PetNcs
Chameleon Enthusiast
HOW TO PREVENT UNWANTED CLUTCHES IF EGGS IN CAPTIVE CHAMELEON FEMALES?
Very often breeders and keepers parott again, and again, the following message, especially to beginners: the females of chameleons will lay eggs even without the mating: they will lay infertile eggs like chicken every second month, regardless what you do. They recommend to have for the females always a lay bin present in the cage and block a substantial part of the bottom of the cage with an unnecessary heavy and voluminous object.
Now, what is the reality? The above mentioned statement is of course wrong, or at least partly wrong. Obviously, unwanted clutches of eggs exhaust the females tremendously and cause them being weak and die young. So, it is desirable to prevent the unnecessary infertile unwanted clutches.
The question is: How to do it? And the answer is very simple:
DO NOT SIMULATE THE BREEDING SEASON!
In the wild, females lay eggs in the breeding season. In both most commonly kept species of chameleons, namely, the Panther Chameleon, and the Yemen Chameleon, the breeding season falls into the warmest and most moist period of the year. And the reason is obvious: the females need to have enough food and higher temperatures for speedy metabolism, enabling them to build quickly the eggs and deposit them to the soil for incubation.
The problem of captivity is: we misinterpret the climatic data and keep the Chameleons based on outdated instructions, recommending to keep them at temperatures, which are equal to the hottest and warmest period of the year its means to the reproductive season.
Many (if not most) commercial breeders do so on a purpose, because if the female stays in the breeding mode, thanks to the surrounding conditions and abundance of food, the female will not lay one clutch in a year like in the wild and then rest, but may lay four or even six making the business P&L positive. Moreover, it is a well known phenomenon, that the number of eggs is proportional to the amount of food eaten by the gravid female. So, they are fed hummongous ammounts of food, become very fat and big and lay instead of 25-35 eggs as in the wild, 50-60-70, in the case of the Yemen Chameleon it may be even over 100 eggs. The result is obviously exhaustion of the females, which are forced to lay more eggs in one year than they would normally lay in their entire life, so that they have problems to recover, to restore calcium deposits in bones, they get sick and die young. And this for nothing or even for evil. If the eggs are infertile, it is waste of the energy and purposeless exhaustion and torture of the females, which often die because they simply can not lay so many eggs or they become so fat, that the fat-body situated in the pelvic region blocks the oviducts, causes inflammation or mummification of the eggs or follicles and subsequent sepsis and death - or, many hundreds of dollars of costly surgery and treatment by a VET, all with questionable result. If the eggs are fertile, all the dangers as above apply too and in the lucky event if laid eggs the luck turns to evil, because there will be dozens (an in case of a prolific female even hundreds) of siblings polluting the captive population’s genome and increasing the inbreeding level of it.
So, to make it explicit, the reason of the unwanted clutches is:
SIMULATION OF THE HOT AND MOIST SEASON
by the care parameters, namely:
OVERHEATING
- too high ambient temperatures (should be low 70sF)(is often above 80F)
- too high basking temperatures (should be 78-80F)(is often 85-95F)
- Too long basking light ON (should be 2times a day max 30minutes)(is as a rule 12h)
OVERFEEDING
- too much food (should be limited so that the adult animal does not gain weight while not growing any more - with the exception of gravidity of course - should be on average one big adult cricket per day)(is often ad-libitum or even excess food left all the time for the case)
- too nutritious food (should be flying insects as BSF, bees, wasps - chameleons are specialist in eating low energy food)(is often beetle or moth larvae or roaches, high in fat and protein)
Disclaimer:
People will often say nonsense, which you please ignore, like:
- “I will not let my baby starve” - and feed it ad-libitum to obesity and death
- “I will feed them as much as they want to, as they can auto-regulate” - and feed them unlimited amount with same effects as above ignoring the fact they can not auto-regulate, as there is not so much and so nutritious food in the wild ever so that they cannot overeat
- “I can not let them cool down, they will not be able to digest” - ignoring that the metabolism speed is temperature-dependent and the lower temperature the less food is the rule - and heat them up, speed up their metabolism and force them to eat more and die young
- “I can not keep them so cool, they would be not comfortable” - and ignore the climatic charts which for Yemen refer to area 6000ft a.s.l. And for Madagascar is nowadays about 5-7 degrees higher than 100 years ago due to deforestation and ignoring the animals spend most time in deep shade
So, once more:
TO PREVENT UNWANTED CLUTCHES OF EGGS:
DO NOT SIMULATE THE BREEDING SEASON:
DO NOT OVERFEED
DO NOT OVERHEAT
Very often breeders and keepers parott again, and again, the following message, especially to beginners: the females of chameleons will lay eggs even without the mating: they will lay infertile eggs like chicken every second month, regardless what you do. They recommend to have for the females always a lay bin present in the cage and block a substantial part of the bottom of the cage with an unnecessary heavy and voluminous object.
