How to deal with her.

Ivypanther

Ivypanther

Member
I'm trying to tame her I know it's not an easy process. And I know most of you heard this about 1000x and some probably would want to be. And I would have to accept that. I see a whole bunch off ppl holding there chams at 3 to 6 month old. I have a ambilobe panther female she's 4 months. I tried to grab her from under and she got really stressed and I had to pull back. What are the best hand feeder to give her? Horn worms?
20160604_131959.jpg
 
And also if you look closely she's has this spot near her stomach she just finished shedding. About 2 days ago. And this appeared before that. And thoughts?
 
My cham is 6 months old. He just recently started accepting attention from me. I reduced how many crickets I was feeding him so he'd be hungry. Then I offered him a meal worm with feeding tongs. Offer the course of a few days I was able to get him to eat from my hand. He's still not too found of being held, but he tolerates it better now. Now I just feed him twice a day so he gets enough to eat, but looks forward to seeing me.
 
I like to use hornworms when hand feeding because they don't run off my hand real fast like other feeders. I put the hornworm on my palm and put my hand far enough away so he has to get closer to my hand to get it.
 
I think you just have to hold her. I've had snakes and other lizards and the more you interact with them the more take they get. I just got a new panther myself yesterday and my girls (9 & 10 years old) where holding him this morning. He got all puffy and they wanted to put him back and I told then the same thing.
If you are afraid of her now, wait till she gets bigger.
 
Chameleon Mike said:
I think you just have to hold her. I've had snakes and other lizards and the more you interact with them the more take they get. I just got a new panther myself yesterday and my girls (9 & 10 years old) where holding him this morning. He got all puffy and they wanted to put him back and I told then the same thing.
If you are afraid of her now, wait till she gets bigger.
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This is terrible advice. People who "tame" any reptile with this method aren't taming them at all - they're basically breaking them.

Doing this to a chameleon will probably kill it in the long run.
 
Ivypanther said:
I'm trying to tame her I know it's not an easy process. And I know most of you heard this about 1000x and some probably would want to be. And I would have to accept that. I see a whole bunch off ppl holding there chams at 3 to 6 month old. I have a ambilobe panther female she's 4 months. I tried to grab her from under and she got really stressed and I had to pull back. What are the best hand feeder to give her? Horn worms? View attachment 159269
Click to expand...
Sweet looking girl you have? I can say that around that age they are gonna be very defensive. Don't force any handling, just attempt to hand feed and be patient. Some panthers are just more skittish than others. My male Ambilobe didn't really warm up to me until I put him in his adult cage and got him hand feeding.
 
wavingsnail said:
This is terrible advice. People who "tame" any reptile with this method aren't taming them at all - they're basically breaking them.

Doing this to a chameleon will probably kill it in the long run.
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Well like I said I'm a new owner as well. If you have some advise I'm open to hearing it. Your criticism is fine but you didn't leave any opinion on the topic at hand.
 
jcarlsen said:
Sweet looking girl you have? I can say that around that age they are gonna be very defensive. Don't force any handling, just attempt to hand feed and be patient. Some panthers are just more skittish than others. My male Ambilobe didn't really warm up to me until I put him in his adult cage and got him hand feeding.
Click to expand...
Thx and appreciate the response
 
For hand feeding you can try horns, silks and supers. But I gotta tell you sometimes you get one and no matter what you do your never going to win them over. Just keep at it and more than likely you will win her over. You know you gained her trust when you stick your hand in the cage and she willingly climbs on you.
 
Something to consider is that younger animals are almost always more skittish than adults or juveniles. They know they are smaller and more vulnerable to predators and often, whether a tortoise or chameleon, they become more at ease as they gain size and maturity, and with gentle persistence. Just don't take it personally and realize the chameleon is acting on instinct.
 
Chameleon Mike said:
Well like I said I'm a new owner as well. If you have some advise I'm open to hearing it. Your criticism is fine but you didn't leave any opinion on the topic at hand.
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Chameleon Mike, I think you got such strong and instanct reaction was because what you are suggesting will likely kill your chameleon and a very strong response to what you were recommending was more than warranted.

What you advocated was something called "flooding" which is when an animal has no choice but to experience something that it is afraid of. It can't escape, it can only endure. When you flood an animal, they basically give up (Wavingsnail called it "breaking."). Even a lab rat--or was it dogs they used in that experiment?--on an electrical plate will just give up and not respond to the torture--they'll just lie there calmly getting tortured.

To understand a chameleon's nature you need to think about its role in the world. A chameleon is food for another animal. It has very few defense strategies. It can drop out of a tree to the ground, it can remain perfectly still or it can try to frighten the other animal away by puffing up, hissing, lunging and biting. It is a slow moving animal, so very easy for a predator to catch and kill.

