Breeding true bloodlines

[Chameleoco]

I have quite a large collection of breeders, I have some crosses which are 66% nosy be and 33% Ambilobe and I also have true bloodlines, including Ambanja and Nosy Be.
My cross panthers will mate with any male, I have 200 eggs ready to hatch from crosses.
However my true bloodlines will not mate! nosy be female hates nosy be male and vice versa, and ambanja male hates ambanja female, and vice versa.
Does anyone think there is a reason for this, or is it just a coincidence.
(before anyone bites my head off for breeding crosses, I do this with great care and ALWAYS record my morphs with meticulous care and attention)

 

[Julirs]

My first thought was it is your punishment for breeding crosses, but truly that is a joke. Let me ask-what is your reason for breeding crosses? Is there a market for them where you are, or have you not hatched any yet to discover this?

 

[Chameleoco]

I breed crosses because, yes there is a market for spectacularly coloured crosses where i live and the chameleon market is not as advanced as it is in america. When i offer crosses, i do not sell them in pairs and advise against breeding. My crosses are pets, not breeders.
on my website www.chameleoco.com i have a page called guidlines on breeding and selling morphs which explains my thinkings on this. I do not do it because I am greedy or for money, I do this because I LOVE chameleons and i dont think what I am doing is wrong as I keep such detailed family histories and do not to breed a morph lineage more than once. I never sell crosses as pure bloodlines, as you will see in my website, (if you choose to take a look and I do hope you do, I have seen yours, v. impressed) i am dedicated to the promotion and practice of proper chameleon husbandry and see crosses as a lovely thing to do, as i keep all my chams as pets, not stock and I love to watch how they develop and which traits they take from each proportion of locale. ITS FUN! but i totally understand your concerns!

 

[eisentrauti]

Yeah, you might be true, but you never know what your customers do with your crosses...

 

[Chameleoco]

Yes i understand that, but how do you know that if you sell a true blood, the buyer is not going to breed this with a chameleon from another locale, thus creating another cross? you have to offer as much information as possible to the buyer and use your own judgements as to weather the buyer will be responsible or dishonest. I do not sell to anybody who has not kept chameleons before, or at least lizards. you just have to give out the information that you think will help buyers make informed decisions and not sell to anybody you have even the tiniest amount of doubt in.

 

[ChromaChameleons]

You mentioned having 200 eggs in the incubator.

That would suggest 100 female crosses. With losses you should have 60 - 90 females available for sale .

What type of customer are you able to sell that number of cross females to??

 

[Chameleoco]

I have a friend who owns and manages a reptile shop, who helps out if the numbers get too many but i have a LOT of chameleons. I maybe didnt make myself clear, not all the eggs are panther, a proportion are veiled. i didnt start out to make money out of it, i started out having little knowledge and this meant a lot of babies, i had to care for these babies and that was no problem. I did decide to sell a few and so i set up a website along with a few private ads. I had a large response from the private adds, many from individuals who are quite aware that they are buying a cross (i do not EVER let them think anything else and they are advertised as this) and as the market for chameleons, i think is somewhat different from that in america, many people looking for a single chameleon as a pet do not seek out pure bloods, maybe because there is not enough public information around in the uk about bloodlines or, because it is a pet and they are only looking to take one, they dont mind and a morph will be a lovely mix of colours and create a talking point.
I think i may have inadvertantly started a bit of contreversy here,

 

[Chameleoco]

may i also add, i do not make money out of it, i make HUGE losses with electricity bills averaging 900 £ per 3 months, never mind food.

 

[ChromaChameleons]

My concern is not whether you profit by producing female crosses or not. If you can find homes for them , that s great.

The arguement , that , "they dont mind and a morph will be a lovely mix of colours ", doesn't help when selling monochromatic females.

If your market will absorb the female crosses, then my concerns are allayed.