Now, what is the reality? The above mentioned statement is of course wrong, or at least partly wrong. Obviously, unwanted clutches of eggs exhaust the females tremendously and cause them being weak and die young. So, it is desirable to prevent the unnecessary infertile unwanted clutches.
The question is: How to do it? And the answer is very simple:
DO NOT SIMULATE THE BREEDING SEASON!
In the wild, females lay eggs in the breeding season. In both most commonly kept species of chameleons, namely, the Panther Chameleon, and the Yemen Chameleon, the breeding season falls into the warmest and most moist period of the year. And the reason is obvious: the females need to have enough food and higher temperatures for speedy metabolism, enabling them to build quickly the eggs and deposit them to the soil for incubation.
The problem of captivity is: we misinterpret the climatic data and keep the Chameleons based on outdated instructions, recommending to keep them at temperatures, which are equal to the hottest and warmest period of the year its means to the reproductive season.
Many (if not most) commercial breeders do so on a purpose, because if the female stays in the breeding mode, thanks to the surrounding conditions and abundance of food, the female will not lay one clutch in a year like in the wild and then rest, but may lay four or even six making the business P&L positive. Moreover, it is a well known phenomenon, that the number of eggs is proportional to the amount of food eaten by the gravid female. So, they are fed hummongous ammounts of food, become very fat and big and lay instead of 25-35 eggs as in the wild, 50-60-70, in the case of the Yemen Chameleon it may be even over 100 eggs. The result is obviously exhaustion of the females, which are forced to lay more eggs in one year than they would normally lay in their entire life, so that they have problems to recover, to restore calcium deposits in bones, they get sick and die young. And this for nothing or even for evil. If the eggs are infertile, it is waste of the energy and purposeless exhaustion and torture of the females, which often die because they simply can not lay so many eggs or they become so fat, that the fat-body situated in the pelvic region blocks the oviducts, causes inflammation or mummification of the eggs or follicles and subsequent sepsis and death - or, many hundreds of dollars of costly surgery and treatment by a VET, all with questionable result. If the eggs are fertile, all the dangers as above apply too and in the lucky event if laid eggs the luck turns to evil, because there will be dozens (an in case of a prolific female even hundreds) of siblings polluting the captive population’s genome and increasing the inbreeding level of it.
So, to make it explicit, the reason of the unwanted clutches is:
SIMULATION OF THE HOT AND MOIST SEASON
by the care parameters, namely:
OVERHEATING
- too high ambient temperatures (should be low 70sF)(is often above 80F)
- too high basking temperatures (should be 78-80F)(is often 85-95F)
- Too long basking light ON (should be 2times a day max 30minutes)(is as a rule 12h)
OVERFEEDING
- too much food (should be limited so that the adult animal does not gain weight while not growing any more - with the exception of gravidity of course - should be on average one big adult cricket per day)(is often ad-libitum or even excess food left all the time for the case)
- too nutritious food (should be flying insects as BSF, bees, wasps - chameleons are specialist in eating low energy food)(is often beetle or moth larvae or roaches, high in fat and protein)
Disclaimer:
People will often say nonsense, which you please ignore, like:
- “I will not let my baby starve” - and feed it ad-libitum to obesity and death
- “I will feed them as much as they want to, as they can auto-regulate” - and feed them unlimited amount with same effects as above ignoring the fact they can not auto-regulate, as there is not so much and so nutritious food in the wild ever so that they cannot overeat
- “I can not let them cool down, they will not be able to digest” - ignoring that the metabolism speed is temperature-dependent and the lower temperature the less food is the rule - and heat them up, speed up their metabolism and force them to eat more and die young
- “I can not keep them so cool, they would be not comfortable” - and ignore the climatic charts which for Yemen refer to area 6000ft a.s.l. And for Madagascar is nowadays about 5-7 degrees higher than 100 years ago due to deforestation and ignoring the animals spend most time in deep shade
So, once more:
TO PREVENT UNWANTED CLUTCHES OF EGGS:
DO NOT SIMULATE THE BREEDING SEASON:
DO NOT OVERFEED
DO NOT OVERHEAT
