by putting them on their shoulders and making the chameleons gape for the crowd. What would happen if we all made it a point to highlight people doing it better? Kammerflage Kreations was unique at the last reptile show in that their chameleon cages were filled with foliage. That is not usual for a show where you want to show off your wares, but this was better for the chameleon. Coming to a show is never a great experience for a chameleon, but these seemed to be much more content with the situation than the stick ‘o veileds around the corner. How about highlighting the positive so the industry learns that this is what we expect? I’ll blast it everywhere I can. I did some live feeds from the show and talked specifically about the positives I see happening such as heavy foliage chameleon cages at the Kammerflage booth and the naturalistic displays at the Exo-Terra booth. When we talk, they will listen. If we give free social media marketing to companies that are taking the standards higher then companies will start to compete with who can take the standards the highest just to compete for your free marketing. Make the marketing value of doing it right substantial.

 

The top things I would like you to take away from this episode are

• Companies will follow your wallet, not your words
• If you verbally set a personal value that drives your purchases companies will take note. If that value is price, companies will take note. If that value is business ethics, companies will take note. If that value is quality, companies will take note. You cannot always have the lowest price with the highest quality and the cleanest ethics. It just doesn’t work that way. What you decide can be compromised is up to you.
• We create the community by where we put our money.
• Instead of complaining about a company you don’t like, highlight the companies that show the standards you value. And this doesn’t mean highlighting the competitor of the company that just hurt your feelings. It means making a calm, collected judgement of the core company values – and then talk about it online.

I am training a puppy right now. The whole “sit” concept was confusing and she just had too much energy or couldn’t be patient for the treat she saw in my hand. I have done this before with my other dog so I know the challenges I am facing here. It was going nowhere until my older dog walked into the room. I asked him to sit, he did immediately, and he got a treat. I am sure it is no surprise to you that my little puppy learned sit that moment. And like magic, she now sits whether I ask her to or not as if she thinks if she sits hard enough she can will the treat into existence! This lesson applies to all walks of our life. Complain to a company, tell them how they need to do better, try to smear their name ,…all have limited effectiveness. But give money to the company that does things right and all of a sudden it is amazing how things clean up across all the players! Everyone wants that treat…

 

This was a bit of a different podcast episode. I usually deal with small community business. And that is a subject all its own. Small businesses are much closer to us. We know the owners and we can just message them our thanks or our griefs. The larger businesses are just as much part of our community. Though we can often feel like they are out of reach. And it is true that we may or may not get our email answered. But we can affect behavior. The most effective way to do that is to purchase with a conscience. Be an example where your actions can be followed. Highlight the positive not to pretend the negative doesn’t exist, but to make it know what we should strive for. All business is dependent on your purchasing habits. And if we show that our money goes to business that are a positive in our community then we will enjoy a better community.

 

So where do we go from here? Simple. Take a look at what you buy. If there is a company that is doing it right and is a benefit to the community make it known. When someone asks on the internet where to get a piece of equipment and you know a company that shows strength of character, recommend that company and say why. This is a consumer market and we are in charge of what it looks like. The companies will make what you as the consumer buy and will be what you support. The truth is that we consumers are the ones that create the market we are in. We have literally paid for it.

 

If any one asks me what chameleon cage they should buy it would be strange if I did not recommend the designs and cages that I work on every day. And, of course, I would. But Dragon Strand cages are not the right cages for everyone and there are other companies that sell cages that are healthy for our community. So, for this episode, I am going to encourage you all to consider the Exo-Terra Large X-Tall screen cage. It is a wide format cage at 36” wide, 18” deep, and 36” tall. If Dragon Strand didn’t exist, this is the cage I would get. With its width, this cage is an excellent form factor for chameleons. The biggest drawback to this cage is that it does not have a drainage tray. But this is easily remedied by looking for a dog crate replacement tray. You can get a suitably sized tray that will fit the footprint on Amazon for less than $20. Just search for a Midlands dog crate replacement tray and find the 42” one. You then will just need some supports to prop the cage up an inch so it doesn’t sit in the drainage water. I use PVC rings I cut from Home Depot PVC pipe or just buy a bunch of cheap make-up jars. Anything will do as long as they can sit in water. Then just drill some drainage holes in the substrate tray included with the cage. The cage itself is available from between $100 and $130 from just about any place Exo-Terra products are sold which is just about every place that sells reptile products! I would suggest purchasing from Josh’s Frogs because I admire their dedication to offering for sale only captive bred animals. They usually have pretty competitive prices on dry goods, but what is more important is that they are the type of ethical company I want to see more of in my community and that is worth supporting. And I am willing to forgo Frappuccino’s and more to get a community with those kind of companies.

 

I encourage you to shop smart, shop with a conscience, and think on the big picture. If we all can find some things we agree on and make companies that follow those standards profitable then we can enjoy the community that creates.

It is easy to be smitten by chameleons.  From their colors, horns, tongue, color change, and….just all of what they are, they are truly other-worldly and have a quick charm about them.  Their popularity continues to grow through movie appearances and social media exposure.  In addition, a growing community of breeders has made robust, captive bred chameleons easily available.  But do they make good pets? Today we will discuss what kind of pets chameleons are.

I just got back from one of the west coast’s largest reptile shows. And I saw some examples of how our reptile community is improving when it comes to chameleons and how we still have far to go. But there is one trend that is greatly encouraging. In my time at the show talking to people about chameleons, I ran into a much higher number of people there doing research for a future purchase. This is wonderful! Not only are they researching chameleons, but they are researching who they should talk to and who will give the best advice! They are willing to spend the money for the right equipment upfront. All you experienced chameleon keepers know the truth – chameleon keeping is almost – dare I say, easy – when you set yourself up right from the beginning. Just think of most of the problems we spend our days solving on social media. Wrong husbandry advice. Inadequate equipment. Missing equipment. How many problems do we have to solve with someone who has a proper cage, lighting system, misting system, and supplementation? Not much at all! This show, though, I did much more discussion with people who were taking their research to a step before that. They were wondering if a chameleon was right for them in the first place. Wow. Now there is some insight. When you step outside of what you want and consider what is best for the animal you are bringing into your life you are doing it right. You need to make sure you are able to properly care of this creature and that your expectations are something a chameleon can fulfill.

 

Now many of you listening are long time listeners and are already passed this question. But once people learn you have a chameleon you are likely going to run into this question from them so let’s put our experience into words. I will be directing this podcast to speak to the ones that have been linked here and are asking this question for the first time.

So let’s dive in and ask the question – do chameleons make good pets? I am going to start off by saying that that depends on what we want with bringing another living being into our homes. There are many reasons why we bring animals close to us. Some are for companionship such as dogs and cats, some are for helping with work such as protection or herding sheep, and you could go on and on. Each animal has a certain personality make up that makes them suited for certain roles, and, by the same token, unsuited for other roles. Today’s discussion will focus on what is the personality make up of chameleons, what role can they play, and what role can’t they play.

