How Did You Get Into Chameleons

i know this is going to sound bad but its true.

i got a free fish tank from my sister so i thought of getting fish,
but then i realised that they are pretty lame so i was going to get some kind
of reptile. i was looking towards day or mourning geckos.
after a while i thought they were nothing compared to a chameleon,
after seeing one in a reptile store. so i decided on a chameleon instead.
couldent be happier.
 
Husband wanted one for years, and I kept saying no. I was never really a reptile person. We went to a local reptile store where they had a few breeding pairs of Veileds and were retiring a male and had him up for sale. The girl that worked there picked him up and let my husband hold him. He was super calm and started licking my husbands bracelet. Of course we wanted a baby, but once you decide you want something it is no where to be found! I put my name on a waiting list at a pet store and finally they got some in. They gave us all of the wrong information, he was way too young, and I believe I helped dehydrate him. He lived 4 days and I was heartbroken. A few weeks later I was searching for a new one, and called Mike at FL Chams and then found this forum. The rest is history. Mike patiently walked me through a few dozen panicky phone calls and all my newbie questions. Now I am hooked! :)
 
My daughter was allergic to furry critters and wanted a pet that didn't swim in a goldfish bowl. We had a basilisk first but it was nasty..so we traded it for a helmeted iguana. We then got a green iguana. Then I saw a Senegal chameleon in a pet store and couldn't resist it....that was the begining of the long addiction.
 
Great stories guys. Mine is kinda funny. I was into south american cichlids and always went to this local pet store. Well one day they had tiny little jackson chams and my old gf was so facinated with them. She likes mini things. Well these things were really young and tiny. I was like whatever lets go look at the cichlids:confused:. Any way I purchased some fish and left. Well every time we went back we kept looking at the babies more and more. She liked them a lot. I thought they were cool but still was like fish fish fish. A couple of weeks before christmas and no ideas what to get her I went to the pet store asking about these guys. They gave me good tips and told me to research them before buying. These guys are good with everything they have. Any way a week later I bought Ponce Cha Meleon the jacksons for my gf. I ended up loving him and taking care of him more than her. Now I got rid of all my tanks and have 7 chams and quite a few eggs. These are the most amazing creatures I have ever laid my eyes on.:)
 
Never realised they could be kept properly in captivity until I started going on captivebred.co.uk website. You see people keeping allsorts on there....armadillos, sugar gliders, fruit bats, hedgehogs, moles as well as all the herps etc. Chameleons have the most character and beauty and incredible adaptations of ALL of them...hence my growing collection :) I just love them all!
 
I have always had a redtail boa and I found out about a local reptile show where I could goto and get frozen rats for him. So one month me and my girlfriend went to the show to look around and get some rats, we ended up spending about 30 mins talking to a lady with 2 month old veiled chameleons. My girlfriend thought they were really cute and wanted me to buy them but I said no that time but I was very interested in learning more. We ended coming home with just some rats and I started to do some research on chameleons for about a month until the next show. When the next show came we both went, with her only thinking we were going to get more rats, and we found the same lady with the chameleons and I said to my girlfriend pick 2. She was like a kid on christmas morning. We found a male and female that looked great and were unrelated (she had two tanks setup that were unrelated) and took them home. Now a year later I have 40 healthy veiled chameleons!


What about you Justin?
 
Thanks for asking Weston!
I was waiting to see if this thread was going to get any action before I posted.
Well, like most people, I just had to have one.
When I was younger I was just amazed by Jackson chameleons.
That was about the only species of chameleon I knew up until about a year and a half ago.
I have always liked reptiles.
I've had snakes, iguanas, I started a breeding project with green anoles about two yeas ago.
I caught about 25 and kept them in several tanks in my garage with lighting.
Trust me, I didnt do it the right way.
None of them died, so that was good thing.
Anyways, after about 4 months I had more eggs then I knew what to do with.
So, I ended up releasing all of the adults.
After they hatched in a crude incubator I fed them wild fruit flies.
I just stuck an orange outside each day and had plenty of flies.
After about a month I let them go in my parents yard.
Now I have a nice amount of green anoles running around my parents place!
Those darn brown anoles are taking over again.

Soon after that I went to a local petstore and they had Vieleds for sale.
I did a little homework for about a month and ended up getting one.
I went a year keeping him before I found this forum, and I have learned ten times more since.
My chameleon addiction really didnt take place until I joined the forum.:rolleyes:
Thanks Brad!
 
When I turned 40, I suddenly became very nostalgic and began to think about my youth and all the things that I loved about it. My father was in the military and we were stationed in Spain for 5 years. That was when I was first introduced to chameleons. We could walk behind my house in Spain and pick them off the trees. I never really kept them as pets, but they were always available to hold, examine, watch eat and all the cool things associated with chameleons. After I turned 40, I started thinking about them again and decided to do some research and found this site. Wow, that was all it took, I had to have one. I now have 4 rudis, 2 panthers and 3 bearded pygmys.
 
My cousin twisted my arm for damn near a decade before I finally gave in. I'm glad I waited though, because the aquarium hobby gave me the patients necessary to be successful with chameleons. Big thanks to Chris, you told me so!
 
reptimom...the first chameleon that I hatched was a C. chamaeleon. They will always be one of my favorite chameleons!
 
well.....

i kept seeing them on the animal shows, i fell in love with the way their eyes moved, how slow they moved and that tongue was incredible how they could catch insects like that!. i had one that one of the reptile breeders from africa gave me and it died while in my brothers care, i was so up set. i waited 15 years before trying again, and ended up with my jacksons wich got sold to a pet shop (nother story) im sorry i did that im sure. then i called mike from fl chams and he got me this one and thats my story and im stickin to it hehe. i just plain fell in love all from a tv show
 
I was always facinated with dinosaurs as a kid. I wanted to be a paleontologist. When I got a little older, I had a couple anoles, spaced out over about 6 years. Then I went to high school and college and more important things on my mind (girls and surviving being poor!) and I didn't even think about reptiles except for a green iguana that turned out to be mean as a snake. I didn't like him very much.

