pros and cons

[longtongue]

hi,
iam getting a female cham. as a mum for my baby cham python and as a friend for pythons dad, named monty.

i am still on the fence.
and need some help. so can you guys give me a list of pros and con. even about the vivarium being to small for 3 chams.
thanks,

longtongue

 

[ghettomike]

what speicies of cham are we talking about? Almost all chams are solitary creatures and should not be kept together as one will be dominant and the others may/will die due to stress/lack of food. What size enclosure are you keeping the two you already have?

 

[Texas Panther Man]

Im hoping your referring to pygmys. If not then it wont work dude.

 

[longtongue]

hi,
ghettomite, they are all jackson chameleons.

and pantha man what do ya me it wont work.


longtongue

 

[jrh3]

he means housing them together wont work

 

[JohnnyD]

Do a lot of research. They die easily if not cared for in a specific manor.

 

[carol5208]

hi,
ghettomite, they are all jackson chameleons.

and pantha man what do ya me it wont work.


longtongue

go into the search bar and put in Jacksons. You will get a bunch of threads. There are people who do house them together successfully from what I have read. There was just a thread on there the other day and the member said he had 3 in one enclsoure and they were fine. I also did some research on here after reading that and found there are other members who have done so as well. I would assme you have to have a pretty decent sized enclosure.

 

[Silkyslim]

How big is this enclosure you are thinking about? I would think it would have to be a DIY cage at least 4x4x?? for that to work out. I read recently as Carol stated of a guy who kept some Jacksons together, the particular one I read; the 2 guys were free roaming around a room so the space was huge. It was also 2 males.

I think if you put 2 males in with one female in an enclosed space both males are going to want to mate with her and fight with one another and the poor female who won't even want to be mated but a few times a year will be under constant pressure.....kinda see where this is going?

I wouldn't say it's impossible though but that's just my mentality. Out there somewhere I believe there are 3 Jackson's who would be totally content living within eye sight of one another but finding that would be the equivalent to winning the Powerball lottery jackpot.

 

[pssh]

She won't be under pressure all that often. They bear live young. And besides people who have house chameleons together find that the chameleons seem to realize that there is less of a reason to mate because the opposite gender is always there. When you introduce a male to a female like most do, the male rushes at the opportunity because he has no other opportunity.

That being said, no you should not keep them together. A few babies perhaps until they are a few months old, but not anything bigger. I personally think you should not attempt because of your lack of experience. It is very difficult for new owners to tell what is normal, somewhat normal, and abnormal behavior. Putting them together just makes it even harder on you because then you REALLY won't know what is normal and not normal. Perhaps you could attempt in a few years after you have your husbandry spot on for your specific chameleons and have a more experience. Getting to know an individual animal and its behaviors will help with the task immensely. Some chameleons exhibit behaviors that may be considered abnormal when compared to chameleons as a whole, but it is very normal for the animal to behave in that way.

Just my $0.02

Edit: Jacksons who seem content living with others are not that rare. Many people on the forums house some together and separate when females are birthing. I certainly see more people housing multiply jacksons than multiple veileds and panthers. Jacksons seem to generally be the more docile of the three 'beginner' species.

 

[KingKameha]

I have found that having more females works better than multilple males. My cage is 4ft X 4ft X 2 ft. I had 1 male and 3 females together for over 2 years with no problems. An extra male caused problems so I took him back to the pet store. My male recently died. I have no Idea how old he was when I got him but he was full grown. My girls are doing very well. I always see them aranged on vines within inches of each other at bed time. When I pulled a pregnant female out due to birthing the other females actually got stressed and were dark until she came back into the cage. Nothing changed in the hubandry, the male wasn't agressive, they were just dark. I hope this helps

 

[carol5208]

I have found that having more females works better than multilple males. My cage is 4ft X 4ft X 2 ft. I had 1 male and 3 females together for over 2 years with no problems. An extra male caused problems so I took him back to the pet store. My male recently died. I have no Idea how old he was when I got him but he was full grown. My girls are doing very well. I always see them aranged on vines within inches of each other at bed time. When I pulled a pregnant female out due to birthing the other females actually got stressed and were dark until she came back into the cage. Nothing changed in the hubandry, the male wasn't agressive, they were just dark. I hope this helps

just curious, are you talking about Jackson's? I notice a panther in your avatar.

 

[KingKameha]

Yes I was talking about jacksons. My panthers are kept seperate as well as my wifes veilds.

 

[longtongue]

hi,

pssh, you said:

A few babies perhaps until they are a few months old, but not anything bigger. I personally think you should not attempt because of your lack of experience.

well i didn't say ive kept 5 chams in my time.

i have experience

but thanks for all the info

longtongue

 

[pssh]

Well, you obviously don't have experience with this situation or even perhaps these animals (and certainly not the individual animals if you have not purchased them yet.) if you have to ask simple questions about housing multiple chameleons together, you don't have enough experience and have not done enough research to do so in my opinion.

 

[Michael Ryan]

Well, you obviously don't have experience with this situation or even perhaps these animals (and certainly not the individual animals if you have not purchased them yet.) if you have to ask simple questions about housing multiple chameleons together, you don't have enough experience and have not done enough research to do so in my opinion.

I totally agree, by the questions you were asking you probably have had little to no experience with chameleons. And if you did have 5 chameleons more than likely you were not keeping them correctly.

 

[JackP308]

more than likely it's never good to assume

 

[pssh]

After re-reading what I wrote, don't take that the wrong way. It was meant to be informative, not rude/mean whatever. I'm sure you could eventually house multiple chameleons together with enough research, effort, and experience, just not now.

 

[longtongue]

i can see were ur comin from

longtongue