chameleonacademy.com
Dec 2023
Chameleon Academy
Journal
Small Batch Breeding
Chameleons & Bioactive
A Brief History of Chameleon Cages
Chameleon Academy Arboreal Enclosures
Clint’s Reptile Room Grand Opening
3D Printing: Feeder cup & Reptibreeze XL merge plates
iPardalis Podcast
Welcome message
As 2023 comes to a close we can look back at how far we
have come. The Chameleon Academy has been a dynamic
community and the outreach continues to evolve.
Here are some major milestones in 2023!
Cover is a hatchling male Crested Chameleon Trioceros cristatus
I had the immense pleasure of taking you all along with me to
Madagascar - at least virtually! While there I was able to go live on
Instagram from both Ranomafana National Park and Adasibe where
I could take you with me and you could see and hear the forest,
chameleons, and lemurs calling. If you missed these low cinematic
quality, but amazing experiences, they are available to check out on
the Instagram account around the January 2023 time frame.
Live Streaming from Madagascar
This Chameleon Academy Journal!
The iPardalis Podcast w/ Jonathan Hill
This digital magazine you are flipping through right now started
in 2023. It is filling a needed spot where we can relax and enjoy
chameleon content without all the distractions that comes with
social media. Hopefully, you have this full screen and are sitting in a
comfortable chair with the drink of your choice and have shut down
notifications! This Journal has article related to current events in
the chameleon herpetoculture and is a guide to everything going
on in the Chameleon Academy community
The Chameleon Academy Podcast feed officially
became a network with the launch of the iPardalis
Podcast. By bringing more voices on this audio feed
I hope to expand the outreach as our community
grows. Jonathan Hill is covering Panther Chameleons
and the breeding community. To listen in, simply
watch your subscription to the podcast!
Chameleon Academy Arboreal Enclosures
Mini-Chameleon Podcast w/ Michael Nash
Dr. Michael Nash and I are finishing up the final
touches on his podcast mini series that will cover
his experiences in dealing with mini-chameleons
including Brookesia, Furcifer campani, Trioceros
ellioti, and hatchlings of any species. Expect to see
this on the Chameleon Academy Network in mid-
December.
Paul Barclay of Custom Reptile Habitats
and I have collaborated on a new line
of high end enclosures specifically
for keepers of arboreal reptiles and
amphibians. Through this I have been able
to incorporate features that make creating
a bio-active or naturalistic enclosure a
natural and enjoyable effort! I’ll have an
article on these cages in this issue.
6 Hour Season Finale
Yes, we closed the season off in style! With guests and
give aways we had six full hours of live, interactive show
on YouTube! It was one of the more enjoyable season
finales I have experienced! Of course, it is available to
watch again on the YouTube
channel!
I look back on this year as one of the best years in Chameleon
Academy history. So, obviously, 2024 has some big shoes to fill!
But we are going into the new year with a mission and we will
hit the ground running. I’ll talk about that mission in the closing
statement, but, for now, sit back, relax, and enjoy an issue
exploring the art of chameleon husbandry!
Navigating this magazine
This Journal is a way to reclaim some of the good memories for when
we had magazines to relax with on Saturday morning while sipping
our coffee. While we don’t really want to go back in time it doesn’t hurt
to fondly reminisce about the cherry picked good times! This digital
magazine cannot completely replicate that experience, but it can add
some very cool other capabilities! Check out what you can do below. I
call this my “Harry Potter” Chameleon Magazine!
Thumbnails - Shows all pages in a grid
Share - Allows you to send a link to your friends
Download - Download a .pdf version of the issue
Sound on/off - Turn sound on to hear page turns and podcast/videos
Print - Print a static version of the issue
Zoom - Magnify the page to see small print or any details
Search - Will search for words throughout the magazine
Page Turn - Click to turn page. Will show on both left and right sides.
Full Page View - Highly recommended! Full screen experience!
Whenever you see images or text
links that pulse like this, that means
that they are clickable and will take
you to a web page with more detail or
allow you to purchase the item.
Clickable links
If you see the tell tale play button with
a white circle you know that there is a
video embedded there. You can hit the
play button and watch the embedded
video without leaving the magazine.
Just like a Harry Potter newspaper!
Embedded Video
The circle with the miniature speaker
inside lets you know you can press
this and an audio player will appear.
You will be able to listen to a podcast
right from the magazine.
Embedded Audio
Go ahead and try out all the different features!
