Why bother breeding?

[symphonica]

I know that there are those who breed large-scale, and those who do it as a hobby.

What makes you decide which male to breed with which female, or that your male is even worthy of breeding?

Color? Temperament? Health?

I'm sure there are just some who want to try it, or just want to make money off the babies, without really considering genetics/responsible breeding. I have some male panthers with amazing color, but I feel like it would be irresponsible breeding if I just brought home a female to breed these guys with. At the same time, I feel as though good traits should be bred into the CB community, and contributing to that increase of a good CB population is also part of responsible chameleon keeping.

I'm not asking about the breeding process, but more so the initial reason behind deciding to breed specific individuals.

 

[mcanham]

why:
1. educational
2. incredible to see the process from procreation to hatch
3.. lessen the need for wild caught animals
4. curiosity
5. allow others access to captive born and higher quality animals
6. pay for my hobby (almost)
7. The chance of producing the most beautiful creature alive.
8. Nothing more exciting and overwhelming than watching 30 little critters hatch.
9. Watching little brown chameleons turn into wonderfully colored adults.
10. accomplishment (you were able to provider proper husbandry that allowed for healthy adult that were capable of procreation.

others can add I'm sure. its whatever you want to do. Chameleons don't have to be appealing to everyone in order to give reason. Two chameleons that are considered ugly (not sure this is possible) could produce the next magazine cover. Who knows? Have fun, do it right, and it will amaze you.

 

[symphonica]

why:
1. educational
2. incredible to see the process from procreation to hatch
3.. lessen the need for wild caught animals
4. curiosity
5. allow others access to captive born and higher quality animals
6. pay for my hobby (almost)
7. The chance of producing the most beautiful creature alive.
8. Nothing more exciting and overwhelming than watching 30 little critters hatch.
9. Watching little brown chameleons turn into wonderfully colored adults.
10. accomplishment (you were able to provider proper husbandry that allowed for healthy adult that were capable of procreation.

others can add I'm sure. its whatever you want to do. Chameleons don't have to be appealing to everyone in order to give reason. Two chameleons that are considered ugly (not sure this is possible) could produce the next magazine cover. Who knows? Have fun, do it right, and it will amaze you.

Sorry, I guess that wasn't really what I was asking. I was asking more so what goes into determining whether you should breed your particular guys/gals. Are there certain traits that make you say, s/he should be bred?

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

My male has the best personality of any cham I've ever met - he lets anyone hold him without ever showing stress, he's gone to many educational presentations with me and will shoot bugs off people's hands in front of a crowded auditorium, etc. He has good colors and great bloodlines so I decided to breed him with a female who had pretty much all the same characteristics. She's very social, has good bloodlines with similar coloration pattern. So they're a good match and I feel that they're a responsible contribution to the cb gene pool. I'm hoping one day that I can work with a less established species and wanted some breeding experience under my belt before attempting anything on more difficult species to try to increase likihood of success. So those were my reaons.

I think there should be good supplies of cb babies to decrease wc demand, but in the panther world there is plenty of that already. So the market is more saturated than it used to be and demand isn't as good as it was even a few years ago. There are enough established breeders that it's not enough to be good motivation for small breeders these days.

But it is an amazing feeling to see them hatch and thrive and start growing into their colors. They are beyond adorable as little ones and it's fun to watch them. I really wanted to see if the friendliness of the parents is more environmental or if there's some hereditary component. So far some of the babies are just naturally friendly, and some aren't so it's been an interesting little project to see how they turn out.

What I've learned...it's so expensive to feed babies (even in small clutches) that it eats profits quite a bit. That's not why I did it to begin with, but a lot of people do. It takes a lot of space to house babies because they have to be split into smaller and smaller groups as they age. Plan for them hatching late winter so they can be shipped when old enough so you're not growing out so many of them. Hard to anticipate with variation of incubation times, and in my case I timed it wrong. So I have babies ready to go to new homes but am not comfortable shipping during cold weather so I have a lot of extra mouths and need for more cages, which is getting quite inconvenient. And no matter what, there are going to be some babies that just don't make it, which is disheartening. I'm not planning on breeding them again (or anyone else I have) any time soon.

