Breading freindly chams?

I dont know if anyone has long term large scale tried to breed for temperment.

I do know that I did breed my "friendly" panther male to my least aggressive female, and then the most friendly male offspring (of those I kept) to a "friendly" female. I have kept two males and one female offspring of that pairing. of them, One is completely without fear of anything, including people, difficult to keep caged, will never bite or be aggressive. One is "normal" in temperment, not aggressive, tolerant of me and in time he will be what people call friendly. And one that is tolerant, but unlikely to ever be "friendly" - I suspect will always be a bit cautious, but is certainly not aggressive either. So I guess you could say I have friendly chameleons, more so now than in the past. But this doesnt necessarily speak to a breeding result, as much as it might simply be I am a better calmer more knowledgable owner. I have animals purchased from others, and they are equally tolerant. I currently only have one animal that is aggressive, and even she isnt all that awful. This suggests its me more than breeding. And I do NOT spend much time or effort trying to make them tame. I dont handle much. I rarely hand-feed.
 
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It can't hurt to start with friendly chams - we did. But we also interacted with the babies from the day they were born. Now they are 7 months old and the two we have are still very outgoing.

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I have done the same things as Sandra, but I, too, spend a lot of time with my chams and they tend to become familiar with me. I hand feed my worms and offer all my chams crickets from a cup before I let the crix loose in the cage. While chams are solitary they can become used to their surroundings and if you are the surroundings that bring food and water, they can learn to tolerate you. I have children and grandchildren of my two sweetie pies and they have temperaments similar to the Sire and Dom.
 
Has anyone tried to breed freindly chams?

Breeding for proper temperment and disposition is an awesome thought. Excellent question. I am a professional breeder with Rottweilers, and this is def a science with us. Never thought about Chams though. Can't wait to read more comments/opinions.
 
it has been proven that it takes only like 2 or 3 generations to get like 70-90% offspring that would have a temperment to your breeding goal. idk i watched this on like the history channel for how dogs came to be dogs from wolves. they did an experiment with cb foxes. started with group of irritable parents and another group of calm parents. as the each generation matured enough to get like a personality they seperated again, calm and irritable, anyways my point being it only took 2-3 generations untill it was a vast majority of either side.
 
it has been proven that it takes only like 2 or 3 generations to get like 70-90% offspring that would have a temperment to your breeding goal. idk i watched this on like the history channel for how dogs came to be dogs from wolves. they did an experiment with cb foxes. started with group of irritable parents and another group of calm parents. as the each generation matured enough to get like a personality they seperated again, calm and irritable, anyways my point being it only took 2-3 generations untill it was a vast majority of either side.

Im sure one cannot infer that what may work with a particular mammal is in anyway whatsoever relevant to what one might expect for a reptile of any kind
 
That is my plan when i breed my two chams. Although the male is not friendly, he is also not a ragging crazy man. The female (penny) is super sweet for the two of them. i guess i will have to wait and see. Also paying alot of attention to the chams as babies , i think, makes them more prone to social habbits
 
thanks

i was wondering because i have a outgoing male jackson and a freindly famale that resently mated and was wondering how theyd turn out. i will make sure to handle them everyday, thanks
 
i was wondering because i have a outgoing male jackson and a freindly famale that resently mated and was wondering how theyd turn out. i will make sure to handle them everyday, thanks

handling isnt necessarily the way to make them friendly - could even backfire. Certainly I dont handle mine much - so its not necessary for achieving it. Consistency, calmness, time - I'd say those are more important, along with food
 
Just remember that captive breeding isn't going to alter the basic fact that chams, like most herps, are solitary for most of their lives. This would be a huge, fundamental change in the creature itself. They are not social beings so don't "need" to be socially sophisticated. There's a lot missing in the design of their brain that is developed in species that need to cooperate, mate for life, care for young, live in herds.

I'm sure that selecting more tolerant "friendly" individual chams isn't a bad thing, but I bet it won't really guarrantee every offspring is automatically going to be nice. On the other hand, it could backfire in an odd way...a calm accepting cham may not have the ability or impulse to display those wonderful colors!!! Color change is a complex way to communicate, but if their behavior altered a lot, they might lose the need for display.

Even in social species like dogs, horses, etc. there are individuals who just aren't as tolerant or accepting despite hundreds of generations of selection on top of a socially oriented basic behavior.
 
I would have never thought about the color thing! It makes a lot of sense though. My sambava who was as friendly as could be would only fire up when seriously provoked by my guinea pigs! And that was the only way I was able to get him to fire up.

I also agree that handling isn't always the way to make a chameleon "friendly." It can frighten them more than get them used to you. The above mentioned sambava male was never really handled. One day, after he had started chameleon puberty, he just hopped on my hand and decided he liked it. I didn't even really handle him after that but he decided he wanted to be with me or a select few other people and would climb down from his FR and find the person of his choosing (as he pleased!)
 
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