Small Batch Breeding:
Starting the Discussion
Young male Shamrock Chameleon (Calumma oshaughnessyi)
Introduction to the Small Batch Breeding Concept
Small batch Breeding is a concept where you deliberately limit the number of reptiles you keep in
order to ensure each chameleon you are caring for gets the highest level of care. I first heard the term a
couple of years ago on episode 86 of the Animals At Home podcast with Dillon Perron and TC Houston. I had
been working with the concept of breeder vs. keeper care where the breeder care archetype was focused
on efficiency and the keeper care archetype was focused on large, naturalistic environments. I was working
on how we could have the breeding experience without losing the highest level of husbandry that we could
give. After listening to that episode I had a name for the concept and was intrigued that it was being explored
in other reptile communities.
To give an example, you may decide that you have
space for two large 36” wide x 48” high enclosures and six 24”
wide x 36” enclosures. If you wanted to apply the concepts
of small batch breeding in this example you would get a pair
of chameleons for the larger cages and then arrange to raise
up, at most, six of the hatchlings. By implementing this limit
you are able to experience breeding while maintaining the
highest level care for each of the chameleons. By raising the
hatchlings individually in large cages, there is enough time to
leisurely look for new homes after you have had the experience
of raising baby chameleons. During this time you can evaluate
whether you are able to expand your adult caging. Perhaps
you convert the space of two of the “raise-up enclosures”
for another adult enclosure so you can keep your favorite
one of the offspring and, next time, you only raise four of the
hatchlings. Every situation will be different. The point is that
you determine what your limit is so you do not over extend
your time, money, or space to wake up and find the work of
your hobby has somehow surpassed your enjoyment.
I also want to be clear in my purposes for exploring the small batch breeding concept. When Dillon
and TC were discussing it, they were talking about it being a next level replacement for large scale breeding.
It is certainly worth discussing, but I am not, personally, proposing that in the chameleon community
just yet. In the chameleon community we have a handful of our large scale breeders experimenting with
bioactive, naturalistic, and other advances in husbandry. Whereas the traditional breeder community has
been known to resist change, we have progressive breeders breaking that
mold. I would like to see where they go with their efforts. With progressive
large scale breeders working to improve husbandry from their end and
progressive keepers working to take a smaller step into breeding we may
find the meeting place in the middle not as far off as it seems.
My purpose for exploring the small batch breeding concept is
two-fold. The first is to create a model where first time breeders can gain
breeding experience without losing the keeper level care. If you want
to be a serious large scale breeder then that model is established with
many breeders executing different variations for you to observe. I will be
working on a “half-way” model to optimize the experience and enjoyment.
My second, and much more ambitious, goal with this is to see if we can
establish a network of these small batch breeders that could coordinate
in order to establish a species in captivity. Let’s explore each one of these
goals in little more detail.
Female Brookesia supercilliaris
An Alternative Approach to Gaining Breeding Experience
When we get the idea that we want to step up to breeding our chameleon it is either because we
have had such an enriching experience with chameleons that we want to step up to the next level or else
we have decided we want to be professional breeders. Becoming a professional breeder will be another
discussion. We will have that discussion, though, because it is a common desire and the community is built
on the availability of captive hatched chameleons. So, if you can start off right, you are more likely to not
burn out! Today, though, I want to focus on the keeper who wants breeding experience and it is okay not to
make the most money possible. There is absolutely nothing wrong with selling chameleons to pay for your
projects. But you can have more clarity and consistency behind your decisions if you make a conscious
priority between quality of experience and profit. Once again, profit is what keeps the roof over our heads
so that is important! The idea is that if you can divest your chameleon project from making profit and keep
it at being your hobby and personal enrichment, then you do not have the pressure to consider optimizing
your space or making your set-up more efficient. Therefore, you are able to maintain a breeding project
where you can still sit back and enjoy observing each and
every enclosure with satisfaction.
The core requirement to make small batch breeding
program work is to aggressively limit the number of
chameleons in your home. I used the word “aggressively”
because if you are weak you will easily have double the
number you told yourself was your limit! And this takes
some hard choices. You will have to pass on great deals
and opportunities for other chameleons. And when a
clutch of eggs is laid you will either have to destroy the
eggs beyond what you can handle or send those eggs to a
trusted member within your community. If you cannot bring
yourself to part with, or destroy, excess eggs because, to be
fair, not all eggs hatch, then you need a plan for where you
will place the hatchlings immediately after hatching. Once
again, it would have to be with a trusted member of the
community who is already prepared for them. If you have
profit as a priority, all of these options are hard to swallow.
But if you place enjoyment and an enriching experience as
the top priority you will be quick to stay at, or below, your
maximum population level.