 

[symphonica]

My male has the best personality of any cham I've ever met - he lets anyone hold him without ever showing stress, he's gone to many educational presentations with me and will shoot bugs off people's hands in front of a crowded auditorium, etc. He has good colors and great bloodlines so I decided to breed him with a female who had pretty much all the same characteristics. She's very social, has good bloodlines with similar coloration pattern. So they're a good match and I feel that they're a responsible contribution to the cb gene pool. I'm hoping one day that I can work with a less established species and wanted some breeding experience under my belt before attempting anything on more difficult species to try to increase likihood of success. So those were my reaons.

I think there should be good supplies of cb babies to decrease wc demand, but in the panther world there is plenty of that already. So the market is more saturated than it used to be and demand isn't as good as it was even a few years ago. There are enough established breeders that it's not enough to be good motivation for small breeders these days.

But it is an amazing feeling to see them hatch and thrive and start growing into their colors. They are beyond adorable as little ones and it's fun to watch them. I really wanted to see if the friendliness of the parents is more environmental or if there's some hereditary component. So far some of the babies are just naturally friendly, and some aren't so it's been an interesting little project to see how they turn out.

What I've learned...it's so expensive to feed babies (even in small clutches) that it eats profits quite a bit. That's not why I did it to begin with, but a lot of people do. It takes a lot of space to house babies because they have to be split into smaller and smaller groups as they age. Plan for them hatching late winter so they can be shipped when old enough so you're not growing out so many of them. Hard to anticipate with variation of incubation times, and in my case I timed it wrong. So I have babies ready to go to new homes but am not comfortable shipping during cold weather so I have a lot of extra mouths and need for more cages, which is getting quite inconvenient. And no matter what, there are going to be some babies that just don't make it, which is disheartening. I'm not planning on breeding them again (or anyone else I have) any time soon.

Thanks for informative reply. Would great bloodlines basically be those established sires that we frequently hear about? I'm into horses, and with them, purebreds are registered and their quality is reflected by their competition history, which becomes documented on their registration. It's hard with chams because they don't frequently attend cham shows and there's very little standard to determine what determines quality. I'd expect coloration to be genetic, but has it been determined whether temperament among these guys also is? I'm assuming it's a mix of nature vs. nurture.

 

[symphonica]

Also, is there a way to predict how female coloration affects offspring? Is it the female's sire's coloration that gets passed down? Should you breed with females with coloration genetics similar to your male's? Like, could you breed a red barred, yellow bodied male with a female with blue-bar genetics, or vice versa?

 

[ReptiGeek]

Also, is there a way to predict how female coloration affects offspring? Is it the female's sire's coloration that gets passed down? Should you breed with females with coloration genetics similar to your male's? Like, could you breed a red barred, yellow bodied male with a female with blue-bar genetics, or vice versa?

Yes, it is the female's sire's genetics that will pass down to future males.
Many people like to stick with red-bar genetics mated with red-bars, etc. But some of the largest companies, such as Kammerflage Kreations, have become well known for their crosses that have caught the attention of most enthusiasts out here. Some stay away from crosses because of future "breeding" plans, but those who are just recreational and enjoy chameleons strictly as pets tend to enjoy crosses just as much as pure breeds.
hope this answered some of your questions

 

[broderp]

I've thought along these same lines since I started reading the forum. Seems like an aweful lot of breeding goin on...

Just like dogs and cats, irresponsible breeding is not good for the chameleon blood lines. To simply say that it makes it a CB pet vs. a WC doesn't quite make it right in my book.

Breeding IMO should NOT be a hobby. It should be done by a reputable breeder who has experience in all the critical traits and requirements to further the species and not just make a buck. I would consider indviduals such as ferritinmyshoes above in the category of responsible, I'm sure many others are not. Truth is, you never know.

Now with that being said, I did get my cham at PetSmart. In my defence, my wife bought him, I had nothing to do with it, but I love my little guy so I suppose I did "feed the machine"

 

[symphonica]

Yes, thanks Geek (lol). I have four males right now, all with great coloration and very friendly. However, they're all different colors. I have no females, so if I were to breed, I'd have to go out to get one just for this purpose. Not sure which color I should go for.