So when I settled down a bit I saw a pair of Jackson's at a pet store and they brought me back to the paleontologist part of my youth. The male was like a small triceretops (forgive the spelling!) I made a deal for the pair and built what I thought was a pretty cool set up for them. Unfortunately, I didn't do my research and it ended badly. Mostly my fault, but also bad info from the store.

Anyway, I went back and did my research and got Baltazar the veiled from the Kammers and then eventually found this forum and it's been non stop ever since. I even refinanced the house to get cash to build my chams their own house! Yeah, I'm addicted.
 
Right after I turned 16 I started applying for jobs. My dream job was a local pet shop that had a very large reptile selection, even by today's standards. The owner hired someone who gave him a sob story instead of me so I accepted a job at Long's Drugs. About two weeks later the pet store owner called and offered me the job because the other person had quit. I was more than happy to quit Long's, that sucked. :(

After I'd been there about 6 months we got in a WC pair of Johnston's chameleons and I was enthralled. The reason I got into chameleons, and I still remember the exact words from 17 years ago, is because my boss said to me, "Oh, don't ever buy a chameleon. It'll be dead in 6 months." Luckily, someone else I worked with knew a couple of local chameleon keepers through a previous employer, and disagreed with our boss's assessment. So she put me in touch with a couple people who were currently keeping chams for some encouragement and I purchased and or borrowed from the store, every book, magazine, etc I could find about insectivorous lizards and chameleons. Within a short amount of time a nice pair of Jackson's that I assume were from Hawai'i, but I really don't know for sure since it was 1991, arrived at another local store and my addiction started. To date, I believe I've kept 22 species of chameleons for what I would consider "long-term" so I feel like I've proven my boss wrong finally :D Hope you read this some day David!
 
Hubby works for a pet supply wholesaler in Pompano Beach. I went to his office to join him for lunch and he had a baby Arnold there in a little cricket keeper. It was love at first sight. He said he didn't bring it home because he didn't think I would like it. (I freaked over snakes). Well, I brought Arnie home and have raised him quite well thank you. We now have 4. I would say I have adapted quite well.
 
I always wanted a chameleon since I was in elementary school. Saw pictures of them and was hooked. I grew up in PA and their weren't any anywhere. Later I moved to CA and in 1992 I went into a reptile store and they had baby 2 month old veiled chams. Cutest thing I have ever seen. I took him home and named him Coney. Then I had a pair of Parsons then Jacksons. Took a ten year hiatus to have a couple kids. Then my husband asks me when we moved what are you going to do with that custom cage I built you? So immediately I started researching chams again (things have changed a little bit in 10 years) and went out and picked up a jacksons at a show. Now I have a Giant Fischer's, 2 pygmies with 4 eggs and a baby panther I hatched from an egg who is 6 wks old now! And I have 1/4 of a room full of different feeders, in the 90's we only had crickets and Parson's eat lots of crickets!
 
Howdy,

About 5 years ago, during many trips to the local reptile store to buy feeders for a gecko, I got curious about chameleons and started reading-up on them. After a month or two, I thought I was ready to give it a go. Right about then, I was in a different reptile store where I spotted a very sick WC Furcifer verrucosus chameleon and told them I'd buy an enclosure etc. if they gave him to me. They did and I took my first shot at a rescue. A vet visit and some intensive care over the next few days didn't save him. I took another shot at a "free" rescue but even after several months of treatment, the original bone infection finally killed that WC Dwarf Fischer's. My wife wasn't too happy with things not surviving so I finally got a 3 month old male Nosy Be' at the Anaheim NARBC show and then later adopted a couple of adult male Veileds. I continued to do "free" rescues with some successes but these days my wife has me on a short leash when it comes to chameleons. No more hatching eggs or long-term rescues for now :(.
 
Dave Weldon said:
Howdy,

About 5 years ago, during many trips to the local reptile store to buy feeders for a gecko, I got curious about chameleons and started reading-up on them. After a month or two, I thought I was ready to give it a go. Right about then, I was in a different reptile store where I spotted a very sick WC Furcifer verrucosus chameleon and told them I'd buy an enclosure etc. if they gave him to me. They did and I took my first shot at a rescue. A vet visit and some intensive care over the next few days didn't save him. I took another shot at a "free" rescue but even after several months of treatment, the original bone infection finally killed that WC Dwarf Fischer's. My wife wasn't too happy with things not surviving so I finally got a 3 month old male Nosy Be' at the Anaheim NARBC show and then later adopted a couple of adult male Veileds. I continued to do "free" rescues with some successes but these days my wife has me on a short leash when it comes to chameleons. No more hatching eggs or long-term rescues for now :(.
Click to expand...

It's all good, Dave, someone has to be the voice of reason. If it weren't for my wife I'd be into all kinds of projects that I know I shouldn't get involved in. I once wanted to tear out my entire bedroom closet to convert it into a large tree monitor enclosure. :D
 
Dave Legacy said:
I once wanted to tear out my entire bedroom closet to convert it into a large tree monitor enclosure. :D
Click to expand...

You just gave me the best idea ever...turn my walkin into a jungle habitat. I thinks it's too small for all my chams though:( the males would be able to see each other.

I got into chams after fish. I was breeding discus and German blue rams for a bit and into planted aquariums. Got sick of changing 30-60 gallons of tank water ever day or two....stumbled on a cham while picking up fish food and a month later had my first. Now I have 4 and about 40 eggs:eek:
 
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