Veilded chameleon

I just bought a veilded chameleon. and i am trying to tame him so he's friendly... he is a baby... got him like 3 weeks ago. the pet store told me to leave him for a couple weeks and then to start taking him out for about 10 min at a time so he gets use to it? can anyone tell me other ways or say yeah that would work? he runs away when im trying to get him out of the cage.. but when i get him out he seems to be fine and active . likes to walk around... maybe he is stressing out? some opinions would be great. He is still eating, drinking and everything else.. he has not hissed at me before either. i'll attach a pic....

How can u tell if they are stressed out?

you can hand feed him this is a very good way of interacting with your cham

how do u do that?

You simply cup a feeder insect in your hand and let your cham see it...if he so chooses, he will eat from your hand. Wax worms (in moderation) are good for that as they don't crawl quickly.

I really don't think you can ever "tame" a chameleon. They are simply solitary, unsocial creatures that prefer to be left alone. The more you try to tame him, the more you will stress him. If he tries to get away from you as you try to remove him from his cage, then you probably should just leave him alone. They can learn to tolerate your presence and your hands in their cages, but I really don't feel like they ever like to be handled. Your cham will never be "friendly".

As pointed out, hand feeding is a good way to interact, but some chams never even learn to trust that.

matter of fact a lot of times they will hand feed in the young to adolesent stages, then slowly lose intrest as they get older ( I have head two do this, including my current male)

as stated above let me reinterate, these are NOT "freindly" creatures

My current cham went from seeming to like to ctrawl on me at 2 months old,( I stuck my hand in when it was cleening time and he would come to me and get on for a ride) to complete rejection by 9 months.

It now can take up to 30 minutes to convince him to get on a stick to go to his outside cage. this is still done with food so it is a good idea to hand feed if for no other reason than this.

as far as your question about how to tell when stressed it is in his color. Sleeping is obviously calm color, and when hunting down prey is excited, if you want to really know the mad color....show him a mirror (only do this once so that you can see what PISSED color is. Colors on a cham are unique so it is hard to answer for your cham...it is really up to you to learn. I once had a female who stayed brown (usually a stressed color) when she slept and went placid color when hunting. This is backwards of all the other chams I have had.


hope this helps


Jason

Chameleons are not really friendly. They can become tolerant of handling. The key word there is tolerant. Handling them will stress them out and can cause medical complications if done to much. That being said no one really wants to be bitten by a chameleon everytime they have to clean a cage or do maintainace.

Hand feeding as chameleonare pointed out is a good way for them to see you positively. A hand the size of their body coming at them fast is probably pretty scarey for a chameleon. People hand feed alot of different ways.

One way is to get a cricket or one of his feeders. Open the door on his cage. Try getting your head semi level behind the food. They will want to keep their eye on you and the food. Veileds are pretty aggressive hunters so they will usually come over pretty fast. You may have to wiggle the feeder a bit to get their attention. Keep the food away from them a bit. It is cool seeing the tongue come out to get it.

After they get this down good I like to make them get on my hand. Place an empty hand out in front of the one with the food. Again veileds are aggressive so they will usually advance onto your hand to get a better shoot. Let them chill out and do what they want. Most will go back in the cage pretty quickly. If you can get your veiled to this point then you will have an easy time getting them out of the cage to do maintainance. Once out of their territory most veileds will be a little more passive.

Veileds have a pretty wide array of colors. Some will take on alot of yellow, blue or brown. Because of this it is hard to say what a specific color pattern will appear with different moods. With proper husbandry and some experience with your chameleon you can kind of tell over time.