Chameleon Breeder Podcast With Bill Strand

From the podcast: "Welcome to Episode 004. I have a special treat for you. Briana Kammer, of Kammerflage Kreations is here in the studio. For those that don’t know her, Briana is the customer and social media interface for the most successful and long running chameleon breeding operation, Kammerflage Kreations. If you call Kammerflage chances are you will speak with Briana. Of all the people in the chameleon world, she is likely the one that has the most experience helping first time chameleon keepers get started. Today we are going to talk about what it is like being a beginner and the challenges and questions first time chameleon keepers have these days."

Vacations and holidays are wonderful things and we all need the down time to sample exotic cuisines, but for chameleon people there is always a stress that comes along with the excitement…how do I take care of my chameleon? Chameleons are wonderful, but they do take daily maintenance and, as hardy as they are, we do not like it when our friends go without. So, in honor of the coming holidays, we are, today, going to talk about leaving your chameleon for four days to two weeks and how to pull that off. If you do it right, the worst that will happen is that you’ll feel a low grade stress and your chameleon is still sitting on his same branch, a couple grams heavier, looking at you when you walk back in the door.

Today’s episode 002 is titled Surprise! Chameleon Babies!! Yay!...Yikes!! In honor of all the emotions we go through when baby chameleons hatch or are born. But, you ask, what is the Yikes in there for? Aren’t breeders all prepared for hatch date? Perhaps, but then there are the ones that are surprised by eggs hatching two months before estimated hatch date and then there are the livebearers that can give birth at any inconvenient time – such as 9 months after you have brought back a single female Jackson’s chameleon from the show with no intention of ever breeding her!  You walk down the stairs one morning and instead of a nice cup of coffee waiting for you, you find a cage full of baby chameleons staring at you and one tired momma. Whoa! Talk about needing to find an accelerated crash course in baby chameleon care! I can't say we will cover everything here, but we will touch on the important parts and make sure you are off to a good start!

How do we make for a content chameleon? The answer is to create not only microclimates, but also gradients between those microclimates. We want to give our chameleons the most choices in temperature, humidity, UVB, and privacy as possible.  By allowing our chameleon to choose where they are most comfortable we are putting chameleon care, at least partially, in the hands of the undisputed expert - your chameleon.  All we have to do is give him the tools to work with.  This episode of the Chameleon Breeder Podcast discusses just that.  

Welcome to the Chameleon Breeder Podcast. In this introductory episode I’ll introduce myself, this podcast and give you an idea of what is going on here. This podcast is about the science art of chameleon keeping - and everything that goes with successfully maintaining these amazing creatures. They may not breath fire, but these are our modern day dragons. So this podcast is for the modern day dragon wrangler. You are working the normal everyday 21st century life, but when you come home and look into that cage or walk into the reptile room you are transported to another fantastic world. That is how it is for me and this is what we will be talking about. My name is Bill Strand and chameleons have been a part of my life for coming on four decades now. It all started with a passion for dinosaurs and I, luckily, never grew out of that wonder. I have been a hobbyist, a small scale breeder, a large scale breeder, and an educator in the community. Through this podcast I will bring together major topics and experts i