Chameleon Academy Podcast with Bill Strand

Carpet chameleons are a small species from Madagascar that are named for the intricately beautiful patterns they show. This species has the characteristic of being one of the few where the female is more colorful than the male. Breeding these jewels was, at one time, problematic and there were only brief pockets of success in the community. Kevin Stanford has spearheaded the effort for breeding success and is now working with 6th Captive Generation specimens.

Explore beetles that act as cleaner crews and food for baby chameleons.  Mantises and flies are also covered as we continue our journey into the fascinating world of feeder insects.  They aren't just meals for our chameleons, they are a completely amazing world unto themselves!

Introducing the love of your life to your reptile passion is not always an easy process.  Not everyone warms up to the idea of living with reptiles in the house quickly! But there are ways that you can ease a partner, who is new to this, into the idea.  And maybe they can even find the same passion you have!  But it may take some patience and understanding on your part to make this fly. In this episode we talk about the ten steps to introducing your partner to the word of keeping reptiles.

Nick Barta from Full Throttle Feeders joins us and talks about his business offering exotic feeder insects.  In this first of two parts, Nick and I discuss the different types of roaches, how to care for them, and what they can be used for!  One of a chameleon keeper's favorite afflictions is having feeders so awesome that it is hard to feed them off!

Welcome back to part two of our Chameleons and Water segment. In the last episode we talked about the importance of water and how to get it in the chameleon enclosure. This episode is about what to do with the water that goes into your chameleon cage once we are done with it.

Water is as important to chameleons as it is to us. They need it properly function. So I am probably stating the obvious when I say we must put a high priority on providing water in the correct form for our mini tree dragons. In this episode we discuss hydration tactics for chameleon husbandry.

Get to know the host of the Chameleon Breeder Podcast, Bill Strand. Briana Kammer returns, but this time she is in the host seat!  Inbetween talking about Bill's story, these two discuss the current chameleon community and weave in a vision for the chameleon community going forward.  Listen in to a free flowing talk about past adventures that led to this point, podcast philosophies, and future directions. 

For people who love their chameleon keeping experience this question of breeding naturally comes up.  What can be better than having a chameleon?  Well, obviously – more chameleons!  But it isn't as simple as that. We will explore the reasons, good and not so good, to breed chameleons.      

Explore the relationship between chameleons and stress.  We go over the three stress zones: Comfort, tolerance, and intolerance and then delve into different kinds of stress including stress spikes, internal physical stress, external physical stress, and emotional stress.  Most importantly, we go over the communication that chameleons give you to show that something is not right.

Explore what a career as a Veterinary Technician is like! We speak with Alec O'Brien who works as a vet tech and gives us an inside view of his job and life.  Have you considered a career with animals? Listen in and decide whether a Vet Tech is a direction 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.

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?

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.

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.

Introduction to the Chameleon Breeder Podcast