Guido's Quest for Love

Chameleons Northwest

Chameleons Northwest

Avid Member
Healthy and robust male seeks female of same caliber. Interests include: long days lounging in the sun, fat worms, sturdy plants, a firm embrace.:D

Yes, Guido has been campaigning for a love life. During the past week and a half he has been "practicing his moves" (or trying to, anyway) on both my husband and me. :rolleyes: He's gone through this before, but never to the extent he is now. In fact, the other day we had a good laugh. I had read that one way to see your chameleon's fired-up colors is to show him his reflection in a mirror. Well, since Guido is so mellow, I wanted to see him fired up so I tried it. He looked at himself in the little hand mirror I was holding, reached up and grabbed each side of the mirror with a "paw", swung around behind it onto my hand, and tried to mate with it. Yes, since we adjusted his diet to crickets, silkworms, and hornworms he's really been feeling his oats! :eek:

Well, we are now considering getting a mate for him. I did have reservations, because of the delicate nature of female chameleons. After doing more research, however, and talking to my husband (who was already considering breeding Guido), I am reconsidering.

Although we have only 2 1/2 years experience with Guido, we have access to a fine cadre of mentors on this forum, plenty of space in our home, time to devote to this, great local herp vets (that we're not afraid to use), and a strong interest in the breed.

I should add that although Guido lives on the miniblinds in the bay window of our home office, we anticipate his mate would have a more traditional habitat.

All that being said- any advice on how best to proceed? Are breeders offering mature veiled females for sale? Didn't see any listed in the "for sale" forum here. Do mature females do alright during shipment? Or, should I consider only local sources (don't currently know of any other than pet shops). I'm not really interested in a very young female, because I don't want to wait 8 months or so to introduce her to Guido.

Thank you in advance for any input. Sandy
 
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Sounds like Guido does need a girl.....My male iguana has a glove for a girlfriend. My female iguana hates him and would kill him in a heartbeat. So I put on a cotton garden glove and rub and pet the female with it to get her scent on it. Then I give the glove to the male. He bites and grips it and wiggles around with it for an hour or so. That's his love life :)

As for getting Guido a female....Don't worry about the shipping. I live in Washington state. 95% of my chams came from the East coast. They all arrived just fine. Good breeders know how to ship correctly. A lot of the adult females that are offered are wild caught. I would spend extra time contacting breeders to see if you can come up with an adult captive bred female. I bought two adult WC female Veileds earlier this year for my WC adult male. One female had an existing respiratory problem and died a few weeks later. The other female is doing fabulous as far as her health goes but geez is she flighty. She hides whenever she sees me. She's physically ready to breed. Yesterday I decided to take her to the male's cage for breeding. I thought she was going to have a stroke when I took her over there. She could care less about the male. She was terrified of me. The male was ready to go but I put her back in her cage. I think I will take the male over to her cage today instead.

So......I think you are totally ready with your experience level to get a female and provide a good life for her. Don't worry about the shipping. Concentrate on contacting breeders. They often have little treasures hidden away that are not advertised. They will come up with this treasure for someone they like or trust. I would start with people in this group :)
 
Thank you so much for writing. We are in Washington State, too. Just south of Tacoma. We occasionally give Guido a stuffed garden glove that is mottled light green. We named the glove Susie. He must think- ":DShe ain't much to look at, but she's all I've got!"

Good idea. When we're set up and ready to go we'll contact breeders in this group.
 
I live over the Tacoma Narrows bridge (now bridges :) ) on Henderson Bay. I went to college and worked as a CPA in Tacoma. Are you going to the Reptile Expo at the Puyallup Fairgrounds in October? It's pretty lame (unless you want a snake) but still worth going to if you haven't been to it. Pam's Chams is always there. She and LLL Reptile are usually the only vendors with chameleons. I bought three females from Pam last year. Nice meeting someone from this part of the state :)
 
No you need to go.......go and introduce yourself to Pam from Pam's Chams. There will be a lot of other lizards there too (monitors, geckos, etc), turtles and tortoises. It's fun looking at them. There is also a lot of cage stuff. There is one guy that shows up with great sand blasted Manzanita branches. I use that in my cages for climbing. I have to remember to bring some cash this year because that's the only thing he takes. I didn't bring enough last year....
 
When I lived in Okinawa Japan we had geckos all over the house. I loved them! The babies were actually transparent. Awesome. But everyone else in the area considered them a pest like carpenter ants or cockroaches! The only time they bothered me is if they started to chatter for each other in the middle of the night. I figured they kept the bug population in check.

OK, we'll keep the expo on our calendar. Thanks for the advice. Sandy

PardalisGirl said:
No you need to go.......go and introduce yourself to Pam from Pam's Chams. There will be a lot of other lizards there too (monitors, geckos, etc), turtles and tortoises. It's fun looking at them. There is also a lot of cage stuff. There is one guy that shows up with great sand blasted Manzanita branches. I use that in my cages for climbing. I have to remember to bring some cash this year because that's the only thing he takes. I didn't bring enough last year....
Click to expand...
 
Greetings, fellow Northwesterner. Yes, I'm finding out, too, that there are several of us on the forum. The expo is in Puyallup, WA at the State fairgrounds. Just south of Tacoma. Off highway 512. You would maybe take hwy 405 to 167 to 512. Dates are something like the 20th and 21st of October. It is actually a Northwest Captive Breeder's Expo. This will be the first one we attend. But Pardalisgirl has been to it before and recommends it. Sandy

royden said:
Another northwesterner!

I had no idea we had a reptile expo near by. How cool.

I live in Bothell.
Click to expand...
 
Northwest Captive Expo....

Greetings Royden! The expo is 10/21 10:00 to 5:00 and 10/22 10:00 to 4:00. You can get more into at:

www.Beanfarm.com/NWCBE

The Beanfarm is a great reptile breeders supply place in Carnation, Washington. They sponsor and run the show every year. Doesn't sound like a reptile business does it? I get Helix digital temperature controls to run all my big monitor and hydrosaurus cages. They have incubating supplies and they sell the heat packs that you can use to ship reptiles with. If you have kids you got to take them. It's a good family fun thing to go to. The show seems to get better every year.
 
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