Reptile & Amphibian Forums

In the book "The Chameleon Handbook" by Francois LeBerre, he suggests providing a "rest" period before breeding for some species of chameleons. He referred to it as hibernation, and reccommended that you lower the humidity, temperature and food supply for a chameleon to induce hibernation before breeding a chameleon. Besides in this book, I have never head of any chameleon hibernating! Is that necessary?
Anyone have any feedback or anything?

its not really hibernations like you are mostlikly thinking of...n captive care it is usually refered to as brumation(sp)

the animal doesn't fall alseep like a bear or something would.....you simple change the hours of daytime to match a normal sun cycle i would have lights on for about 11-14 hours in the summer and slow lower to day lenghts of 8-10 hours.then change back slowly to summer daylight....change aqourding to months.

I believe this is nescesary for some chams to breed like the mt meru jacksons but most cham doen't need to go through it to induc breeding. if you not going to go through just have between 10-12 hours a daylight everday.

I am about to start breeding veileds, an the females i am getting might not be receptive when i get them; they laid a clutch of infertiles in december. Should i just hope they are receptive and try to breed? Or should i do some photoperiod tricks and elongate their receptiveness?

Also, what should the yearly photoperiod be for veileds? Right now i am keeping the lights on my male 14 hrs a day. He hasn't searched around for a sleeping perch in a couple weeks, and just sleeps on his basking branch, wakes up the next day and basks for the morning, then doesn't go far from the branch during the day. The air temp is too low at the moment and I am trying to figure something out.

You don't need to change anything. They breed when ready regardless of the light period.
As for when to breed, give the female/s time to build up calcium levels and rest. You said infertile clutch was laid in Dec. so a few months rest would be good. Breeding to early after a laying will take a toll and an early death could result..

Ok sounds good, I was hopeing not to have to breed them for a few weeks in the first place, I was just worried they would ley another clutch of infertiles before i got the chance to breed them.
Thanks very much!

For a definition of brumation see my illsutrated glossary at http://www.adcham.com/html/husbandry/glossary.html

Brumation/hibernation seems to be most common among the species at higher latitudes such as the South African Bradypodion species. One would not expect to see it in equatorrial species. Part of the answer likely depends on the species..... which you didn't mention. But very little is known on this topic.

And please be aware that whether you breed a female or not, she needs a proper laying when she;'s ready to lay. Otherwise she has a high liklihood of fying from dystocia (also defined at the link above).
Ed