 

I’d like to start by stepping back and exploring expectations surrounding any sort of pet. We usually think of a pet as form of companionship.

As you have heard on this podcast before, the best pets for companionship, and this means touch, cuddling, and sharing excitement and sorrow are the animals that feel those same emotions and have the same understanding of what touch means. Dogs are man’s best friend because they form social groups that are structured in both respect for authority and affection for pack mates. They play with each other. They feel excitement and they feel sorrow. It isn’t much work for them to accept that we are just ugly dogs with less fur and hands that can open containers with treats in them. Cats have a looser take on social structure and respect for authority, but it is still well within the circle of what we understand. Parrots are further out, but have such strong bonds with their flock members that they can imprint that on humans and become incredibly affectionate family members. Although it is interesting to note that much of the problems with parrots is they have a very strong bond with their flock mates and being kept in a cage with alone time is depressing for them. If you get a parrot you better have done your research into what a parrot needs for emotional health from you as their flock and be prepared for an endless need for attention – especially if you fall in love with a cockatoo. They will self-mutilate if isolated. So even though they have plenty of social structure elements that we do, we still have to acknowledge the differences. The further we get into the animal world the more foreign the social structure. And if we are going to take an animal out of its natural environment and make them part of ours, it is incumbent upon us to adjust to their social structure instead of assuming they will adjust to ours. So let’s review what a chameleon is and if we bring one into our home, what role in the social structure do we play?

 

Let’s start at the beginning. Upon birth, chameleons scatter. Whether digging their way out of the ground or being birthed live, the baby’s first instinct is to disperse and do their best to eat and not be eaten so they can grow up and reproduce. The significance with this is that they have no family concept. There is no benevolent being bringing food and offering protection. So the concepts we humans have as far as love and nurturing when we are children is completely foreign and non-existent to them. They grow up aware of other chameleons as family members or teammates. Other chameleons are competition and only have interaction value when it comes to mating later in life. Until then, others are just more mouths to share resources with.  During all of this there is no such thing as nurturing or bonding with other chameleons. So we need to realize that our idea of touch equating to affection has no equivalent in a chameleon’s life. Except when fighting for territory or mates, they spend their lives hunting for food and hiding from predators. This is important because they still do that when we bring them into our homes. In one of my videos I said “if you want to make your chameleon happy, walk by his cage and pretend you didn’t see him.” This is the kind of pet a chameleon is!

So, can we really consider them pets? By the strict definition of the word, yes, but not if your definition of a pet expects they will have a concept or expression of love or bonding. There is comfort and trust, but beyond that is only delusional humans projecting emotions onto them.

Our biggest miscommunication is in touch. We use touch to explore the world and we hold what we love. Chameleons view touch with soon being a meal. When you touch or pet a chameleon the usual response is for the chameleon to rear back and lift its forearm in defense. Touch is a comfort to many animals – especially ones that nurture and raise up their young. The only thing that touches a chameleon as they grow up are animals trying to eat them or other chameleons chasing them away with a bite. So we have to be understanding of where our chameleons are coming from and recognize that we are the ones that will have to adjust to their needs, not them adjusting to our wants.

 

Okay, enough of this listing what a chameleon isn’t and warning us that we won’t get a cuddle toy or wise sage whispering in our ear. What kind of pet IS a chameleon and if they aren’t going to fetch the newspaper, why are there so many people enthralled with this creature?

 

What Kind of Pet is a Chameleon?

 

I think the best way to think about a chameleon is like a fish. We create a world that they live in, we maintain the world, and then we enjoy having this slice of nature in our homes.

 

A pet chameleon is very much a natural piece of art. They are more something to be watched than something to be held and played with. This is the first thing a new keeper must accept. You will always see some keepers bragging about how tame their chameleons are and how they love to be out.  There are some exceptional chameleons that seem to have no problem with humans. This is on the normal scale of personality variation. But you can’t expect this or else you will most likely be disappointed.

Even captive hatched and raised chameleons retain much of their wild instincts that say that anything bigger than they are (that would be you) will probably eat them. Chameleons are intelligent and we can tame them down. But the most we can hope for when we say “tame” is that they tolerate us and will eat out of our hands. As I said, exceptional chameleons are out there that are just plain friendly, but they are rare and you don’t want to set yourself for disappointment by expecting your chameleon to “love” you.

 

A chameleon really doesn’t do much. They are content to sit and watch the world go by. They will move to their heat lamp in the morning then to their breakfast bowl for the morning meal. They then slink into their foliage to wait until something else happens. Though this life sounds incredibly boring to us remember that chameleons consider their day a win if they did not get eaten! Do not worry about your chameleon getting bored!

 

You may now be wondering why there are so many dedicated chameleon keepers for a pet that is, at best, tolerant of our presence. The answer is that we are fascinated with the world of the chameleon. The chameleon world is not for everyone and there are definitely reptiles that are much better at human interaction! If you are looking for a fun pet reptile then a chameleon may not be the right choice. If you are looking for a chameleon and nothing else will do then you are among friends here. If someone asks if they should get a chameleon I usually say no and see if they press. Considering the amount of work and expense that goes into keeping a chameleon I am waiting for the person that is so enthralled with chameleons that they cannot imagine not having one. And this is not an elitist test for those worthy to join the secret fraternity. This is a recognition that the only person that will enjoy what a chameleon is is one that is motivated, through fascination, to research deeply into what a chameleon is and how to create an environment that that chameleon will thrive in. It is not that keeping a chameleon is hard. Quite the contrary – there is so much good information, qualified mentors, and top notch products available that anyone who is motivated will have all the elements necessary to be successful. Heck, just a couple weeks listening to previous episodes of this podcast during your commute to work will give you more than enough information to make it work. But you have to be willing to put in that effort for research. The bottom line is that recreating a forest edge environment to mimic a tree 6 feet off the ground in a living room cage is not intuitive. So there isn’t a short cut.

 

Wait a minute, you say. The guy at the reptile show said all I needed was this little screen cage and a branch inside with this real cool dual bulb light fixture. That doesn’t sound like a whole lot of research! Nope, doesn’t take a whole lot of research for them to take your money and hope your chameleon lives past whatever warranty they may or probably do not offer. There are now 119 podcast episodes on chameleons in just this podcast. I have the rest of season four blocked out and season five is almost filled. You do not need to know everything that is in these podcasts to be successful with your chameleon, but you do need a great deal of it. If you want to bring a chameleon into your life you will become a researcher. You will be introduced to a completely different world view and you will be growing every month as you begin to better understand it. If you are just now considering whether you want a chameleon or not then the question stands – are you fascinated enough to enjoy learning new things? If you have already bought a chameleon based on advice that implied this all was simple then the question is– are you willing to essentially start over and relearn quickly?

