Handling A Nosy be male

[Turner1986]

So i got my cams a couple days ago. A male and a female nosy be. The female seems to like me, she does not run away when i come up to her cage, she does not mind when i stick my hand in her cage. And shes climbed onto me a couple time already.

My real question is about the Male. Any time im by him or i try sticking my hand in his cage he takes off running from me. Is there any tricks to get them to come to your hand when placed in the cage? Hes not aggressive in any way, just scared i suppose.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks

 

[distortionz]

Try hand feeding him..once they associate you with food usually your golden lol

 

[Bowmancj85]

I just picked up an Ambilobe make a week ago. Was all about me for a day and ever since has been running just as you say. I've been hand feeding for this reason for the past couple of days to try and calm him. Might take a while might be a few days. Just keep them happy in there enclosure and they should surely start to trust you. I could never for the life of me get my jackson to come near me unless I had a tasty treat he saw, that's it.

Good luck.

 

[Rufi0]

I used this method which I think I got from http://muchadoaboutchameleons.blogspot.co.uk/

I bought a nice little tree for my chameleon to sit on outside his enclosure. First I put the tree right in front of the enclosure with branches actually going inside so he can easily climb onto it. Waited until he was comfortable climbing onto the tree as soon as I put it in front of the door, then gradually moved the tree further away from the enclosure a little bit at a time. The first time the tree was not within climbing distance of the enclosure Nosy stood on the rim of the door like "how the hell do you expect me to get over there." Then I used my hand as a pathway to get to his tree, so put it flat out in front of him coming slowly from underneath and he would step onto my hand then climb onto the tree. Again I gradually moved the tree further away from the enclosure until he would climb onto my hand and wait patiently for me to walk him onto the other side of the room to his tree setup. Hope this can help

 

[jajeanpierre]

As well as all the other good information you got, try to never put your chameleon in a situation where he responds to you in fear. A fear response could be anything from fleeing to freezing in place or melting away to the other side of whatever he is sitting on trying to hide. It's like any other behavior--practice makes perfect and you don't want your new chameleon to practice being afraid of you. You never want him to learn his default response in your presence is fear. Try and view everything from his perspective, which is a small slow-moving prey animal living in very close proximity to a big scary predator who almost catches and eats him every day. Think of how you would react if you were one of the humans in Alien.

That said, it is very hard to put that in practice. Reality gets in the way of theory, and things like cages being serviced have to happen sometimes regardless of the mental state of your chameleon. You should always try to reduce your chameleon's fear response anytime you are near or in his cage. It can become almost second nature to how you approach the cage, where the cage is situated in the house/room, how high the cage is, and where the line is where he will tolerate your presence and when one inch closer stresses him.

 

[Rufi0]

Sorry this has taken so long. When I first replied to your post I thought about taking a video showing how I get Nosy out of his cage and kept forgetting / never had my phone on me when I had an opportunity to record.

Nosy is comfortable coming to my hand because he knows that when he does he gets taken to his hibiscus tree. I followed the steps as described previously in the post, the information being found on Olimpia's blog @ http://muchadoaboutchameleons.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/to-handle-or-not-to-handle.html

The only issue i've found with this is handfeeding. I've found it quite hard to hand feed Nosy when he is in his cage now as when he sees my hand, regardless of if there is a feeder between my fingers or not he will climb on my hand, sometimes cheekily turning around to shoot the insect. So now mostly he gets taken to his tree and fed there.