having another go

[Tyzoone]

Hey guys,

It's been a long while as I had a pretty horrible experience with a 4 month old Ambilobe passing away and have been trying to re group these past few years to have another go sometime soon (once my wife supports it....again).

My goal this time around is to take a good 6 to 7 months to get heavily in to feeder breeding and then build up my environment over several months to the point where I'm ready to buy the best part (my cham). Last time I really jumped in head first and within a few months and roughly $900.00 later all I had to show for it was a dead 4 month old Panther and tons of regret. For the record I bought the Cham from a local guy who knew a guy who also knew a guy somewhere in California who would sell for pretty cheap and THIS was the biggest mistake.....

My question is how realistic is it to assume that if I did get in to breeding my own crickets and worms heavily that I could actually provide my own total food source for my next chameleon for a prolonged period of time? I guess what I'm asking is have any of you had real success in breeding your feeders consistently enough to keep a youthful cham happy and full without supplementing with store bought feeders? I also plan on selling them locally for a reasonable price to stick it to the mainstream Petshops around who tend to break the bank

Thanks in advance for your input!

 

[nick barta]

With one chameleon, you will have to sell excess feeders or throw them away.

I would suggest silk eggs, as you can pull them out of refrigeration and use as needed.

Crickets, and Hornworms are not worth the work, and for Hornworms you can buy 50 eggs from Great lakes Hornworm.

Buy 500 mini-superworms, they will grow with your guy. Bean Beetles are great for a new cham and easy to raise.

CHEERS!

Nick

 

[carol5208]

I have never bred any feeder insects at all, but wanted to say I am glad you are getting back into chameleons and giving it another try.

 

[Tyzoone]

"With one chameleon, you will have to sell excess feeders or throw them away."

Thanks guys for the feedback. My concern is I'm almost as excited to breed feeders as I am to raise a beautiful chameleon and I am interested in seeing how easy it would be to sell the excess here locally or possibly even get in to shipping.

Also I've researched that properly gut loaded crickets should be the staple food of choice for your cham and worms n such should be supplementary? Perhaps this is open to debate however?

Either way I appreciate your input fellow cham enthusiasts!

 

[jannb]

Welcome back! A large variety of well gutloaded feeders is best for a chameleon. When you get ready to buy a chameleon I recommend a small time breeder which you will find right here on the forums.

 

[Devokid]

Dubia's are a great feeder that is easy to breed. I have a local guy that sells them for cheap if I ever need any to keep my colony going. They are pretty expensive from most major stores, so I would search for a local guy to get them from.

 

[Tyzoone]

I also wanted to run another idea past you veterans cham keepers. I used to work as a painter for residential homes and we would set up these spray booths with draped painters plastic that we would work inside. It was miserable because the plastic retained ALL the humidity! It literally felt like working in a steaming rain forest! So my question is would it be beneficial to drape the back and sides of my enclosure with this plastic to help retain humidity? I live in a super dry climate and plan on a panther so i was wondering if this would help? The plastic has zero reflectivity to stress out the cham and I don't think air flow would be a problem if the front, bottom and top are the mesh without the plastic....

 

[sapphira80]

I order my crickets from Backwater Reptiles. The prices and quality can't be beat, and I don't think you could raise your own for cheaper with better results. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, just a happy customer.

I do breed my own dubias because they are quite expensive, mainly for my bearded dragons, and supplement for my chams. They are low maintenance, just fed them and clean the setup. They are slow breeders (2 month gestation) so it takes a while to get a colony up and running and producing enough feeders.

But either way, you should be able to breed plenty of whatever for one chameleon and have plenty to spare.

Congrats on getting back into chams and I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience before. Unfortunately bad things out of or control do happen, but it sounds like you have done a lot of research and will be an excellent cham keeper. Good luck!

 

[Tyzoone]

Thanks for the guidance and encouragement sapphire, Yeah it was pretty devastating after all the hard work to have the little guy die.

I guess I should post a little more about my last experience as it may be of aid to someone in a similar situation. I started off contacting a local gentleman who said he had connections to breeders in LA and his prices were about 100.00 cheaper than anywhere else for an ambilobe male. I contacted him and he said he could have one ordered and shipped over night within a few days. This was faster than I'd anticipated and I wasn't quite prepared but I figured I was a hard working guy and could find some supplies by that time. What happened from that point on was honestly just a bunch of settling. By "settling" I mean justifying buying sub par equipment to hurry up for the big arrival.

And this wasn't the worst of it. Once I showed up to the dealers house I noticed it was kind of a chaotic nightmare! He was trying to start a panther breeding operation (in the midst of his dart frog operation) and had 8 to 10 screen cages all full of Jackson and Panther Chameleons. Now I genuinely don't intend to bash this guy to pieces as he was a truly great class of people. But I had done tons of research on this very forum to this point and was going in guns a blazing.

I noticed first thing that he had both a basking lamp and UVB strip lights on each cage. "This is good" I thought to myself. Then upon further inspection I saw that he had multiple chameleons of the same gender within the same cage and all fake fabric or plastic plants.... This I knew was a bit of a pickle as I had researched that fabric plants can cause eye problems with the various fibers they kick off as they wilt and fall apart over time. I blew it off thinking that the second my baby cham arrives I will be at his doorstep so my cham won't be in these cages. This however did not happen. When I got there to pick them up he had them in some kind of all glass terrarium filled with moss and who knows what else.... I picked the one that was the most lively and asked how old they were. He said they were 3 months but they were really about 1.5 months and this was probably the biggest mistake overall. I should have seen how tiny and told him to get back to me when he and some 3 month olds minimum (preferably older).

Anyways, he sent me away with my new cham in a cardboard box with moistened paper towels. I examined him like a hawk and noticed that his right eye had ballooned up like crazy and he was attempting to eject whatever it was in his eye by rubbing it on the side wall of the box. This concerned me and I called him that second. He said it should be fine and that I should monitor it and let him know what I find. I went along with it. 2 months passed and the eye rubbing got more and more frequent. I posted pictures here on the forum and followed the recommendations by the senior members on the forum to flush his eye but never had any extra money to take him to the vet so I resorted to trying my own methods of frequent misting and showers. I also tried 100% saline solution and all to no avail. I called the vet early on after I had gotten him and he said the cham was too small for him to work on and to keep him posted. I should clarify I had no idea which vet to call and called basically the first one I could find.... I had no idea if he even specialized in reptiles let alone Chameleons.

The sad end is that I came home one day to find my chameleon dead on the bottom of the cage and all the mistakes and compromises made me a bitter old man at my young age. I don't know exactly what the cause of death was but I assume it started with the obstruction in his eye and went from there. Now I'll let each of you go through and pick out my many mistakes made during this experience. The point of this story is not to discourage but to encourage beginners to listen to the wise council of the veterans on this forum. It may save you a bunch of money, stress and heartache in the end. This isn't a cheap hobby and was never intended to be. Do yourselves a favor and do it the right way the first time around and try to have the best experience by buying the equipment that gets the best praise (although it may be $20.00 more) and using a reputable "breeder" not a "distributor".

I learned these things the hard way so hopefully you guys n gals don't have to!