Chameleon Breeder Podcast With Bill Strand

I talk about what newcomers face when coming into the community and then review the dangers breeders face in today's social media world. The major platforms are hostile towards breeders and I discuss the options of how you can protect your business if your account is removed unexpectedly.

Dr. Rachel (IG/TT: @exotic.pet.vet)comes on and discsses her paper which shows the parasites present in outwardly healthy reptiles at public reptile shows in Texas. We discuss her findings and what they mean for our herpetoculture.

I am joined by Jonathan Hill of iPardalis and we are talking about setting up baby chameleons in small cages. You can use the same environmental conditions as adults, but you have to execute it much differently!

I am joined by Cohost Mike Tytula and we talk about laying bins and my approach to a quarantine cage. But, the highlight of the show is that I promised Mike that I would introduce him to a very cool new species of chameleon that might be available as captive hatched in the next few years! For that we bring on breeder Tim Marks from Leap Habitats who is pioneering the establishment of the Canopy Chameleon (Furcifer willsii) in captivity. This is an amazing chameleon and I think I did good fulfilling my promise!

Today I talk about breeding panther chameleons. It isn’t that hard to get babies, but it is not easy to raise them properly. And selling them is a task all to itself! Hang tight because I am going to go over an overview of the entire process!

The world of parasites is complex and presents us reptile keepers with much to consider! Join me for a thought provoking discussion about parasites and reptile husbandry. 

We want to give our chameleons the best life possible and I go over five simple ways you can make a huge difference with you chameleon!

Isopods are one of the most common invertebrates used as clean-up crew in a bioactive environment. Today I talk with Rus Wilson from Aquarimax and he introduces us to this new world!

Reptile photographer Ferdy Timmerman joins us to talk about his approch to bioactive naturalistic environments.

Setting up a bio-active environment is just the first step. Now you have to maintain it! Today I talk with John Courteney-Smith MSRB about the ways that a bio-active environment could get in trouble and how to prevent that!

Walter Tanpondjou returns to the podcast after defending his PhD thesis and shares the studies he is involved in.

It is common to hear people in the chameleon community say that chameleons need to be in screen cages. Unfortunately, this is usually not the case, but there is no black and white in chameleon keeping and the answer becomes clear once we learn the nuances. So, today, we are going to learn about screen cages.

Today we talk about keeping baby and smaller chameleon species outdoors. I lay out the benefits, the challenges, and some techniques. 

Bioactive envronments have given us success with the rarer species and is a next step for the dedicated chameleon herpetoculturist.

The core of the bioactive system is the substrate. And this wouldn't be the Chameleon Academy if we didn't ask the questions as to what this means! In this episode, Josh Halter, the BioDude, shares with us what we should look for. Josh built his entire business on substrates for the bioactive vivarium! And in this episode he explains what is important when is obtaining or making an effective substrate.

I review the latest updates in Veiled Chameleon husbandry! This is taken off of the newly updated ChameleonAcademy.com care summary that can be downloaded for free from the Veiled Chameleon profile

UVB light is critical for chameleon health.  In this episode we lay down the ground work to understand the basics of what you need to know to create an effective and safe UVB gradient within your chameleon cage.

A chameleon’s eyes are one of the most obvious ways of telling when something is off with our chameleon. Today I go over the most common chameleon eye issues and how to figure out what the problem may be

Water is the key to life. Today, I’ll explore the concept of hydration and how we can develop an effective strategy for our chameleon husbandry

This episode reviews what you need to know about feeding hatchling chameleons.