 

A chameleon is the kind of pet that becomes a research project very quickly as you learn about UVB lights, supplementation, feeder insects, hydration strategies, and the list goes on and on…

 

In summary, a chameleon is more of a pet to watch and care for rather than one to interact with. The successful keepers are researchers that are looking for ways they can better provide a natural environment. The ones that fail are forcing their chameleon to come out and play and adjust to the human life.

 

Initial Set-up Costs

Your initial set-up costs are important. You must be prepared to spend the money upfront to get the right set-up. This will include a cage, misting system, UVB lighting system, and a captive born chameleon. (Notice I am not even considering a wild caught chameleon for you). You can budget anything from $300 to $1500 depending on your desires for function vs. quality and species. But work it out ahead of time and be ready with the costs. In next week’s podcast I will dive into initial set-up costs for a chameleon and apply real numbers to real products and we will hammer this out together.

 

How Life Changes

Let’s get on to how your life will change with a chameleon. Not only do we have to ensure our mind is in the right place, but that our lifestyle works.

 

Live Insects as Chameleon Food

Food first. Chameleons eat live insects so are you up for crickets that jump and chirp, superworms that may nip you, encouraging flies to come around, and keeping anything that has the name “roach”? Make sure that live insects will fit into your life. These insects must not only be alive, but nutritious. This means that you are not just dumping bugs from the pet store in the cage, but that you are keeping insects for 48 hours. Not only are you keeping insects, but you are feeding them and making sure they have the best care. You will have to be comfortable around insects.

This means you personally, your family members – especially if someone else is paying the mortgage or rent, and the owners of the property.

If you are the type that is fascinated by a chameleon, chances are that you will soon develop a fascination for the insect world. It turns out they are just as amazing as your chameleon and many of us end up breeding them under the guise of saving money on buying feeder insects. But, somehow, they never make it to the chameleon cage!

My wife went from screeching every time a cricket jumped or superworm pinched her finger to now being a insect breeder. She also went from just tolerating all these chameleons hanging out to building her own gecko breeding group for fun. So change does happen! But be aware that it doesn’t happen immediately and make sure you have a plan for the insects soon to be in your life. Take stock of the situation around you and make sure live insects will work.

 

Maintenance

And, of course, you need to make sure you have the time and money for maintenance. Maintenance for a chameleon consists of cleaning the cage, caring for the feeders, and keeping the hydration source filled. How long this takes depends on your initial set-up. Mostly in the hydration. Buying an automatic misting system is the one biggest time saver. Other than that, taking care of the insects requires more time than the chameleon! You have spot cleaning of picking up a non-smelling poop that probably has dried out around every other day. You make sure the water reservoir is filled and the automatic light and misting systems are functioning. Then it is just watching chameleon body language to see if they need anything more.

Costs can add up. You are buying feeder insects and supplements, saving up for a vet visit if necessary, and replacing UVB lights every 6 to 12 months depending on manufacturer. The insects are really the biggest monetary expenditure. If you get them shipped the shipping is not kind.

I want you to also consider your house environment. Many homes do not have air conditioning. How will you keep your home in the proper temperature range during the summer? Heating is more simple as a basking bulb is effective. But cooling is another matter. Most common chameleon species are comfortable in the 70s F. Low 80s will be okay, but get into the high 80s and 90s and there is no escape. Do you live in a house where you are forbidden to use the air conditioning or set it in the 70s? Because that would be trouble that you need to consider!

 

Other Pets

Speaking of trouble. – other pets! If you already have other pets you’ll need to do some planning as to where your chameleon cage will be. Chameleons will not like the animals we humans often keep around us. Dogs, cats, Parrots, and little kids are all potential predators and will stress your chameleon if they are in visual range.

You will need to arrange things so that cats cannot climb onto the cage and nap there. Dogs are easier as they usually are just running back and forth on the ground. Chameleons may be able to totally ignore these fur things rummaging about if the chameleon’s cage and highest perch are paced far above the action. Birds are a natural chameleon predator so the chameleon should not be able to see any pet bird larger than itself. The simplest approach is to ensure that current pets are not able to be seen by your chameleon.

A special note is that chameleons will not get lonely. Putting two chameleons together in a cage is not a good idea. Pet stores and reptile show vendors often try to sell chameleons as pairs and say they can be kept together. This is simply not true.

 

Kids

I am sure that many people listening to this are parents deciding whether it is a good idea to give in to their kid’s request to get a chameleon. And that is an individual decision based on what you know about your child. My universal answer to this question that has stood the test of time for many years is that chameleons are a great pet for parents with children who will learn responsibility by watching how their parents take care of the chameleon. Chameleons are a horrible pet for a child to take care of. Don’t get your kid a chameleon. Get yourself a chameleon so you and your kid can enjoy bonding while learning about it. Chameleons are not forgiving of neglect.

 

Who would be the perfect chameleon keeping candidate?

Chameleons are a link back to nature. The perfect chameleon keeping candidate will be one that is wanting to recreate a chameleon environment so they can bring out as many natural chameleon behaviors as possible rather than force a chameleon to adjust to the human world. Chameleons do best with keepers that are content to keep a distance and watch. Chameleons will require a great deal of attention, but none of it will be appreciated! You need to be okay with that! You will spend much time learning about this gentle mini tree dragon. Your reward will be an amazing insight into this world. Everything is connected. To understand chameleons we must understand the world we share with them.

 

So, what are chameleons like as pets? They are a window to another world. And that is more the necessary mindset than it is poetry. They have to be seen as something alien that we are getting to know. They sit in their cage hoping that no one finds them, but still feeds them. So they really aren’t that great as an emotional pet to be cuddled. But as an intellectual pet that is meant to stimulate your mind and imagination they are, in my opinion, unmatched.

 

Where do we go from here? You have some thinking to do. Chameleons are a more demanding reptile than others. It is expensive to set them up and they require a great deal of attention to detail. If you are looking just for a cool reptile I suggest you avoid chameleons. Although certainly cool, they are not for the casual interest. Get a chameleon if only a chameleon will do. That is how I got into chameleons. There just was no other option in my mind and I was willing to do what it took to have them around me. If you still are not sure, listen to some other podcast episodes that sound interesting and you’ll get a better feel for what this chameleon thing entails. Lurk on some social media sites dedicated to chameleons. I have been known to frequent a Facebook group called “The Chameleon Enthusiasts”. Check out www.chameleonforums.com and just look around at the conversations. If this all seems like it is too much then it is probably best to pass this one up. If what you hear and read excites you even more then it sounds like you are a good candidate to care for a chameleon!

Reptile shows are a blast to go to. You get to see your favorite local vendors and the national brands all in one space. Today we are going to talk about chameleons and reptile shows.

As I record this I am preparing to visit one of the West coast’s largest reptile shows – the Reptile Super Show in Pomona which is a city in Los Angeles, California. I will start to vend shows soon, but this weekend I am just visiting as one of the mob.  I have no intention of adding anymore members to my personal Jurassic Park. But I do have more cash on me than usual, just in case…So today we are going to talk about shopping at reptile shows.

