is my cham anti social?

[jcarlsen]

every time i try to interact with him he acts like i want to kill him. I've practiced hand feeding him with worms but he declines every time. He eats fine by him self though. He's a male blue bar ambilobe panther. when i open his cage up, and hes on a branch, he will just slide to the other side to try to become unseen. I want to practice picking him up but if my hand even looks like its going to go near to prop up a branch so he doesnt fall, he will flare up. He just gets way too nervous against me, am i doing something wrong?

I hear ya. I think you need to manage your expectations a bit. When I first got into the idea of getting a chameleon, i was enthralled by the videos of peoples' panthers climbing all over them, seemingly eager to do so. The reality was my young panther was terrified of me, he shadowed (moving sideways on the branch) and gaped any time I tried to handle him.

My advice is two things... One, work on the hand feeding, which may or may not take a while. I don't know how old your cham is, but if it's juvenile or a tad older, you might try skipping a day or two of feeding then try offering a nice juicy hornworm. That was my guy's first hand feed and it took FOREVER for him to eat it. My arm was REALLY sore, so be prepared to wait a while very still.

The second part is that I noticed as soon as I moved my guy into his 2'x2'x4' adult enclosure, he almost immediately became less threatened by me. Now, he'll tolerate my picking him up (he doesn't come running to me), and he'll gape a bit if my face gets too close, but he does hand feed.

For me, I've kind of come more to terms with the fact that he's more of an observational animal than a handling one. I don't handle my guy much or for very long. I take him out to put him on his free range sunning plant, to weigh him, or in my case now to give him meds because he's been a bit sick.

The panthers that are seemingly eager to get on your hands and stuff are pretty rare as far as I know. I've met one or two in person, and seen some videos with tons of views. Panthers, like all chams have different personality types.

So be patient, manage expectations, and if your cham is stressed by you, just back off. You won't gain any trust by forcing any handling, trust me. I got my first and only bite that way. OUCH!

 

[FlChamMom]

@Cucumber @ThomasFord The tree in front of the cage is how I got my chameleons to get comfortable leaving the cage as well. I found it works better than the Big Scary Hand entering their domain. Patience is key. I don't "play" with my chameleons but I do handle them regularly to put them on their large free range for exercise or their outdoor cage. When they begin to associate your hand with enjoyable activities like outside time you'll have a greater chance of him readily leaving the cage. I have had chameleons that never really warm up to the idea of leaving the cage but I still work with them- I'd rather cause a little stress to a healthy cham then have to manhandle a sick one to take him to the vet. After he is on the tree I usually offer a treat in my hand, after he takes it then I put one on my arm offering my hand for him to climb on to get it. Good Luck!

 

[jcarlsen]

I agree with @FlChamMom. The tree in front of the cage is a great idea. Also, you may have a cham that'll never fully warm up to you, much like mine. My guy is a little stressed with handling, but not so much to where he gets overstressed and closes his eyes in my hand or remains still. When you get to that point, you've stressed your cham so much that it's basically given up getting away from you. A lot of people confuse that with the cham getting cuddly, so just be aware.

 

[Cucumber]

@FlChamMom @Thomas @Fordjcarlsen @jannb yeah I agree with you guys tree/foliage in front of the enclosure is a great way to encourage your chameleon out. The main problem we had with Cucumber was extracting him from his enclosure without annoying him. We have a large branch that comes to the front of his enclosure where he can see the Ficus tree. Twice today he came to the front, so we opened the doors and he clambered out on to the tree, Now we rarely need to handle him but he can chill out with us in the bedroom. So we also have two large plants in our office which means he can explore those whilst we work. What's more if we want to move him from the tree (back to his enclosure or to the office) we simply put our hand in front and slowly walks on. The problem with extracting him from his enclosure was that he was usually buried in the foliage, this doesn't seem a problem outside of his enclosure and seems a lot happier about being handled.

Now we are planning on turning our bedroom in to a massive wild bedroom with as many different plants as possible and some different basking spots to try and keep him stimulated. We feed treats all the time from his trees, I think this is why he's happy on our hands now as he only really has to associate them with additional food/treats. The only problem we have is that we like to keep some live locus in his enclosure for him to hunt. We would like to be able to keep the doors open for him to explore and come and go as he pleases, however obviously the locus would escape.

Thanks for the link @jannb, I wish I had read this before purchasing Cucumber, particularly the part about extraction.

Also apologies for snapping at @jajeanpierre, I read your message just after seeing the referendum result here in the UK! He sent me a really helpful dm, I'm grateful for his advice and yours, it's great and important for novices like myself to be able to get this information from a free resource. It seems there are many different techniques for owning a pet chameleon, and they have different personalties. As a novice I think you just have to absorb as many different approaches as possible and work out what works best for your individual chameleon, whilst obviously always putting his/her welfare first.

 

[ThomasFord]

thank you jann

Welcome to the forums. Some chameleons can become cage aggressive and once out of the cage show a very different personality. I have been keeping chameleons along with my daughter since 2004. We've had one male panther live to 8 years old, a couple to 7 years and many to around the 6 year mark. Most of our chameleons have been very sociable but we spend allot of time with them and interact with them daily. Do you have small children or other pets? If you have a safe area to free range your chameleon it would help allot. In the wild chameleons are not caged and I have no cages at all in my house. Cages are not a natural thing for chameleons but I do realize that some keepers have to cage them to keep them safe. My family and I got to spend 2 weeks in South Africa and Madagascar watching chameleons in the wild a few years ago and all but a couple were very socialable in the wild. I'd just put out my hand and slide it under their front legs and they'd crawl right on my hand. We would make photos of them and then return them to the exact place that we found them. If you work slowly with your guy he will mostly with come around. I'm attaching a blog from one of our long time members that you might find helpful.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/entry/the-taming-of-the-chameleon.746/