Bearded Pygmy Chameleon

meow_mix450 · 07-23-03, 11:28 AM

Hi
u might have seen me posting and asking questions about veiled chameleons panthers etc....well im not gonna buy all the different speices im just trying to learn wut kind of species there are and what are the best ones to start of with...and i dont want to get a bad impression that im gonna get all these differnt speices:P i do all my research before i even think about gettin one...but i went to google and tired lookin for some care sheet for bearded Pydmy chameleon but i only got sooooo little information and didnt kno much about it...so i was wondering if anyone knew any good sites on these little guys and give them to me so i can read and understand how to take care of them thanks

Trace · 07-23-03, 11:42 AM

Hello again Meow!

I have a small breeding group of the R. brevicaudatus and I think they are the coolest little chameleons. I wouldn't say they are easy to care for though. I like the fact that they can live in a heavily planted tank and you can keep many females and one male together at once, unlike the larger arboreal species. They also don't take up a lot of room. Problem with the smaller species is food! They eat like pigs and the search for appropriate sized insects can be hard and expensive.

Anyways, click here for a good caresheet.

Hope this helps!

Trace

meow_mix450 · 07-23-03, 11:49 AM

hey
Ya i saw some of ur baby Bearded Pygmy looks really cute...thats why i found them intresting cus they are so small and how they are heavily planted...where would do u get the fruit flies??? i see them in my house once in a while when i leave like a piece of apple etc for more then a week lol but where do u get urs??? and how much would in cost in CDN dollars???(Bearded Pygmy Chameleon) thanks for the site

Trace · 07-23-03, 12:00 PM

Hello again!

They sure are cute, I'm very proud of my little dudes.

Here is an old pic of my set-up for the adult R. brevicaudatus. The tank is 24x12x12 and those are live plants in there. Those plants have grown in considerablely now and some days it's hard to find all of the chameleons in there!

As for bugs, you can buy flightless fruit fly cultures at most pet shops and then all you have to do is maintain the colony of flies. There are many websites with tips on how to grow them, if you don't get instructions when you buy them. More than the flies, I use 1/8" or 1/4" crickets for my pygmy's. Currently I am going through 1000 small crickets a week for those guys.

Prices? I don't see these guys for sale very often, but I would suspect that you would pay between $50 and $100 for each animal.

Cheers!

Trace

meow_mix450 · 07-23-03, 12:07 PM

o wow thats awesome i like wut u did to the cage but u do put a lid on top rite lol??? i dunno u might have been cleaning the cage...Those prices are crazy, but i bet its worth it...i went to the july 6th expo and say one there but i didnt get a chance to ask i forgot but thanks

Brock · 07-24-03, 02:40 AM

Hi,

Yeah those R. brevi's are pretty damn cool. I've wanted a trio for the longest time, but I have never seen ONE for sale locally. If you breed them successfully Trace, I'd be interested in a few. Where did you get yours?

Cage setup should consist of a mixed soil and oak leaves, it should be heavily planted with tropicals you can find for 1-2$ each at your local nurseries or wal-mart, you can have a small water feature such as a waterfall or stream, make sure the water is shallow as they may drowned, and you can add some drift wood and rocks for effect. They don't need UVB since they live on the forest floor and the sun doesn't really penetrate through that low in the rain forests, but some people note that it doesn't harm them in any way, but for this reason, you should supplement vitamin D3 a little more often than you would a larger species of chameleon. They do go through a lot of food and you should have a number of FF cultures going a few months before you get your cham(s).

I've seen them for sale on web sites for 15-40$.

They lay 2 eggs every 2 months I heard, and incubation time isn't very long. If we had a number of people breeding them that would be awesome, I would sure buy a few. I have an 85 gallon tank that I would LOVE to make into a pygmy cham vivarium.

A new species that is really hot in the States is R. ulugerensis (spelling?), they have blue eye turrets and are pretty nice, also a good starter pygmy cham.

I wonder if pygmy chams can be housed successfully with larger species of dart frogs??? Any thoughts? I know they can be housed with some species of day geckos.

-Brock

wyz · 07-24-03, 08:35 AM

Trace these are really awsome !

1000 crix a month ? How many pigmies do you have ?

Will they eat small worm ?

thanks.