Reptile shows are a great opportunity to purchase a chameleon. Now I am sure you are tired of hearing me harp on researching first before you purchase. I fear I will offer you no respite on this episode. Going to the show with a bunch of cash and an open mind is a heck of a lot of fun, but is a very bad idea. Each of these reptiles has different needs and I am sorry to say that the show is not a good place to learn about a new reptile. Oh, the vendors will certainly give you the “its easy” talk. Kind of like that 5 minute youtube video on how easy it is the put up a deck for your backyard. You will be sent away feeling like you can do it.

But let’s talk specifically about chameleons. If you are listening to this podcast you are what we would call a sophisticated customer. The only way to find this podcast is if you are looking which means you are researching. Even if you are still taking it all in and wouldn’t dare consider yourself expert enough to give advice, if you have spent any time listening here you will have just absorbed at least a general feeling for things. In all my talking about plants and a floating garden and a living environment you are going to look at the aquarium with woodchips on the bottom and one stick leaned from corner to corner and a chameleon half the size of the cage and you are not going to think “wow, if that is all I need, keeping a chameleon is going to be easy!”. You are going to be thinking. “I cant put my finger on it, but something tells me that isn’t what Bill is talking about when he says your chameleon should be able to disappear into the floating garden in your cage.” Unfortunately, many customers at the show will be leaving with inadequate equipment and a new found excitement which is going to be left in a heap of whimpering ashes when they go on social media to show the cage set-up that the show vendor said was all they needed for their pair of veiled chameleons.

But the fact that you are listening to this means you are in the community. It doesn’t matter how many times you have or haven’t been around the block. You are ahead just by knowing that the block exists and where to find it! And you know enough to catch me on the fact that I have no plans to bring anything home, yet I am bringing cash.  Well, I have been around the block a couple of times and I will give you a secret. Spend the year researching every possible option and have a garage full of various types of cages, lights, misting systems, and have an active feeder breeding project that supports everything from baby chameleons to adult parson’s chameleons and suddenly, you can honestly say you have researched everything and are completely ready for anything the show can throw at you! And, yeah, my wife didn’t buy that either…oh well. And she is wise to my tricks by now. She can ask that probing question “So….what are you planning to bring home?” just ASSUMING I would think of bringing something home. The nerve! And, of course, I’ll tell the truth and  I’ll say something like “You know, I really don’t think there will be any chameleon’s there that I will want.”

Moment of silence as I wonder if I got away with it and she ponders my audacity to think I could get away with that.

“I should hope not since the only two cages sitting empty are suspiciously set-up like they would house a captive born juvenile emerald tree boa or a couple of dart frogs.”

And this, my friends, is the danger of being married to a reptile savvy spouse.

Bill, what is in this cage?

Oh, just a bunch of nepenthes plants and satin pothos. Cool, huh?

Her eyes slightly narrow

Bill, what is going to be in this cage?

Now, I am sure you will all back me up here, if your spouse doesn’t know the difference between when the cage is just raising cool nepenthes tropical pitcher plants and when there is a quiet arboreal reptile in it – does it really count?

Of course, I am just kidding. Do NOT surprise your spouse with a new reptile. That is just trouble. Seriously. And I am also kidding about those conversations back and forth with my very cool wife Yvette. Although we actually do have those conversations it is all in jest as she tests how clever I can be squirming out of her interrogation. Truth be told, SHE has been to a couple of reptile shows unsupervised. And I have had those “Hey, honey, ummm….how are you doing?” calls on her way back from the show. But I admit, her indiscretions are on the level of buying four orchids even though she only needed three and she is clearing her heavily burdened conscious. On the other hand, I have been known to use the words “breeding group” on my phone calls home with a conscious not nearly burdened as much as it should be. So, yeah, it is not hard to tell who needs more adult supervision.

But let’s talk about shopping for chameleons at the show! I am sure you know by now that a reptile show is the place where you will run smack dab into the wild caught vs. captive bred dilemma. Ha! Trick question. There is no dilemma. No wild caught! Captive bred only! But here is where you will have your greatest temptation to make that oooonnnnnnne exception. A beautifully colored or horned adult at fully half the price of a little brown baby thing. It looks healthy enough! Why spend the money for the baby? I am hoping you are enjoying the drama of this as opposed to actually asking that question. Because , unless you are experienced and need this rare adult for your breeding group, wild caught chameleons should not even rate consideration. Captivity stress, parasites, importation health issues…there is so much that is not visible on the surface. If you want a pet chameleon, please don’t get distracted by the wild caught adults. There are many captive bred babies available. They are more expensive and rightfully so. It is very worth it. Especially if you buy from a breeder that will be there to help you care for that baby throughout its life. We have a culture where the dollar amount is of prime importance. We will give up quality or long term value for immediate savings. This is a bad idea when it comes to living chameleons.

I wish that could be the only test. Unfortunately, you have to be careful with captive born or hatched babies. Veiled Chameleons are surprisingly easy to breed which is evident by the aquariums full of veiled chameleon babies sitting on the corner of the table of someone who imports snakes. Really, it takes very little to reproduce veiled chameleons. And this vendor is doing it to have something to sell. Here is where you have $25 veiled chameleons. At the end of the show this vendor will not want to take home these endless pits of eating and soon to be fighting. So, this is giving you an idea of what kind of care these chameleons are getting. Do you think this “breeder” in quotes, really has researched nutrition? Or has cared at all about separating out the larger bullying babies?

It is even worse with Jackson’s Chameleons. Where it takes very little to get veiled chameleon babies, it takes even less to get Jackson’s Chameleon babies. All they have to do is get a bunch of Hawaiian Jackson’s in and kept in a sparse cage and babies will be born. And these people will want to sell jackson’s babies as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Jackson’s babies are not the little tanks that veiled chameleons are. Where veiled chameleons will take and hide a lot of abuse, Jackson’s Chameleons will reward your neglect by dropping dead. So these vendors will want to sell their Jackson’s Chameleons way too small to go to a new home. At the Kenyan Xanth Project we hold babies at least four months, but often 6 months before sending to a new home. I think you’ll be able to tell if the person selling captive born Jackson’s is a serious breeder sharing their art or just someone who picked up ten chameleons wholesale and got babies in the two weeks they kept the mothers alive.

But a show is an excellent place to go and meet the breeder you have been emailing back and forth for months. These shows are an important component to our community where you can meet the people in real life and develop some strong relationships. I will say that the relationships where I have actually shook their hands are the strongest. Go shake the hands of the breeder of your baby chameleon. Go and see which baby speaks to you to come home with you. This is a very special time.

Now, there are always exceptions. Say you are innocently walking the show and keeping your purchases to a bin of nachos that obviously was captive bred at that price and you freeze. There at the corner of the booth is a wild caught carpet chameleon for $75 at a mass importer’s table, but your disbelieving eyes realize this is actually a Kinyongia matschiei which has not been imported for years. Your mind reels at how a rare Tanzanian chameleon was mistaken for a common Madagascar chameleon. Well, there was a mix-up somewhere! And, by the way, this is not a made-up situation. This actually happened a couple years ago while me and a couple other chameleon people were in shock debating what to do. And, yes, it was whisked to a new home promptly. So, sometimes, when you know what to look for, you can find some surprises.

