Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I had a clutch of deremensis hatch out back in late May/early June. I have advertised these babes on multiple sites, including Kingsnake classifieds. I am astonished that I still have 8 left. I never dreamed there would be so little interest in them, especially at the price I set. Any ideas on why there is so little interest for animals that are usually only available as imported sub-adults and adults?

Hello,

We have seen your ads.
To be completely honest - the deremensis is not all that popular of a cham species for the pet trade. Currently, not that many folks are keeping/breeding them commercially. Good job with your clutch!!

While we have 2 breeding pairs - and love them dearly, they are not the easiest to keep. We just added many montane species to our collection in the past year - the deremensis included. Many montane species are harder to reproduce too, as their cool environment and high humidity needs often leads to losses.

When we do have a successful clutch, however, we do not think we will be asking the same price as you for the offspring. It is possible that you may have inhibited some sales by pricing them at your current asking price - as I know that we can get sub-adults for 1/3 of that amount. True, they would be w/c - but we haven't lost any of the w/c deremensis that we have purchased.

Don't get me wrong... you are certainly entitiled to ask any amount you desire - but the "pet" seekers may not be willing to pay that amount for a not-so-popular species. Heck, we sell sub-adult jacksons for half what you are asking.

After doing this for a few years now - we certainly know that there is no "fast buck" in raising chameleons. We got into this due to our passion for the animals - and that has never diminished. If we could afford it, I know we would have even more than we already have. However, as it is, we go through close to 10,000 crickets per week - not to mention the other feeders! Feeders go up in price, and we still sell chams for the same prices as 3 years ago. How does that work? *LOL*

Just our $.02..
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Another possible reason: There was some fairly old keeping info on deremensis that ranted about the near 90-95% humidity they supposedly needed to thrive. I think many inexperienced cham keepers still hear that claim even though more recent keepers have found they are not quite that demanding. They are rather a specialists' species being not so big and bright colored as a panther, shy and not as active. Around 1998 there was a big rush of interest as the first true cb babies were hatched, but with cheap imports available it was hard for breeders to compete. People hoping to save $$ on animals kept buying the imports instead. I think they are very beautiful and happen to love them and had good luck with mine. A very stable species to keep if the setup is done right. A facinating thing you might add to your species description: their skin is so sensitive to light that if one is sitting with a leaf between the light and its skin for a while and then moves, you will see a "shadow" of lighter skin in the shape of the leaf. Often mine would show the shadow of a bent leg on their side after moving the leg. They can get a neat soft cloudy white pattern on their skin too that fades in and out with motion. Good luck!