 

[TreelionsUK]

Man,fairplay that you've done well with your crosses,but this also is terrible news for uk breeders,what about all your females??where are they gonna go??
when your stuck with 60 female then what are you gonna do,yet another reason for uk buyers to buy abroad When these start poping up in the uk labled up as anything its gonna suck big time.
What are you doing producing mutts???
The true locales may have been a challenge,but you must do what you can either by finding more females or new males,

 

[Chameleoco]

there are few and far between breeders where i stay, alot of the time its only through private adds that you can find a chameleon. I will tell you my story, as i think it may help you to understand.... i bought veilds, liked them, so i went to a aquatic center, still with little knowledge and was sold a panther chameleon female. Thats it. this is how my first batch of crosses came about, i was not knowledgable at all. This is unforgivable i know, but i knew no better at the time, and simply had to take whatever came.
I know the importance of keeping bloodlines true, honestly i do, and i do not intend to carry on breeding morphs as my main project. I know that selling females is hard as they show no real diversity between locales and males will be snapped up whatever the locale.
I am not trying to create an array of crosses to flood the market with and wipe out any possible sale of any duller females. In my experience in my local market, panthers are usually (and im not saying all the time or that this is typical of england in general) but panther females and even males sometimes are sold as "panther chameleon" with often no indication of locale or bloodline. I want to raise awareness and i wish that people would buy chameleons based on there natural qualities, but it is sad that, here again in my knowledge, people want a colourful chameleon. I know what you guys mean, im not daft, i know females are the most important part of keeping blood lines true, but I am honest, and people who want to breed chameleons and have a good understanding of chameleons will want a true blood line female and will seek this out. people wanting a pet will not mind a cross. I know there are a lot of people who will wholley disagree with this. Im sorry. I started the thread to ask for advice, i didnt think i would end up explaining myself. I love chams and would not do anything detremental to the heritage.
I always wanted to breed pure blood lines and have gone to extraordinary legnths to acquire true blood line males and females.

 

[jojackson]

You mentioned having 200 eggs in the incubator.

That would suggest 100 female crosses.

How do you come to such a conclusion? Half the eggs will prove female????
please explain why such a perfect ratio should be expected? Is the species temp sex dependant? If they are, are you assuming a particular incubation temp will be used for this purpous and why? He/she already stated they dont sell pairs.

 

[Dean Pulcini]

I think you should cull the crosses and start over. I'm glad your located where ever you are. Just an experienced opinion you cant improve on perfection.

 

[Chameleoco]

you guys on here are NASTY! I am honest about my crosses. I know that in an ideal world we would not have crosses. I wonder though that if they met in madagascar, would they say, oh, actually i believe you happen to be a Nosy be and im a nosy mitsio, so sorry, no action for you today.
Panther chameleons make it into the market all the time without labels. They are bought as "panther chameleons" like i said before with no indication of locale. At least, and im not saying this justifies crosses to those of you who are strongly opposed to them, at least my crosses are labeled. I like to think I am going someway to rectify an already present problem. I alone am not going to be able to educate the whole world in panther chameleons, or even the area where I live, but i hope, and here i go again, i know that you people on here will disagree, i hope that by providing as much information as possible on the panthers i breed, crosses and true bloods, i can help a little bit to make sure that if nothing else the customer knows what he/she is buying.

 

[jojackson]

Just an experienced opinion you cant improve on perfection.

The same could be said of any Reptile Morph! Personally I agree with your sentiment and think 'natural' examples of any given species are awesome enough, but it will always be done. each to there own.
Morphs seem to be more common than the latter with many species. People are even doing it here now, but for the most part the hobby here has a main core of locality pure fans. That said, records were not always kept, closly related species and subspecies were often confused and mistakenly bred, and taxonomy constantly changes, affording more room for error/interpretation, and lastly sellers are not always honest (not referring to chamloco) so many keepers wouldnt know for sure exactly where their animals 'line' originated anyway. Its all based purely on appearance of typical types for the said species, atleast here anyway. Unless you go yourself and catch a wild speciman , you cant be sure 100% of its locality.
I dont think there is any stopping the 'morph' craze, but thanfully plenty of folk are breeding and thus preserving a given species 'originals' for further generation.