News Flash

And now it is time for a chameleon news flash! You are innocently walking the Reptile Show floor when you spot the most beautiful girl you have ever seen. Those warm welcoming eyes just call to you and that green bumpy body is otherworldly. Yes, you have fallen under the spell of the female Jackson’s Chameleon. And this fascination is not misplaced. Some of the nicest, most gregarious chameleons I have kept with were female Jackson’s Chameleons. There is a warning that I must give you, though. If this is an adult chameleon and it is being sold by anyone besides a very dedicated Jackson’s breeder she has almost assuredly been in contact with a male Jackson’s Chameleon which means she is either gravid or carrying sperm by which she will impregnate herself at some inconvenient future date. If you buy an adult wild caught female Jackson’s Chameleon you need to be ready for babies. Jackson’s are live bearers so there are no overt warnings. If you know Jackson’s well enough to see the signs of the gravid stages then you don’t need this newsflash. If this information is new to you then I am glad this reached you. As fun as it sounds to have babies with that secret dollar sign possibility please just believe me when I say that to raise these babies up is costly and takes some skill. On the Jackson’s Chameleon Community Facebook group we constantly have people panicked and wondering how to take care of baby chameleons and losing many of them. Raising a brood of baby Jackson’s chameleons is not something to take on by surprise. So, if you do decide to get a wild caught Jackson’s Chameleon then your first order of business once she is set up is to start preparing for babies. Just know what to do. You may get them next week or next year, but chances are that you will get them. At least know where the information is that you will need to reference. Jacksonschameleon.org is a great place to start. And this has been a chameleon newsflash!

Now we get to what is going to be a very painful part to this podcast where I am going to go over the things to look for in a chameleon. You will have to use about 10% of this if you get a captive bred chameleon so 90% of this is for wild caught chameleons which I just said we are not going to do! Sigh, I am making myself feel better by picturing a scenario where you walk into a show and see a bunch of Jackson’s Chameleons for $60, but you recognize that they are actually deremensis and action is required NOW. But we must be as comprehensive as possible so here goes.

This is what we are looking for in a healthy chameleon. First, the overall appearance should be one of health and vigor. If you are wondering what this means then just think – does this chameleon look like it is dominating its space with full bulbuous eyes constantly scanning the area. Does it look like it could mean business? Or does it look like life has beaten it down with eyes sunken in or closed. It sounds harsh when I say it like this, but chances are, you are picking from adults that are stuffed into a cage space that is too small for one, much less eight. There may be alphas and there may just 100% chameleons looking like they are imprisoned. The fact is that shows are the saddest place for a chameleon and they will not look their best. Yes, breeders will have babies together, but these babies have been raised together and have been selected out to be size appropriate. Co-habitation like this is not ideal, but they are much more able to handle that situation than wild caught chameleons who are used to their own space. So this is why the babies in the breeder’s cages are look like they are all A grade, but the adults in the mass supplier’s cages look like they have gone a few rounds in the ring before coming to the show.

So we start with that overall sense of vitality. Let’s get into specifics.

Eyes should be active and alert. The eye turret is full. Eyes are open. They are scanning the area and keeping a close eye on you and your questionable self.

Mouth. Get the chameleon to open their mouth so you can check to see if there is any swelling along the dental arcade. That is a fancy way of saying teeth. If there is any green pus or swelling in the jaw area that is what we call mouth rot and it is as nasty as it sounds. Steer clear.

The skin should be clear of anything that looks like it could be called fungus. It helps to have done a google search and be able to tell the difference between shedding and skin disease. Shedding is okay. Multiple splotches of a fuzzy nature is not okay and if you see this I would actually suggest not buying anything from that cage. Don’t touch anything else until you thoroughly washed your hands. Do NOT bring that into your house.

Look for discoloration such as sickly yellow and black areas. This is often seen in the tail or feet areas due to injuries related to pulling a chameleon off its perch. This discoloration indicates trauma that could easily be a broken bone. This is an internal injury and amputation is possibly necessary.

Parasite such as red mites in the armpit or parasitic worms under the skin are possible. External parasites are able to be removed carefully. Sub cutaneous parasites may be a bit more challenging. But there is a vet visit. So much of this will be vet visits. And I am hoping that the number of things that could go wrong with wild caughts and land you with a vet bill will sober you up enough to turn back around and hang out at the booth that has actual long term chameleon breeders!

Toes are important. There can be problems with incomplete sheds and then the stuck shed and substandard conditions and then infection. So if there are swollen toes or limp toes then just know that is a vet visit.

Now, I am going to play the other side here. Chameleons are amazing survivors and they heal from injury. I have had a three legged chameleon that had a bird remove a leg and he some how survived and healed up. I still have no idea how that happened. Toes can be lost and tails bitten off at any length. If the chameleon has healed from the injury it is no longer a threat to its life. This is good news to those of us who need wild blood in our breeding groups and often we are willing to go through the vet visits because of the value of that bloodline. But if you are looking for a pet make sure any injury is healed.

You may even find injuries on captive hatched babies. Common examples include slightly nipped tails and bite marks. Occasionally, cage mates will take to biting tails and sometimes a squabble results in a real bite and you will get this T-Rex mouth shape black ring on the baby. These injuries are usually cosmetic. The nipped tail will scab up and heal, usually, without an issue. Breeders often present these at a discount as “B” grade animals depending on the depth of the bite. As long as the nip is healed there is no danger to health.

The bite ring is usually cosmetic and will disappear after a couple of sheds. There could be scarring if the bite is deep enough. But this is rare in babies. Of course, the older the babies and the longer they are kept together the more serious the injuries can be. Some clutches are calm and others are chaotic from hatching.

Now it is time to talk equipment. When we go to shows we are thinking about the cool chameleon we are getting. I know you are not thinking about the cool quad bulb T5 lighting system you will be picking up. Or the exceptional Dragon Strand Large Atrium Cage that will almost not fit in your car. Or the misting system with double nozzles? You went ahead and used up most of your money on the chameleon, didn’t you? Please tell me I am wrong! But I have been a vendor at reptile shows and my heart breaks when people scoff and say they won’t pay more for a light system than they did their chameleon. So because some vendor wanted to not go home with their baby veileds and blew them out at $25 those babies are now condemned to a substandard and shortened life. Please, get the system they need regardless of how much you paid for the chameleon. And anytime you think that chameleons should be cheaper please remember these words that we hear over and over at shows. Why should I pay more for the lights, cage, or misting system than I did for my chameleon. And when that chameleon gets a respiratory infection or Metabolic Bone Disease do you think this keeper will pay for a vet visit when just the visit is more than the price of the chameleon? High prices are equivalent to a good life for a chameleon. Should we not equate the value of life to what we pay in money? Nice idea. I’d love for it to be reality. Until then we are stuck with what we are as human beings. Ideally, you have planned to bring something home three months ago and spent that paycheck on the equipment so when you went to the show today everything is sitting at home set up and ready for today’s purchase and you don’t have to worry about adding up all the costs at the show.