For males, I have a blue/red, red/yellow, blue/yellow, and red/green. See, all different combinations.

 

[NosyBe15]

I chose to breed my NosyBe male Clarence with a NosyBe female due to the fact mentioned earlier. He is beyond nice. Never flares or gets angry, doesnt mind being handled, very active, eats anything out of your hand, and he is the bluest of the blue that Ive personally ever seen in a Cham. I also did it to learn as much as I can and to experience the whole process.

 

[Olimpia]

Technically, taking a red bar Ambilobe and a blue bar Ambilobe isn't making a cross. They're still the same locale, it's just natural variety within a species. So you can breed only red bars together and get pretty much all red bars in subsequent clutches or you can mix the different bars and get a mix of all of them in clutches. But they're all Ambilobes, so they're not considered a cross, not like an Ambilobe and a Nosy Be would be.

I bred my panthers for very similar reasons as Dayna, I wanted breeding experience that could transfer over into different species, but I also thought that my pair of panthers couldn't be friendlier or generally healthier. Otherwise I wouldn't have bred them together, or to anyone.

But now with my Meller's I am aware that we don't have very many breeding adults in the country, so I wouldn't risk what we have by breeding a bad individual. I'm lucky that my three are what I consider to be beautiful individuals, but if one of them gave me reason to doubt that I wouldn't use them for breeding. As an example, say I breed X and Y and say Y has an issue of some sort that isn't immediately obvious (bad health, feeble, whatever), and we get 20 babies. 10 of those babies have the same genetic weakness/fault, but they go on to join other breeding programs and breed themselves. Suddenly an entire chunk of the CB Meller's breeding pool in America has that issue, and it's all down to me. That's just unethical. So I'm very conscious of how valuable or not my Meller's may be towards breeding, and I want to consider each individual very carefully before I add any more to the group.

I think it's vital to think very carefully about what two animals you put together and whether either of them even deserve to breed. That's my 2 cents, anyway!

 

[robmd1]

The reason I started breeding is because I fell in love with the look of the Nosy Falys on Screameleons page waited for a nice one from a great breeder I got one was poseta be a male but rite out of the box it was female so kept her because she was a proven faly female then I just waited till I found the rite male which took awhile, found the rite one that I figured would make sweet looking Falys , few years later im breeding sweet Nosy Falys an more people are now able to pick up a sweet CB Nosy Faly which wasn't easy to do when I started..So i guess you can say i breed Falys because there wasn't many sweet CB Nosy Falys out there and everyone wanted them. I love seeing my babies out there an seeing how they turn out.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Thanks for informative reply. Would great bloodlines basically be those established sires that we frequently hear about? I'm into horses, and with them, purebreds are registered and their quality is reflected by their competition history, which becomes documented on their registration. It's hard with chams because they don't frequently attend cham shows and there's very little standard to determine what determines quality. I'd expect coloration to be genetic, but has it been determined whether temperament among these guys also is? I'm assuming it's a mix of nature vs. nurture.

If only there were cham shows! I want to see cham agility! I chose mine because I had the pictures of the sires going back at least 3 generations on both sides so they're captive bred and by responsible breeders so I don't worry about inbreeding or mixing of locales in the lineage. The colors/patterns are pretty linear genetically so you can get at least general expectations of what the offspring will look like based on the parents, but there are still variations within that set of genes. Knowing the sires on both sides makes it more likely that the babies will color up how I want them too based on their parents. Temperament is a bit of an unknown, which is one reason I wanted to test that part out. I think a lot is nurture over nature but maybe the underlying nature makes it easier to nurture. Still waiting on the babies to grow older to see if that holds up.

 

[symphonica]

Technically, taking a red bar Ambilobe and a blue bar Ambilobe isn't making a cross. They're still the same locale, it's just natural variety within a species. So you can breed only red bars together and get pretty much all red bars in subsequent clutches or you can mix the different bars and get a mix of all of them in clutches. But they're all Ambilobes, so they're not considered a cross, not like an Ambilobe and a Nosy Be would be.

As cool as those designer crosses are, I'm not sure I agree with breeding them, from an ethics standpoint.

