First try!!!

[cswan19]

So i read a blog of a member on this forum about taming your chameleon and gaining their trust. I'd never tried to tame my chameleon or anything. I basically just left him alone except for pictures. Well I decided I would try and hand feed him some crickets. I received him from lllreptile and to my knowledge he has never been handfed before, just loose crickets in his enclosure so he can hunt. I wasn't expecting him to take it out of my hands first try and if he did i figured I would be standing there with a cricket between my fingers for quite some time. But I slowly put my hand with the cricket into the enclosure and waited, he was a little skeptical at first but after about a minute he came over and zapped it from hands!!! Very cool! I'm excited to know he isn't too scared of me Heres a video of him hand feeding (sorry for poor quality didn't want to have it up in his face, and the lighting was kind of ruining the shot lol) if you want to check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omP9FR9Sh1c

 

[Kate]

That's great. Keep it going. I can do anything with my panther but my last veiled was evil. He went black if you looked at him and would flatten himself and make a swing at me if I dared to to put my hand near him.

 

[erik775]

Nice...none of my dam chams will grab anything out of my hand...

 

[rkgardner2003]

Cool! Mine will take worms from me, but I never tried crickets....just figured I'd lose them!

 

[Kate]

Cool! Mine will take worms from me, but I never tried crickets....just figured I'd lose them!

I might be tempted to squash them:

 

[cswan19]

Yeah im really excited, hes still a baby so hopefully i can tame him and make him comfortable around me and i'll be able to handle him without stressing him out too much. very exciting and yeah i just hold the crickets very gently with a finger on each side so they cant push away from my fingers with their legs. I haven't introduced worms to my veiled yet... i heard they cant digest them? so he only eats crickets as of right now.

 

[Kate]

Small silks are very good. Very high in calcium and soft and squidgy

 

[KingJulian]

That's awesome. My boyfriend was so excited the first time our cham hand fed from him. He does it all the time now. I'm still too squeamish to hold the bugs in my hand

 

[cswan19]

silkworms? I thought about buying them for him but cant find them at any of my local pet shops. Any recommendations on places to get them fairly cheap online? I don't need a ton of them... If he eats 1/4" and a some 1/2" crickets now what size should I order?

 

[cswan19]

Yeah holding the crickets don't bother me but I can't feed my cham roaches because they really make me squeamish lol I would be constantly worrying about them escaping into my house... yuck!!

 

[kodycorduan]

great video.. congrats. My senegal hand feeds like a champ.. still working on the veiled!

 

[Ramrod09]

u are lucky mine wont go near my hand. ;(

 

[sillycupid]

Will chameleon's walk for their food? Like if you place it just out of reach and lead them over your hand, onto a branch, down a ladder, over the paper towel of poopness, to finally eat the cricket? Or are their attention spans too short.

 

[cswan19]

Hahaha mine did, he was origanally on the top of the enclosure and circled around to the side onto a vine, onto a branch and came over to the leaf all with his eyes locked on the cricket, and then he zapped it from the leaf which is what the video is.