You can start a personal commitment to maintaining a quality mindset by focusing on making the
highest quality set-up possible for your present chameleon and not add another until you have built up
a second one at the same quality level. Further more, you start breeding your chameleon only after you
have put the infrastructure in place (cages, lighting, hydration) to maintain the number of babies you have
decided to grow up. The community usually goes the other way around. We see a chameleon we just have
to have and buy it. Then we think about what cage to get and where it will fit. Switch these around and you
will have a much better experience! Starting and maintaining a small batch keeping or breeding project is
as simple as that! And you can see where this idea of a network of community members supporting each
other - even loosely - can help provide an enriching experience for all involved. Only a small percentage of
the community actually needs to be breeders in this one scenario. Which leads me to my more ambitious
dream of a network of small batch breeders establishing a species in captivity.
Establishing a species in captivity
The biggest roadblock, traditionally, to establishing a species in captivity has been money. We have
known how to breed many species reliably. And they have disappeared from the community anyways.
This is because they were championed by individual breeders and when it became tough to place all the
babies they pulled back on their project. Getting stuck with 30 babies and having to sell them wholesale
for $50 to the local pet store is a quick way to end someone’s enthusiasm for breeding a rare species. And,
yes, that is exactly what has happened to some of the species we would pay $500 each for today. And so,
without a community to buy the babies, the solo breeder goes on to less stressful projects.
Is it possible to switch up this dynamic? Is there a model we can adopt with a network of small
batch breeders where we limit the number of babies we produce to whatever our small network can
absorb plus only a small amount to sell outside the network? There is no reason why we can’t sell any
offspring. We just have to be careful not to let that capitalist tendency which measures success by profit
take over our decisions. But we can definitely still sell the offspring for their value while making decisions
that retain our enjoyment of the project! And this means we limit our production not to corner the market
or inflate value, but to avoid market saturation. Once again,
we do not avoid making money. We just do not let that be
the decision making force! The question is whether this is
possible. Can a network be set-up that is not driven by the
profit model? Or, maybe the real question is - how can it last
longer than the initial surge of enthusiasm that accompanies
starting any new project? And how can it be strong enough
that one member deciding to make money over husbandry
doesn’t bring the whole thing down because everyone else,
deep down, wanted to make more money?
I do not have the answers for these questions. But I
want to find out. And I have a handful of enthusiasts that are
on board with seeing what we can do. So, just hang tight and
enjoy the ride!
If you would like to try your hand at small batch
breeding you can start by applying the concepts to the
keeping part first. Upgrade your current chameleon(s) to
a high quality state. Make them so they are the best your
chameleon can have and they are a beautiful sight for you.
This is a partnership and your desires are important here too!
If it is time for you to step up to a breeding project you can
work with your favorite species or else join in with a group
that has formed. You’ll find a community around carpet chameleons, panther chameleons, and Parson’s
Chameleons. I, personally, am working with the Shamrock Chameleon (Calumma oshaughnessyi). If that
species is of interest to you then I hope to have F1 hatchlings available by early 2025. We will see if I will
be able to get viable eggs this season. But if you are interested in Shamrocks then keep in touch via my
Instagram account or the twice weekly live sessions (Tuesdays at 5PM PST on Instagram and Saturdays at
12 noon PST on YouTube). I will be sharing educational resources for those interested over the next year.
I have been experimenting with establishing new species for a couple decades and I learn something
each time. The most valuable thing I have learned is that it is the experience of trying that is the greatest
benefit. Of course, I would absolutely like, and intend, to succeed! But I also recognize that some of my
deepest friendships and respect has been found when collaborating on projects with my fellow chameleon
enthusiasts. I think it is common for the best stories that are told in the future to be about the journey. So, I
say we live our chameleon life in a way that makes some great stories!
Small batch breeding is a concept and a tool for us to use to better both
our personal experience with chameleons and our community. Just
how well it works depends on what we do with it. Our conversation on
small batch breeding has just begun. I am hopeful that, through further
discussion, keepers will find a more fulfilling way to grow in the art and
science of chameleon herpetoculture.
If you would like to hear more then you can listened to the episode on
Small Batch Breeding on the Chameleon Academy Podcast. You can
listen to this podcast on any podcast app or just press play on the image
below!
This is an audio-only podcast
that discusses the specific ways
in which small batch breeding
can be implemented in the
chameleon community. My focus
is on maintaining enjoyment while
breeding and establishing new
species.
Embedded here is an interview
on the Animals At Home Podcast
between Dillon Perron and TC
Houston regarding the relationship
between small batch breeding
and being a serious breeder. I
will be prioritizing enjoyment in
my discussions, but there is no
reason why you cannot combine
enjoyment with having a solid
breeding business.