A chameleon has no social life. It doesn't care for its young. It doesn't form a pair bond with its mate. It is just not a social creature. It will never love you and it will never be truly tame. It might learn to tolerate you. It might learn that good things come from you and look forward to your arrival but it will likely never truly like you because it isn't a social animal. It's brain just isn't wired that way.

So, what are you doing when you hold a chameleon you just got the day before? The animal was definitely showing you and your girls that it was afraid yet you forced your girls to continue to hold him hoping that he would just get used to it. That kind of desensitization just doesn't work to over come fears. In fact, the fear often goes away for a period of time but returns with a vengeance and is more firmly ingrained. Flooding just doesn't work.

Holding an animal against it's will is stressful. A chameleon you just received might have feared for it's life for the whole time you allowed your daughters to hold it. Think about being held by a monster in a horror movie. Think for a moment of how frightened you would be. That is likely what you did to your chameleon.

Stress is not a mood an animal (or person) feels. It is a physiological state. There is a cascade of hormones that are released and they do not instantly disappear from the blood stream and tissues when the stress if removed. One hormone is cortisol which suppresses the immune system among other things. A suppressed immune system means that the animal is not going to be very good at fighting off pathogens it meets in its daily life. So, a stressed animal is more likely to become sick. And a sick chameleon, especially a sick and stressed chameleon, is very likely to die.
 
jajeanpierre said:
Chameleon Mike, I think you got such strong and instanct reaction was because what you are suggesting will likely kill your chameleon and a very strong response to what you were recommending was more than warranted.

What you advocated was something called "flooding" which is when an animal has no choice but to experience something that it is afraid of. It can't escape, it can only endure. When you flood an animal, they basically give up (Wavingsnail called it "breaking."). Even a lab rat--or was it dogs they used in that experiment?--on an electrical plate will just give up and not respond to the torture--they'll just lie there calmly getting tortured.

To understand a chameleon's nature you need to think about its role in the world. A chameleon is food for another animal. It has very few defense strategies. It can drop out of a tree to the ground, it can remain perfectly still or it can try to frighten the other animal away by puffing up, hissing, lunging and biting. It is a slow moving animal, so very easy for a predator to catch and kill.

A chameleon has no social life. It doesn't care for its young. It doesn't form a pair bond with its mate. It is just not a social creature. It will never love you and it will never be truly tame. It might learn to tolerate you. It might learn that good things come from you and look forward to your arrival but it will likely never truly like you because it isn't a social animal. It's brain just isn't wired that way.

So, what are you doing when you hold a chameleon you just got the day before? The animal was definitely showing you and your girls that it was afraid yet you forced your girls to continue to hold him hoping that he would just get used to it. That kind of desensitization just doesn't work to over come fears. In fact, the fear often goes away for a period of time but returns with a vengeance and is more firmly ingrained. Flooding just doesn't work.

Holding an animal against it's will is stressful. A chameleon you just received might have feared for it's life for the whole time you allowed your daughters to hold it. Think about being held by a monster in a horror movie. Think for a moment of how frightened you would be. That is likely what you did to your chameleon.

Stress is not a mood an animal (or person) feels. It is a physiological state. There is a cascade of hormones that are released and they do not instantly disappear from the blood stream and tissues when the stress if removed. One hormone is cortisol which suppresses the immune system among other things. A suppressed immune system means that the animal is not going to be very good at fighting off pathogens it meets in its daily life. So, a stressed animal is more likely to become sick. And a sick chameleon, especially a sick and stressed chameleon, is very likely to die.
Click to expand...
Really good response
 
I'd like to piggy back on what Janet said.

Personally, I rarely hold my chameleons, unless it's to check something out on them (if I see a cut, or something that catches my eye). With that being said, there are people on the forums and other forums that will say their chameleons love being held. As suggested, you need to build trust with the chameleon, hand feeding is the best way, she will learn to associate you with food. Force handling will only make her more afraid of you, and you will never be able to handle her once she's larger (which I wouldn't suggest anyway, chameleons are a pet that you look at). You do not want to have a full grown pissy chameleon, because if something is wrong it'll just make it that much harder to check it out if she's gaping and trying to bite you when you're trying to help her.

Chase
 
Chameleon Mike said:
I'm learning. At least that's an explanation. Thanks
Click to expand...

Unfortunately we live in a very punishing society. It is how we are raised. We punish. It isn't effective, but it is our society's fall back response to any behavior we want to change.

All the really good animal trainers work to modify behavior using the least intrusive means. They let the animal choose to participate in anything whether it be a show for the public or a training session. The choice is the animal's and if the animal doesn't want to play the training game, the trainers respect that. If an animal is difficult or aggressive, they will do things like change the trainers around to see if they can get a better fit, plan the training sessions and reduce expectations, change the feeding schedule or simply not use that animal in their shows. They will change what happens before they ask for the behavior. But one thing they never do is force themselves on an animal.
 
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