And finally, let’s get your new chameleon home. Opaque containers are best as the darkness calms the chameleon. Having them in a transparent container keeps them awake and trying to get out.

Now, here is where we have the greatest danger to your chameleon’s life because your chameleon is in a closed container and you are driving home. It takes just a little bit of time for you to be at the right angle for the sun to hit the box that your chameleon is in and then overheat the box. You may be completely comfortable and unaware. And, yes, you need to be concentrating on the road! That is why it is so dangerous. You don’t know that your chameleon is overheating while you are rocking out to the radio. It is sadly not uncommon to hear about this after a reptile show.  And I am sure there will be warnings all over about this. The insidious part about the greenhouse effect is that it happens without you realizing it. And with all the turning that your car does to get home you can’t account for all the ways the sun will hit your car! If I do not have a person holding and supervising the chameleon in their box I put them in the passenger foot area and have the air conditioner going with the foot vents and I prop up the sunshade or something to make sure the sun cannot hit the box. And then I spent the entire drive sticking my hand in this little climate controlled area to make sure it doesn’t get too cold. Every situation and every car will be different. Just come up with a plan. And, for goodness sake, if this unfortunate situation happens to you don’t make it worse by trying to blame the breeder. Nobody wants to acknowledge being responsible for something stupid, but blaming the breeder or demanding a refund is not appropriate or fair. The best approach is to just be very careful and avoid being in that situation in the first place!

Once you get your chameleon home you can introduce your chameleon to their new cage slowly by letting them climb into the cage in a room with little movement. No dogs running around ecstatic that you are home or kids excited to see the new dinosaur. Give your new chameleon a calm time to get used to this new situation. Just plan on not holding your chameleon for a week. Let your new chameleon adjust on his own time. And, especially, if they are captive bred they will probably bounce back quickly. You’ll be giving them space and they will be snapping their fingers demanding a treat to eat. A wild caught chameleon may never truly acclimate. A captive hatched chameleon may be acclimated to his new home within 24 hours. The difference is night and day. By the way, did I mention that you should get captive bred chameleons?

So, I have to say, I am excited to go to the show and enjoy the energy. I’ll look at all the tables and see what there is to be seen. And I hope there are no captive born juvenile emerald tree boas that are well started. Because then I’ll have to call Yvette and ask her how she is doing. And, no, I won’t be bringing home any chameleons. I have empty cages, but I already know what will be filling them and those are coming from specialized breeders. So I am pretty well set. My big excitement is to see my friends and maybe make some new ones. In fact, I’ll be at the Reptile Super Show in Pomona, California on Saturday, August 10. Pomona is the Los Angeles county and that is the city sometimes used for this show. Same thing. And if anyone wants to meet with me let’s do a Chameleon Breeder Podcast flash mob at the Kammerflage Kreations booth at 1PM. They’ll have no idea what is going on because they are so busy preparing for the show they won’t be listening to this podcast until next week so I’ll make my way there and be standing around in my black T-Shirt with a big bright blue panther chameleon on it. That is my Boris the Chameleon shirt! Find me and say hi! A 1PM meet time will give the dedicated show goers that get in at the beginning time to scout out the lay of the land and poke their noses into all the nooks and crannies. They can report back to the people just getting in to let them know where the interesting finds are. I usually try to keep time sensitive things out of the podcast because the people finding this a week or year later won’t be able to take advantage of this opportunity, but just stick around, there will be more shows we will go to! There is some fun stuff we can do in this community!

So, where ever you are, see if there are shows around you and enjoy that part of the community. And I’ll add that this is a great opportunity to get to know and support your local breeders and hobbyists. And, as for me, it is time for me to pack a bag and hop a short flight to go see my reptile friends at the Reptile Super Show! And, if you are going, stop by the Kammerflage booth at 1PM on Saturday and find the guy in the shirt  with the big blue chameleon on it, shake my hand, and make a new friend!

 

In the beginning most of us made our own cages. There were a few chameleon cage manufacturers around if you knew where to look, but home made cages were very common. These were educational, sometimes miserable, projects of passion. I had a wonderful time learning how to work with wood and what it took to build large outside cages. Some of the pieces of my first outdoor caging from over 20 years ago are still acting as garden trellises for my mother’s garden. I experimented with sealing wood with bees wax. I can tell you that process was laborious and expensive. It took many weekends to finish. But, boy, did that cage last a long time.

Of course, we all experimented with screening and, yes, it is a skill that can be developed and, yes, it takes a couple of ugly panels to work it out. It looks easier than it really is. If you want to include screen panels then buy the right tools and just plan for a learning curve to get those panels sufficiently taut. And don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get it right away. It takes time

To start this off we have to get the basic buy vs. make decision out of the way.

Good reasons to make a cage

Cage size does not exist. Each of us has different backyard and room set-ups and have different spaces to work with. You are going to hear the phrase “bigger is better” a lot when talking about chameleon caging. The primary benefit to making your own cage is that you can build a cage that takes up all your space. The more space you have the more microclimates and just plain beauty you can put in the cage. The space you have may not be represented by a commercially available cage. If you have 5’ wide by 5’ tall space consider making a cage that fits those dimensions. This, of course, depends on your construction skill and time available. We all have different thresholds. My threshold is this. I have the skills to create something that would look good in the backyard, but not something that would look good enough in the living room. I could develop the skills to do living room work, but I am not interested in spending the time to develop those skills for something I will make one of. My life is pretty full and I can’t remember the last time I did not have my life planned down to the hour. Between work that pays the mortgage, family, and taking care of the chameleon activities there isn’t anything left. If I decide to spend my afternoon building a new outdoor cage I am taking that away from something else. That is just the way it works. And I have to make that decision. It is healthy to have that time to make things with your hands. And it is not like you have to overthink it, but do value your time. If you want to make your own cage, I highly suggest you do not make a 2’x2’x4’ screen cage or anything else that is out there. Make a cage because you are making something that is better for your situation. That is time spent adding value to your chameleon’s life. That is worth your time.

 

Another good reason to build your own cage is that you have the skills or it would be fun to develop the skills. Building cages is worthwhile because you get to feel like you are at the ground level of building your chameleon’s environment. There is a sense of satisfaction behind it. But, let’s be clear that there needs to be a level of proficiency in design and tools involved in doing so. Many people have woodworking skills or can practice and develop screening skills.  This whole process can be therapeutic, but come at it fully aware that a functional cage is not just a few walls thrown together. There may be tools you need to do the job right. And finding the right materials may take some work. I have to special order and then take a short road trip to pick up 4’ wide PVC coated hardware cloth for my outdoor cages. Once you start making your own cages you start becoming adept on sourcing all those parts! There are skills required so go into this ready to learn and practice.