WYZ

meow_mix450 · 07-24-03, 11:14 AM

ya i cant find these guys in pet stores either the only time i saw it was the the last reptile expo my frist time going...and cany anyone tell me what kind of live plants you put in the cages?

Brock · 07-24-03, 07:29 PM

Live plants would include small palms, pothos, Ficus pumilia, scheffleria, ivy, prayer plant, cane plant, any kinds of ferns, spider plant, croton, bromeliads (I think they are non-toxic), gesneriads, african violets, chimereas, miniatures, and anything that isn't too bright or waxy that you can find at Wal-Mart.

-Brock

Trace · 07-24-03, 07:32 PM

Hey folks!

I'm going to try and answer everyone's questions at once here.

Meox mix: Yes, I do have a lid and UVB light on their cage. As Brock indicated, the R. brevicaudatus may or may not need the UV light for proper health but due to the fact I have sssooo many chameleons right now, I always have spare UV tubes in the house and I figure it's not going to hurt them. As for the pygmy's you saw at the July 6th expo... they were a trio of R. temporalis... and those weren't for sale as I bought those earlier in the day!

I use Pothos plants almost exclusively in all of my chameleon cages. I find they grow very quickly and are non-toxic in case of accidental ingestion.

Brock: Yes, I will be selling the babies very shortly. I have 2 newborns right now (that I'm keeping) and 4 clutches of 10 eggs that I'm incubating. The first clutch is due about the beginning of August and the last one is due mid September. Keep your fingers crossed that all goes well because I would like to see more of these little guys in Canada. I bought my original WC group at the previous reptile expo in April. Now I do agree with your tank set-up ideas, but I don't like the stream/waterfall idea. I find they do better if the soil is allowed to dry out over the course of the day. I have found that my females always look for the dryest areas to lay their eggs, for some reason they seem to get upset with the constant wet dirt.

So all I do now is heavily mist the cage first thing in the morning and that's it. It seems to be working for me. Holy moly would I love a group of the R. uluguruensis, they are cool little beasts, but I have not seen them available in Canada yet. And lastly, I wouldn't house any other animals with the pygmy's as I feel that you shouldn't mix species at all. I don't have to list the reasons why, you know them. Others may have different opinions though. I'm not the dart frog expert around here.

WYZ: Right now I have 1.2.2 R. brevicaudatus and 1.2 R. temporalis. I have, unfortunately, lost a few of the original females out of the brev group which is why I am keeping the next few babies I get. I need to bring the breeding numbers back up. Yes, they can eat small silkworms, but I just don't have any at the moment, as I have no success with breeding those bugs at all! The prime reason I go through so many bugs a week is I really can't be bothered to keep them alive! Upon arrival here, all of my insects are properly gutloaded before they are given as food to my chameleons, but, if over the course of the week some bugs die off, I'm not going to worry about it. I'd rather spend my time working with my animals than working with the bugs they eat. My time is worth more to me than the price I pay for insects. Make sense?

Cheers!

Trace

meow_mix450 · 07-24-03, 09:10 PM

hey
u gonna sell the other clutches when there a couple of months old or are u gonna hang on to them??? and if u do sell them how much would u sell them for cause i cant find any of these guys anywhere besides the show and from breeders so let us kno
thanks

Brock · 07-25-03, 02:25 AM

Trace, I'll get a few from you if they are reasonably priced, and hopefully I might find some at the Red Deer show next month in Alberta. We will officially start the PYGMY PROJECT CANADA (PPC). We can exchange offspring later on for different blood lines or something, cause I'm sure lots of people would like these guys. I sense they will be very 'hot' this coming year, I don't like to use that term, but unfortunately live animals do go through fads, just like the uroplatus not too long ago, where the hell did they go?

Anyways, I want to know something....Did you get that damn ambilobe yet???????????????????????????????????????????

-Brock

meow_mix450 · 07-25-03, 09:32 AM

lol ya i think more people are getting intrested in these little guys

meow_mix450 · 07-26-03, 06:29 PM

Are there books on these guys on how to care for these guys??? i only kno some websites that have good caresheets ike the one trace gave but i was just wondering if u see books for these guys thanks

Brock · 07-26-03, 06:54 PM

There's some discussion going on at the KS chameleon forum right now, we are trying to figure out why so many females die prior to or before laying eggs.

-Brock