Advice for Breeding Chameleons (Veiled)

hiddenflaws

hiddenflaws

Avid Member
So I am interested with the idea of breeding. Not now, of course. I'm not going to be getting another chameleon for at least a year or even two since I just got Pascal 9 days ago and I'm still learning from him. However, I would like to do this once I do my research and learn more after getting a female and I want to take the time to do this starting now. Mainly because I'm a very nervous person and I like to know as much as possible before diving into something. I did 2-3 weeks of research on chameleons before getting Pascal and I'm so glad that I did.
Honestly, all I'm asking from you guys is for some links that give information on females and egg laying. However, I don't want people just throwing links at me and would love to see what y'all do when it comes to breeding and for some tips! I know a few things due to the fact that I am ALWAYS on the forms reading different stuff about chams. Kind of addicted to knowing about these cool dudes.
I am also making this because I feel like it'd be useful for others who are interested in breeding and wanting to know more about it!
 
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If you want advice on breeding some things you may want to keep in mind it is very tricky, I am new to chameleon breeding I am trying to experience it to. I have a male and a female veiled chameleon. When the female is around a year of age she will show receptive behavior (this can happen as early as 4 months but it is highly recommend you wait till she’s a year old) some of this behavior that you will look out for is blue spots on her body. Once you put them together the female should always go in the males cage. If the female is stressed she may not let him breed even if she is ready because she’s scared. If you give her 5 minutes or so the male will darken up and go down to see who is in his territory. After realizing she is a female he will run brighten up his colors and go in for a breeding attempt. She will not be aggressive and let him mate with her. Now things you have to dig deep for I find because I researched a lot and it was very hard to find this unreceptive behavior is when the female darkens up and sways on the branch. The male should recognize this coloring. The once they pair 1 or 2 times successfully you can separate the to. In the next 24 hours her color might become darker as she is stressed from mating. Soon when they are introduced even through a screen she will turn black with yellow and blue spots and lines. The female and the male should not see each other after that or it will stress them out. That’s where I’m out now I’ve spent a lot of time trying and researching though.
 
It's an expensive endeavor. Keep in mind that a veiled chameleon is likely to lay 20+ eggs, and then you'll have 20+ babies to care for. That's a lot of fruit flies and pinheads! In addition, you'd have to provide each baby with an enclosure of it's own at ~3 months (or sooner), find homes for everyone, and handle the daily upkeep.

I've been toying with the idea, but the sheer commitment is putting me off. I might end up sinking those funds into a Meller's chameleon, instead. ?‍♀️

I'd keep breeding on the backburner and just enjoy the ride for now. Do some reading, soak it all in, and revisit it later. No rush to jump into it! I strongly recommend finding an experienced mentor if you do pursue breeding.
 
An excellent quote from another recent breeding thread:

Syreptyon said:
A little late for that. OP stated that they already allowed their chameleons to mate.

What you really need to prepare for is how you're going to feed the probably dozens of babies. You will need feeders on the order of thousands. If you assume each cham eats ~10 insects a day, you could easily end up needing 300+ feeders every single day, so I hope you're prepared and have a plan to accomplish that.

The other thing will be, what are you going to do with the offspring? How are you going to find people to sell them to? The world has no shortage of veileds whatsoever and so there is very little demand for single person breeding projects (especially when, unlike the many many established veiled breeders out there, you have no reputation as a competent keeper let alone breeder in the public eye). What will you do if you can't sell them? You need to be prepared and knowledgable starting yesterday. Breeding is not to be taken lightly. It is very hard on the female's body and very expensive. In the beginning, they won't take up all that much space, but they will grow fast and eventually need to be separated from each other. So you will need space, equipment, supplements, caging, lighting, etc etc.

You will be putting a heck of a lot more money into doing this than you will make from selling them. In addition you need to know exactly how to incubate chameleon eggs. Do you know how to set up a proper laybin for your female? Do you know how long incubation takes? Since they have seemingly already mated, you will quickly run out of time before you need to know all of this and much more, so I suggest getting to researching everything you possibly can immediately.
Click to expand...
 
GoodKarma19 said:
It's an expensive endeavor. Keep in mind that a veiled chameleon is likely to lay 20+ eggs, and then you'll have 20+ babies to care for. That's a lot of fruit flies and pinheads! In addition, you'd have to provide each baby with an enclosure of it's own at ~3 months (or sooner), find homes for everyone, and handle the daily upkeep.

I've been toying with the idea, but the sheer commitment is putting me off. I might end up sinking those funds into a Meller's chameleon, instead. ?‍♀️

I'd keep breeding on the backburner and just enjoy the ride for now. Do some reading, soak it all in, and revisit it later. No rush to jump into it! I strongly recommend finding an experienced mentor if you do pursue breeding.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's nothing that I'm sure about. In fact, I'm not even 50% sure of doing it. Just want to learn more as of now. I've heard that you'll spend more on raising them then selling. Not sure how I feel about that part, but eh. Who knows. It'll all depend on where I am in life financially and how willing I am to put effort into it
 
hiddenflaws said:
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Click to expand...

You definitely will spend more than you recoup, especially from veileds. There's the initial set up cost, then there's the ongoing expenses, and so on and so forth and it's not something to be done on a whim.

Dont get me wrong - I love veileds! I have my lovely pied translucent and I couldn't be more pleased with her! But it's an expensive passion project at best, and it's up to you to decide if it's worth it.
 
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