Chameleon Breeder Podcast With Bill Strand

Today is a serious topic where I give my take on the current amendment proposal to the Lacey Act. This amendment has serious repercussions for reptile keeping and this is no drill. It snuck by undetected in the House and now it is on its way to the Senate. This is an example of how vigilant we need to be to protect our community. I figure it is more than worth talking about this because if this passes, our community will take a serious hit and it is this community which sustains us.

If you have purchased a chameleon egg and are now preparing for caring for a hatchling, this episode will guide you through the steps to make sure that when your egg hatches you will have the highest chance of success.

If you are active in the chameleon community you know how it is when you answer the same question over and over. Is it worth it? That is something we need to answer for yourselves and today I discuss how I look at it.

We need more chameleon keepers with good husbandry having fun on social media and just being visible! As for me, I am going to experiment for the next four weeks with a new format for the Chameleon Academy Podcast!

Today we are going to talk about the kind of special care a female egg laying chameleon needs. My name is Bill Strand and my job here is to help you learn the latest in chameleon husbandry techniques and philosophy. Welcome to season seven of the Chameleon Academy Podcast!

What if there was a test that you could buy that would tell you what locale your panther chameleon was? Jonathan Hill and Ben Morrill, PhD are creating just that test and I have them on to explain how this works and how we can make this a reality!

There are a few books that are prized by chameleon keepers. And my pick for day 12 is two of the best! Both Chameleons of Africa by Colin Tilbury and Mader's Reptile Medicine and Surgery by Divers and Stahl are excellent parts of a chameleon keeper's library! They are high end books so chances are that the chameleon person in your life may not have picked them up yet! You can check them out here.

Today's pick is the Chameleon Forums 2020 Calendar which is made up from pictures of chameleons from our community! These are chameleons that you read about day to day on the Chameleon Forums. If you are not familiar with the forums then I encourage you to check out the Chameleon Forums and find a community that has been thriving since 2003!

UVB is critical to the health of our chameleons. Since we cannot see UVB light, the best way to ensure you have the right levels in your cage is to have a UVB meter. The Solarmeter 6.5 is the industry standard and is widely available. The Solarmeter 6.5 is a prized tool for any serious chameleon keeper and this makes an excellent gift for the chameleon person in your life!

Fogging is a new chameleon hydration technique for many people and is worth setting up. You don't have to change anything else about what you do to presently to give it a test run. But fogging is a great gift for the person wanting to explore chameleon husbandry at a deeper level.

A well lit chameleon enclosure makes for a happy chameleon and makes a beautifully planted cage possible! My pick for day 8 is the Arcadia Jungle Dawn LED bar which gives you that extra light that has allowed me to do crazy things like grow and bloom passion flowers in my chameleon cages!

The question commonly arises - how can I mount horizontal branches and live plants to the sides of my chameleon's screen cage? The Dragon Ledges were designed specifically for us chameleon keepers for that purpose! They consist of a brace that attaches to the aluminum screen frame and a "ledge" on the inside that transfer the weight to the brace and to the frame. The Dragon Ledges allow you to create a floating garden style cage interior that provides for your chameleon's needs!

If you have a chameleon or reptile enthusiast in your family then they may be difficult to shop for. Here is an easy solution! Ask them what their favorite YouTuber or Podcaster is and see if that influencer has a merchandise shop. You could find branded T-Shirts, hoodies, and coffee mugs that will be a surprise of a gift! And the bonus is that purchasing from a content creator's merchandise store supports the videos and podcast shows that are making our community so enjoyable and diverse.

Nutrition is of prime importance for us chameleon keepers and this requires a great deal of work in the care and keeping of our feeder insects. Those crickets coming from the pet store are likely empty shells and need to be fed to be useful! The Repashy Bug Burger product is a powder that can be tied with boiling water and will turn into a nutritious gelatin that can be cut into squares and fed to your feeder insects. This save enormous amounts of time! So I describe my Day 5 gift giving pick of Repashy Bug Burger!

My gift recommendation today is the Log Lunch feeder run cup by Jim Rykbost of Sunset Chameleons! This is a functional work of art which provides your chameleon with feeder insects contained so they don't hide in the cage, but still the movement that chameleons need to recognize food. And they are individually hand carved and painted. A very nice addition to your chameleon cage! If you would like to snag one of these beauties then you can order from the sunsetchameleons website    

Mountain Dragons is a photo journal recording the travels of Jan Stipala across the highlands of Kenya to document the chameleon species there. It is the most beautiful book we have in the chameleon community and is my day 3 pick for great gifts for people that love chameleons. This book is a wonderful one to cuddle up with and would actually be a great gift for anyone who enjoys reptiles or just wants to learn more about the natural world.

My choice for the second gift giving recommendation is a cup of Black Soldier Fly Larva! BSFL (as the are called) are a nutritious feeder that can give your chameleon diet variety. The bonus is that they start as grubs, which chameleons love, and turn into flies, which chameleons love! So, take a listen as to how you can treat that special chameleon in your life!

Join me for 12 days of chameleon gift recommendations where I publish one recommendation a day for the next 12 days! My pick for day 1 of the Chameleon gift giving season is the Repti-Riser by Jason King of Kings Reptiles on Etsy. This innovative product provides an elegant solution to our problem of lifting UVB lights off the top of the cage!

Today we are going to talk about going into this holiday season thinking about the chameleon community. We’ll talk about how we can make a difference just by supporting the small business and content creators that are out there right now. You can even do meaningful support without spending money! Let’s care for our community like we care for our chameleon environments!

If you have an interest in reptiles and sharing that interest with others you can do so by joining the growing number of reptile educators and influencers. But you have to decide just what kind of influencer you want to be. In this episode I talk about what is involved in becoming a reptile community educator.