rshewfel
Established Member
I've kept pairs and small groups of several species together years ago.
They seemed to get along fine, but breeding activity was much much less frequent. My interest was in reproduction so I gave up on the idea. I think to keep the peace, social/sexual displays were stifled a good bit.
Well, now this is where you have to be careful with lizards and especially chameleons. Firstly because in any cage- there is no opportunity to "run off" after getting the message. Also more subtly- just because there is no outright dangerous aggression, does not mean that social things are not going on that cause a lot of stress and this low level social stress can cause a decline in the less dominant animal.
I'll give you an example from another lizard simply because it is easier to see. Bearded dragons. After reading that a famous breeder kept his in groups of 2 males and 4 females I tried the same setup with many groups. After a few minutes to a couple of hours the males work out who is dominant and get along fine for all the outside world to see. But that isn't what really happens- carefully keeping track of weight, I found that the less dominant male animal steadily and slowly looses weight over several months.
Another example same lizard- in groups of baby bearded dragons raised together, using "normal" feeding protocal you end up with some animals that grow rapidly and other animals that lag behind. The dominant and the least dominant. With most animals somewhere in between. If they are kept together the dominant animals will eventually outgrow the least dominant so much that they will be dwarfed (and possibly eaten if you are an idiot who never seperates the subdominant or dominant from the group) IF the subdominant even survives- most of the time stress will kill them if things are left unchecked. But if you seperate out the dominant every week, by the next week you will have "new" dominant animals in the group outgrowing the rest.
Low level social stress...
The dominant animals most often won't even outwardly bully the least dominant. But the least dominant will feel intimidated and allow the dominant first go at the food, the hot spot, etc.
It happens in chameleons too- anyone who has raised a group of babies knows this. Most of the time they incorrectly attribute the range of growth rate to the nature of babies having a varied growth rate. It isn't that. It is social stress. Remove the fast growers and new previously "average" growth rate chams will suddenly sprout from the group into rapid growers as their social status goes from average group member to dominant group member.
So there is a lot socially that goes on that you may not be able to observe without experimentation and careful measurement of possible effects.
I lived through it- it isn't speculation only- you are correct. And funny thing- some of that speculation I got to see passed around incorrectly as fact and some still haunts us as such. Could give you a list but this post is long enough already. One thing I will say is that I strongly believe melleri are not so different socially than other chameleons. Yet they are passed off as something uniquely social. There are other stronger examples- female veileds becoming egg bound if not bred their first cycle is one that was very strongly believed for a few years...
By the way- the social thing with groups of babies- I was able to overcome this with bearded dragons when raised outdoors in sunshine (so basking opportunities were unlimited within the terraria vs a few basking bulbs indoors- another problem to consider with group housing of chameleons indoors) and fed very frequent meals of large numbers of very small insects- 3-5 meals a day. The dominant animals fill up in the earlier meals, the least dominant finally fill up in the later meals. The smaller insects plays a role too. I was able to take 100 newly hatched individuals and divide them into groups of 20 and get an amazingly uniform growth rate of all individuals over the summer one year. Never saw anything like it. BUT- it also used 3/4 of a million roaches to get it. LOL I didn't have the resources to do it for everyone. BUT- with the rebuild after last year's fire, I'm built a lot of heated shelving- will have far more insects than ever before- and that's saying something- was feeding 10,000 insects a day from my colonies last spring. Hoping I will be able to feed like that summer's trial all the time when things are going again here.
I want to reproduce the results with baby chams, but haven't tried yet. I do think it will work...
For whatever it's worth- I wouldn't leave a gravid female chameleon in a group situation. Social stress can cause egg binding...
Nobody responded yesterday, when I had time.....
This is a great post.
Please do not think I just carelessly throw chameleons together. Several things you have mentioned here I have observed.
My whole point to these posts was it is a lot more complex than people seem to think. I was not trying to talk people into doing what I have done. If you are a responsible person, experimenting with chameleons and other reptiles can be a very rewarding experience. If you are not responsible, or simple don't have the time, please house them separately. Better yet, please take up a different hobby.
Again, great post. I have enjoyed a lot of your input.