So, if you bred a red with a blue, would some end up being red and some blue, or would you end up with both red and blue in one chameleon?

I'm very familiar with genetics, Chi squares, etc., but I haven't been able to find anything about chameleon color genetics. Dominance, recessiveness, sex-linked, multiple alleles?

 

[Zephalia]

I firmly believe that if you are intending to breed, take into consideration what has already been mentioned on this thread:

1.Health
2.Looks
3.Temperment

It's responsible breeding to provide quality animals to the community. In this manner, we can have a healthy CB population and reduce the WC that are being brought over.

I have a WC Jackson's and I don't like that he is but in Canada, we are incredibly limited. I tried very hard to find a CB male with no avail. I looked for a year. Once my two mature and I can get an idea of the above mentioned points, I will consider breeding them. The reason for me to breed them would be to make CB Jackson's available around me and lessen the demand for WC. However, if either of them displays poor health, uncharacteristic looks or a poor temperament...I will not breed them. Until then, they are my loved pets!

Seeing WC hurts my heart.

 

[Olimpia]

As cool as those designer crosses are, I'm not sure I agree with breeding them, from an ethics standpoint.

So, if you bred a red with a blue, would some end up being red and some blue, or would you end up with both red and blue in one chameleon?

I'm very familiar with genetics, Chi squares, etc., but I haven't been able to find anything about chameleon color genetics. Dominance, recessiveness, sex-linked, multiple alleles?

You usually get a mix of both blue bars and red bars in a single clutch, with maybe a few individuals that may show what we call "purple" bars, which are really just dots of red and blue in the bars at the same time, but from afar look purple.

Additionally, panthers can change drastically from one type to the other. So I've seen blue bars mature into red bars and vise versa. So there's a lot of natural variation within the Ambilobe locale naturally, it's really why they're they most popular locale.

 

[symphonica]

Additionally, panthers can change drastically from one type to the other. So I've seen blue bars mature into red bars and vise versa. So there's a lot of natural variation within the Ambilobe locale naturally, it's really why they're they most popular locale.

That's unreal. Usually they end up looking like their sire, though?

Which has a greater effect on them - sire or maternal grandsire?

 

[jmwhitel]

It seems as though getting occasional WC chams is a necessary evil for breeders in order to keep the gene pool broad. I honestly don't know

 

[Olimpia]

That's unreal. Usually they end up looking like their sire, though?

Which has a greater effect on them - sire or maternal grandsire?

They get 50% from either side, the father's and the mother's. So what the offspring look like will depend on what several generations of family members looked like. Some people say the mother's genetics contribute more heavily but this isn't based on any genetic science so I believe it's more anecdotal coincidence than fact.

But so when I look for a specific panther look, say a SOLID red and blue Ambilobe with no yellow or green I look at as many males from both sides as the breeder is willing to show me. I want to see brothers, fathers, uncles, grandfathers, and anything else they may have on record. I want to make sure that red and blue Ambilobes have been bred to red and blue Ambilobes for several generations that will give me the highest likelihood of getting a solid red and blue Ambi. If there are a mix of various Ambilobes in the pedigree then I run a much higher risk of not getting the exact look I want. So just because the father has the look I like doesn't meant there is any guarantee that the sons will look like him.

So it's not just a matter of the sire and the grandsire, we have to remember that females carry their family history as well, and all that contributes!

 

[symphonica]

But so when I look for a specific panther look, say a SOLID red and blue Ambilobe with no yellow or green I look at as many males from both sides as the breeder is willing to show me. I want to see brothers, fathers, uncles, grandfathers, and anything else they may have on record. I want to make sure that red and blue Ambilobes have been bred to red and blue Ambilobes for several generations that will give me the highest likelihood of getting a solid red and blue Ambi. If there are a mix of various Ambilobes in the pedigree then I run a much higher risk of not getting the exact look I want. So just because the father has the look I like doesn't meant there is any guarantee that the sons will look like him.

So it's not just a matter of the sire and the grandsire, we have to remember that females carry their family history as well, and all that contributes!

Thanks. So, I guess you'd be taking a risk when getting an offspring from a WC, seeing as you have no idea of his lineage. The offspring could end up looking nothing like that WC sire.