Handling Advice!?!?!

[joshuaseidman94]

So i have owned my panther Pascal for about 3 months. He hand feeds butter worms on and off but refuses to hand feed crickets. I want to ease into him letting me pick him up only so that I can take him out when I need to clean his cage or take him to the vet etc. He lets me touch him but the minute I lift my hand to get him on it he hisses and runs away as fast as he can. Do you guys have any advice? I really need him to warm up so I can move him to his larger enclosure as well. Additionally, I have tried getting him on a stick and picking him up off the stick, but he hisses at the stick as well.
PLEASE HELP ME!!

 

[oblgobl]

Just keep doing what you are doing now and he might eventually allow you to handle him but some chams will never tolerate it. Unfortunately there is no way to speed things up you have to take it at his pace. Picking him up and forcing interaction will be counter productive but you might just have to do it as quick as possible to move him to his bigger enclouser. It is good that he lets you touch him thats a promising sign that you will be able to get him use to you but it will likely take a long time. One of my boys is very aggressive and when I do a complete clean I have to remove his whole plant with him on it otherwise he gets very stressed and I get bit wich could happen if you force handling, you could also do this to move him to his new home but it depends how your viv is set up I guess. From my limited experience with my lot it does seem like panthers are either friendly or their not most of my males have always tolerated handling right from the get go without any taming and my females and one of my males just don't like it. I think it's very possible to get him use to you enough for him to let you pick him up without him hissing and running away but it will take alot of time and patience. It could also be that he is still settling in it can take them a very long time to feel confident in a new enviroment especially when young.

 

[kplatvoet]

If you got him at 3 or 4 months old and you've had him for 3 months - that would make him about 7 months (I'm guessing) - He's hitting his "teenage" time- I noticed my guy was a big jerk from about 6 to 9 months - He's mellowed out quite a bit in the last couple of months - He's still a jerk but he's better about handling when he needs to come out for cage cleaning - he doesn't hiss at me any more- When my guy used to try running away and I absolutely had to get him out I put my hand where below where he was running too and he would run onto it - last summer I had a "outside cage" made out of a zip up laundry basket and fake vines. I hatched some blue bottle flies to put into it. He got pretty good about being switched over -
I would say keep hand feeding - If you can set something up for outside have it ready so you can transfer him to it - so he gets used to coming out to something good- a free range by a window if you can't get him out side- do it so he's more ready for bed when your ready to put him back in his cage- not first thing in the morning-

 

[Psychobunny]

You may find my cham taming blog useful:

https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/psychobunny/746-taming-chameleon.html

 

[ChameleonsByVanGogh]

it takes time

your doing it right with the hand feeding just be patient . depending on your cham it could take a while...it could never happen at all. but you just need to be patient