 

My favorite reason to build my own cage is because what I need doesn’t exist.  This is where we get the innovation that moves us forward as a community. In fact, my Dragon Strand Chameleon Caging Company was started because of this very reason. I was doing wholesale breeding and I wanted an attractive and organized way of individually raising baby chameleons. We know the babies grow faster, less stressed, and without bite marks or nipped tails when they are raised individually. It was worth the investment to me to be able to offer a better quality chameleon. I commissioned the Nursery Cage System to be built by some experienced manufacturers and was so happy with them that I decided to make the cages available for sale and expanded the concept to a rack compatible breeder series. And that is how Dragon Strand started. So, if you need something and it doesn’t exist, make it!

A Not-So-Good Reason to Make a Cage

There is really only one warning flag reason to make a cage in my mind. And that is to save money. Saving money by making a cage is like making money breeding chameleons. 90% of the people who say they are doing it are not properly counting all the costs. You can save money by making cages if you have the tools and are making many cages that the initial cost of any additional tools can be spread out over the entire build project. This also allows you to have less excess material left over after the build.  It doesn’t matter if you used it or not. You had to buy it.

Here is the inside look at those people that post that they made this cage for $10. They are usually not including in the cost of the tools they had to purchase – or they already had laying around- and they are not including the excess material they had to buy but was not used. And, of course, no one ever calculates the cost of time spent learning how to do it and building the skills necessary to make something picture worthy. Considering how inexpensive some of the cheap imported cages are, it is difficult to make something for less money that would be of the same quality.

Should I Spend the Time Making My own Chameleon Cage?

How do you decide if you should spend the time building a cage? First of all, my basic guideline has always been if what I want exists already I buy it. If it doesn’t exist I make it. If you want a 2’x2’x4’ tall screen cage then don’t build it. They are all over the place. There are tools and skills necessary to make it look nice. If the end product is going to look like something you can pick up somewhere then I suggest you just pick it up, have something that looks good, and spend your time with your family or starting that Green banana Roach colony. The real power of making a cage is creating something that is perfect for your situation that commercially made cages cannot offer.

 

Chameleon Cage Making Considerations

Now, the purpose of this episode is not to tell you how to build the cage or give blueprints. Everyone’s situation is different and you will have to select the proper materials and design that corresponds to your application and environment. But I am going to lay out some basic considerations for when you are in that design stage and making those initial decisions.

Considerations

• Material: Unless there is some reason why you are throwing together a bunch of cages and then will throw them away – use high quality materials. Here is where that mentality that you are saving money will bite you. You do not have to be extravagant. Go ahead and leave the gold plated door handles out of this. But get quality materials that won’t break or rust. Every cage looks good when you are finished. But think about three years from now. Your plants have settle in and the cage has a natural feel to it. This is a bad time to have to replace a side of the cage because it is rotted or rusted out. Get the materials you need. Make sure the fine screening is aluminum. Pay extra for PVC coated hardware cloth. And if wheels will benefit you then do not hesitate to get the wheels. Casters can be $12 each, but being able to move the cage so I can clean behind it, find an escaped gecko, or be able to reach that infernal cricket that keeps chirping at 2AM is worth every penny. I have never regretted putting my cages on wheels.
• Be Patient: Like using quality materials, Don’t cut corners in your process. Multiple coats of paint or stain take time. And, gosh, when you have all the pieces cut you want to put the thing together! Who wants to wait around to seal the wood or stain it much less do multiple coats. But do it anyways. Once this cage is up it will last for years. And fixing the cage is a huge pain. Do it right in the beginning.
• Dimensions: Bigger is better, right? Well, mostly. Make sure you can reach anywhere inside the cage. There is a reason why my Dragon Strand cages do not go beyond 24” in depth. That is simply because 24” is the maximum comfortable reach of a standard adult. If you go beyond that you are creating a place in your cage that is difficult to maintain. And that is why I have designed any cage beyond 24” deep to be a walk-in cage. And that takes care of the reach issue.  Make sure you don’t create a difficult situation for yourself. All of my three or four foot deep cages have doors big enough for me to step in. It may not be comfortable, but it can be done if I need to for whatever reason.
• Plan for your water cycle up front. How will you get water into this cage and where will it go once it flows through? Simple, and elaborate, drainage tables have been constructed. I once used rain gutters that emptied into a self-priming pump. Drainage should not be an after-thought or something that you will figure out later. If you are making an outdoor cage then drainage is not really an issue, but if this is for your indoor chameleon room or living room then drainage is a critical component. Plan for it ahead of time. A dresser or low cabinet that your cage sits on can provide an attractive place to hide your misting system water reservoir or drainage bucket.
• We have all tried to integrate dividers into our designs. This is where we build a dual cage system with a common wall and part of the wall slides out so that the occupants of each can interact. Sounds like a great feature for allowing a natural introduction between the male and female. My experience is that dividers are not used as much as you would think and, although they are an in-demand feature, the effort and expense that goes into designing and building in a working divider does not pay off in benefit. Especially since most chameleons species can handle being moved around by a human a couple times a year without an issue. But that is just one man’s opinion and experience. If this is just too good of an idea to pass up then have at. There is no harm in putting one in.
• Fountains: It is common for Do-It-Yourselfers to think that a fountain would be an excellent thing to plan for and add in. I want to caution you that all the advice saying not to add a fountain into a chameleon cage still applies when you make your own cage. Even a large cage. Someone somewhere will be the exception and will be putting in the ongoing effort to make it work. I am still willing to say not to do it. And when that person steps forward please ask everything they are going through to make it work and then you can decide if it is worth it to you.
• Repurpose cabinets, greenhouses, bird cages,etc…: Anything that already is a structure can be a great starting point for you to work off of. You have to be smart about how you water proof it, account for ventilation, and install lighting. One caution I will give though is aquariums. Aquariums are difficult beasts for us. And when I say aquarium I mean the ones that are sealed up so they can hold water. Glass terrariums with built in ventilation are different things. We need air flow and aquariums are designed to have zero flow of anything. Yes, you can put a screen cage on top of the aquarium and yes you can figure out a way to create airflow using fans. But you soon end up putting so much work into modifying the system that the end result is either a standard chameleon cage set-up that has an aquarium attached and would work just great without the aquarium, or it would have been cheaper and easier to just buy the proper cage. Aquariums do great at holding fish. Repurposing them to hold a tree edge from six feet off the ground is a tall order. It can be done, but this falls into the category of why go through that effort to make an aquarium something it is not.
• Electricity: Please know what you are doing. Electricity can cause fires. We don’t hear about this often, but we still hear about fires from electricity in reptile rooms often enough to know the danger is real. We have a number of things that need power and we have ample water being used in our systems. The combination could be dangerous so make sure you have your electrical plan made up and do not cut corners with anything that plugs into the wall.
• UVB: Most, if not all, the standard community advice for UVB is for a UVB bulb going through screen which can cut out 50% strength. If your cage has a solid top and your UVB bulb is mounted on the inside top then you now have a much stronger UVB source. Account for that in your plans as to where you put the basking branch. On one hand, you can’t put the basking branch as close as you are used to. On the other hand, if you are dealing with a larger area then you may wantthat more powerful UVB source. I am mentioning this as a consideration just so you have it as part of your plan. Like everything, these are all tools and will work out beautifully if they are used properly.

