Drum roll please... introducing...

@Gingero let me clarify that this is not an attack on you or your husbandry, more so just saying not everyone learns discipline and correct husbandry over a handful of videos. I'm pro housing pairs/groups together if it's done correctly and safely, but at the end of the day if I were to do it, I would not use information on that to teach a basic audience, unless I had a dedicated greenhouse to the project to throw out how much space is required. Again, I get you can do it with some enclosures, but I'd leave that to those who have years of Cham experience since these creatures can be fragile.

In the case of your husbandry, it shows in your videos how meticulous you are about your chams and how you've actually invested not just money, but the time to study the species you keep.

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Just wanted to add this in as I figure its worth noting. I've worked on the professional side of the aquarium hobby for years and understand that 90% of fish are much more hardy than chams. That said though, when you see a fish bowl with a goldfish or a turtle in some popular kids movie that came out, every kid in the world wanted just that. I can't tell you how many people I had to explain growth, ammonia cycle, and closed ecosystems for them to understand what they see vs. what they want are two separate things. Sure they could buy a $3 bowl and a $0.25 goldfish and it would live, but doesn't mean it's right. While working in that field for over a decade I had seen some people come from wanting said goldfish to coming in over a 6 years later having a spa reef setup and doing it right. Not everyone is mentally setup to understand that animals have needs outside what most people throw at them (Finding Nemo was the demise of working in the aquarium world) and then there are those in between that realize once they dig into the hobby they get to understand the animals and their requirements. Thankfully I got my degree so I could spend more time with my hobbies in a more positive light.
 
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I strongly encourage everyone who has concerns to contact all the large breeders out there and ask them, "do you ever house any chameleons together in the same cage!" You might be shocked to find out what you learn! It is like saying you can not keep all male dogs that are not neutered! I have 4 male dogs. They play together all the time and never, ever do we have the dogs attacking each other!
 
Gingero said:
I'm just trying to save chameleon lives.

There is certainly a learning curve with creating content for YouTube. And I certainly don't claim to have all of the answers. I'm an avid YouTube user and saw a gap for quality, chameleon specific content making this unchartered waters. I'm still trying to figure out what works best and what doesn't. I am mindful of the experience levels of various chameleon keepers which is why I always try to explain the 'why' behind the way I do things and put up any disclaimers. I make sure whatever it is I'm talking about, I can speak from personal experience and feel confident I'm knowledgeable on. Just a bummer to get this kind of backlash when what I said wasn't incorrect, it just could be taken the wrong way, even when I explicitly state otherwise. Even if someone doesn't find justification for improper chameleon husbandry on my channel, I'd think they'll just find it elsewhere. *sigh* I'll continue to try and minimize any opportunity for misinterpretation of information. I'd like to think my videos are doing more good than harm.

Interestingly enough, according to YouTube analytics 0% of my audience is in the 13-17 age range.
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Not everyone thinks what you’re doing on YouTube is something to be critical of. I admire your passion, enthusiasm and your level of caution with respect to the information you give. You are trying to disseminate what is, to the best of your knowledge, good information using a popular medium. That is commendable. And while that does come with the responsibility of doing your best to relay good information, it certainly does not mean you are responsible for the actions of everyone that watches your videos. You are a hobbyist trying to move the hobby forward! Keep doing what you’re doing!
 
Matt,

Large scale breeders vs. ethical breeders are two different things. Of course you can keep chams together as pairs or trios or what have you, but if done incorrectly there are adverse effects. I bet there are a bunch of breeders out there who keep their animals together with the sole goal of a profit and little care or thought to the animals well being.
 
Tihshho said:
Matt,

Large scale breeders vs. ethical breeders are two different things. Of course you can keep chams together as pairs or trios or what have you, but if done incorrectly there are adverse effects. I bet there are a bunch of breeders out there who keep their animals together with the sole goal of a profit and little care or thought to the animals well being.
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Any chameleon breeder will tell you way to easy to get most chameleons to reproduce to make sacrifices like that! Getting them to breed is not the hard part! Your statement feels quite ignorant! Please do some research!
 
As someone who has experience of being a breeder of other species, I'm going to have to pump the brakes. It's very obvious that when someone states "make sacrifices like that" obviously doesn't understand the animals they are working with. I would never force any animals together that didn't belong as a pair or could not regulate their aggression or need to breed (un-due stress to their mate) to another animal. To force animals to breed by sacrificing their care alone is just immoral and 100% a profit driven mindset.