My biggest concern with local (wherever you are) species is that if morphs escape they may pollute natural populations.

you guys on here are NASTY!

Noooo! *shock*, I thought it was only me!

 

[Chameleoco]

i doubt any will be escaping as i live in a little town in england where it is not ideal temperatures for chameleons and i doubt they would find anyone to mate with, unless they find small rabbits or cats attractive.
I breed pure blood lines. that is what i am concentrating on. When it was a little hobby for me, none and i mean none of the people i knew had seen a chameleon, and we all thought what most do, they changed colour to siut background blah blah blah.
Then i started really looking into it, and i may not know as much as some of you might, but i am confident that i know a good amount of relevent information. Enough to argue with you anyway. Now i have many chameleons, people are asking questions all the time, I am telling them all about locales and the species and for a small community which knew nothing of these creatures, including me, now know a lot more than they would have done.
I want people to understand about this, i am trying to learn as much as i can and impart this information on anyone who will listen. I know that my morph female is 50% ambilobe and 50% nosy be. I know this because i have a friendly relationship with the breeder and he acheived this morph by mating his Nosy be male with an ambilobe female. "how did he know the female was an ambilobe!?" i hear you shout. I do not have definitive proof, but i do trust this breeder and he has been breeding those bloodlines for a number of years, and i suppose a lot of the time trust is the main issue when buying or breeding chameleons and it is down to the individual to decide if they trust what they are being told. I have sourced my true bloodlines from knowsley safari park and a top breeder who lives in the south of England and has bred generations of blue females so i am possitive of their origins.

 

[jojackson]

i doubt any will be escaping as i live in a little town in england where it is not ideal temperatures for chameleons and i doubt they would find anyone to mate with, unless they find small rabbits or cats attractive.

I wasn't referring to your chameleons you daft dill, unless you have wild natural populations of the species in england!
I meant morphs of any species bred where there are wild natural (not introduced) populations of the same species.

 

[Dean Pulcini]

It's not a matter of being nasty but responsibly you might do the right thing as far as keeping records but what about everyone you sell a female to are they all going to be as fourth coming as you are? I don't think so and yes many chameleons come in mislabeled but you can determine what they are by looking at the males and theirs a good chance that the females are the same locale that were collected with the males. But contributing to this mis- categorization on purpose in my opinion is irresponsible at best.

Dean

 

[Chameleoco]

you do have a very valid point mr jojackson, and as i dont live anywhere near any wild populations of chameleons, had never given this thought as a relevent problem for me. However it is a rather large problem when you consider that these crosses may well escape and dilute natural populations, I was going to argue the point that me breeding crosses would not have any effect on this, but anyone breeding crosses anywhere in the world is running this risk, as who knows where your chameleon will end up. It may seem far fetched but at the end of the day i would not be willing to say that i knew for a fact that my crosses would stay in england.
I do think this is a very important issue. It all started with ME being ill informed at the point of sale, my whole view was that i had to be honest about what i was doing and make sure that while i do have crosses, they are all identified.

 

[TreelionsUK]

Im sure you are honest about the crosses,but sadly this will not prevent them bluring lines in the future.
The cost of raising 200 babies is very expensive,when your left with 60 females,munching there way through your wallet,....you'll be thinking these chams are costing me a fortune to keep! you'll be thinking of selling them,
A bulk buyer will buy them for £20 each and this is the problem,you have no control of where the animals will go.
Most people expect quite a lot from babies now,and most will not buy if they are under 12weeks,can you house all of these animals for this long?and do you really think there is 200 people in the UK looking to buy a panther chameleon??
Breeding chameleons is not a race!Quality not quantity.there is no reason not to put out just 1 or 2 groups of pure locale animals a year,its more fun cheaper and the right way of breeding.