Outdoors Enclosures

One of the most obvious applications to build your own cage is for outdoor enclosures. Outdoors is a chance for you to really embrace your options. This is where I build 4’x4x 7’ tall cages for a single Jackson’s Chameleon or a 8’ wide x 4” deep x 7’ tall cage for my male Parson’s Chameleon. If you have that kind of space then the investment in tools, materials, and the time to figure it out is well worth the end result of a heavily planted walk-in enclosure.

Now, outdoors has a whole new set of considerations. You have sunlight, wild animals and neighbors. We have covered sunlight in other episodes. It is intense and will fry your chameleon. All those UV Index readings you see from your chameleon’s homelands? Your chameleons are hiding during those levels. They are hiding in the trees and bushes. So make sure you are providing them trees and bushes. Design-wise, that just means space for large plants and you can’t wait for the plants to fill in for a year. You need to provide cover. Sometimes this means using black shade cloth, but it will probably mean that you spend the money on mature plants up front. And make the bottom of the cage soil. This provides the natural humidity and heat sink properties as well as giving you the ability to have healthy plants. This means you need to have a good plan for the point where you cage will touch the ground. Here is where a pressure treated wood frame base or even a concrete ring comes into play. But have a plan for your cage meeting the ground. I have used a brick platform before and have used pressure treated lumber. Both worked well for me.

For wild animals you have birds and mammals that will try to get your chameleon if your chameleon is crawling or sleeping on the sides. One way to prevent this problem is to frame your cage walls with 2x4s or 2x3s and screen both sides of the frame with ½” or ¼” PVC coated hardware cloth. That 1 ½” of thickness between the mesh layers is enough to protect from many birds and claws, but even that wouldn’t be a perfect protection. Know your local wildlife and do what protection is necessary. Many of our outdoor cages are up against walls and, of course, walls are the highways for critters giving them ample opportunity to notice a chameleon on the side of the cage. I have, surprisingly, had no problem with putting my aluminum screen cages on planter boxes with wheels. The aluminum mesh would not stand up against a crow or racoon or rats that wanted to get in, but having these planter box cages out on the patio away from the walls has done a good job of keeping trouble away. I did have one break in and that was once when the cage was in the garage for the night and next to some shelving which rats climbed up on and wanted the feeder insects inside.

And finally, neighbors. Neighbors are strange things. I prefer to make cages the height of the walls so they are not noticed by my neighbors. But even that will not defend against nosy neighbors. On one occasion some crazy lady looked out her 2^ndstory window and saw my cage hidden in the trees. She then become hyper aware of everything that went on and eventually accused me of being responsible for the opossum population. The next crazy lady neighbor accused me of being responsible for the cricket population. Pointing out that the native cricket species, which I did not use as feeders, had been there all along did nothing to dissuade her. A cricket is a cricket and suddenly she was noticing crickets came out at night. Must be my fault. And neighbors will go to extreme lengths to be in your business. The cricket lady could not see into my backyard unless she stood on her bathtub. She was literally risking her life to be nosy. She called the city on me and we went back and forth. Note, at no time was a cage visible from their backyard or did I have an escaped chameleon or did my activities affect her life at all – except when she was risking her life staring into my backyard from on top her bathtub. But this is what neighbors do. So I suggest being as discrete as possible. Do your best to hide what you are doing from your neighbors and especially from any view from the street. Chameleons have been known to be stolen from backyards. When my last neighbor got nosy as to why I had a bunch of vines in a screened in enclosure I informed him that I raised rare passionflowers and I wanted to keep the birds from stealing the fruit. So consider making the cage up to the level of the wall to avoid questions in the first place and then plant vines around it to, at least make it look like a thing of beauty. There is only so much you can do to disguise a 6 or 7 foot high wood frame, but lots of flowers make neighbors happy and distract their imagination from the horrible beasts you are keeping and the biblical plagues you are preparing to unleash upon the world. And don’t tell them you feed roaches or a rabid mob will show up at your door step in no mood to get a lesson on the differences between blaptica dubia and Periplaneta Americana.

Making your own cage can be a rewarding project and can be a be a way of providing a better life for your chameleon. And it is especially useful in opening up your backyard to chameleon keeping. Evaluate your skill level and time available, ask whether it already exists or not, and, if not, then it is time to draw up some plans!

And, I have to say, I think everyone should seal a wood cage with bees wax at least once in their life! It builds character and a whole lot of patience!

 

 

 

Kinyongia carpenteri. Most of us have not heard of this name. This is a rarely seen chameleon from the highlands of Uganda. Today we have Mario Jungmann, one of the few people to reproduce this species on to tell us about the husbandry. We may never have a Kinyongia carpenteri ourselves, but just hearing about the steps Mario took to figure out the care can help us the first time in whatever species we may bring home.

We hear about Veiled Chameleons, Panther Chameleons, and Jackson’s Chameleons. When we get into the community we are exposed to Parson’s Chameleons, Meller’s Chameleons, and Carpet Chameleons. And the longer we stay the more we get exposed to chameleons that really don’t have common names. Sure somebody somewhere has figured out a common name for all chameleons, but if you used it no one in the community would know what you were talking about! But, find them you will, and the deeper you get into the chameleon world the more you will find these chameleon wizards quietly working in their far off towers with these exotic species – purely for the love of working with the rarest of the rare and unlocking their secrets.

Of course, it is awesome talking to these breeders. They have decades of experience behind them and what they do. This podcast has been a golden opportunity for me, and a couple thousand of my closest friends, to get a glimpse into the breeding projects of these people. As interesting as it may be to hear about the care of a species many of us may not have even heard of, just listening to how an advanced breeder goes about figuring out the care requirements of a species that has little to no literature written about it is an excellent example of how we can approach any new species – even if it has care sheets available.

Today we travel to the Netherlands to a river cooled basement where some of the world’s rarest chameleons are kept and bred. Mario Jungmann has been generous enough to record a second episode with us. His first was about fogging which is a critical component in his success with montane chameleon species. And now I catch up with him to ask some questions about Kinyongia carpenteri.

Kinyongia carpenteri is a canopy species found in the high elevations of the Rwenzori mountains of Uganda. It is a curious species that has a casque like a veiled chameleon and a short horn on its nose. I bring Mario on and we hear about his experiences!

Male Kinyongia carpenteri

Female Kinyongia carpenteri

Juvenile Kinyongia carpenteri