Yes breeding can be rough and is a risk, but keeping a pair together 100% of the time isn't right if the least dominant has no place to escape.
 
Gingero said:
Just a bummer to get this kind of backlash when what I said wasn't incorrect, it just could be taken the wrong way, even when I explicitly state otherwise.
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I do not think the feedback was meant to be hurtful. I understand how it could be taken that way though. I work within the social media world. It never fails to amaze me the level of stupid out there. Truly it is a melting pot of absolute stupidity. I think it becomes a matter of understanding that you will get ignorant people that will view one thing and mimic it regardless of a disclaimer. Which was the only reason why I said what I did about just avoiding content that others will misinterpret.

Be proud of yourself for what you are accomplishing and have accomplished. If you consider yourself to be one of the chamily here (which I think you are) understand that some feedback is just that. Not an attack but our feedback because you are representing us and this community as well when you do your videos and when you post them here. So chin up and smile girl! Do your thing and be great at it. :)
 
When you walk around in nature in countries where chameleons live in the wild, you will often find a tree or clumps of trees with a whole bunch of chameleons sitting in the tree together peacefully! Growing up in South Africa I observed flap necks, Natal dwarf, Cape dwarf and Knysna dwarf chameleons do this.

There are many people here on this forum that keeps male with male, male with female and female with female together year round without any issues ever!

The big difference, they are to smart to let it slip! They want to live! The ignorant masses will stone them if they dare to tell!
 
This foresight is something I'm interested in hearing more about as it is wild, but that said in the wild there are no boundaries for those who wish to escape if one feels threatened they run for another branch or tree.

I've been in talks with Petr Necas for months and even discussed with Bill Strand about ethically keeping Xanth and Triceros species communally and they are two of the most experienced with these species. Long story short space is the key and free range solutions with no caging, more so a dedicated greenhouse, are where the cards fell and it makes sense. We as humans have an issue when animals don't get along, we can't seem to wrap our head around it as our species is social. We just have to come to understand that certain species don't get along with one another and just get together intentionally for one sole reason, procreation. Once the deed is done they move on and go back to being anti social.
 
allredone said:
Clarissa is not your average keeper. I’ve bred Cristifer and advised her that cohabing this specific pair for the short term was acceptable based on my experience with a similar age juvenile pair and the fact that the first pair to breed in the US in 1997 was co-housed 24-7. Cristifer do in fact appear to be an exception to the rule. Don’t worry about Clarissa. She’s on the ball. As for the confusing example to others that cant be helped if people won’t read for the full info.
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I see your side and her side, and I also see their side.

I doubt she is going to have any issues housing the Cristifer Together. I dont think anyone thinks she will, however the issue is in the presence on YT. As has been said, it becomes a "do what I say not as I do" and a 17 year old will see that go buy a pair of veiled and throw them into a 24x24x48, or even smaller.

BUT, like Aaron said, you cant fix stupid. The people that are going to do that, likely would have done it anyway.

Its a touchy subject with truly no right answer, if they use the video to justify doing it, odds are they were going to do it anyway.



Gingero said:
I hear ya. They’ve actually already been separated since I had a spare enclosure laying around :) They just hadn’t when I was filming this video. Takes
me a bit of time to film and edit everything. Still want to get them Dragon Strand enclosures but that’ll just have to wait until production opens back up.
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Large Atrium's?

That or build some cages. The large Atrium, is like Bare minimum for Parsonii, even Cristifers IMO (and most I know).

I was going to try my hands with them, but didn't want to do minimums and don't have the floor space ATM for a 6x3x6, especially x2 lol.

If I was you I would build at minimum 4x2x6/7 cages. 5x2x7 being better, and 6x2/3x7 being optimal. As space allows of course, especially needing 2. Aaron stating that they are likely better together, I would take into account. So maybe he has a better Cage size in mind these days, If I were to keep a pair I would probably do a 7x3x7 or so, and house them together. However I would suggest doing whatever Aaron or Craig suggest you do, they are very experienced with this species, and the rest of most of the people in this thread are not (no offense to anyone)

I keep trying to get the wife to let me buy a 40ft Storage Container for Cham cages hahaha.

@Action Jackson any thoughts?
 
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