am I handling my veiled chameleon a little to much?

[chameleons707]

Hello everybody! I had a quick question I would like to ask and hope what's best for my little guy. As of now my male veiled chameleon is 6 months old. I got him when he was only 6 weeks old so he is used to being handled. Since he was little we had a routine of just handling him 3-4x a week with maybe lasting 15 minutes. He is perfectly fine. No signs of stress , he will even come by the door to say hello. Because he is in his "teenage" stage when they start to become grumpy and sort of aggressive I was wondering if my routine he's had from little will effect his health? For the past 3 weeks he has finally started to gap and hiss and turn into dark colors but after a while he will be back to being calm and with bright colors again. Is it alright to continue our routine? When I reach to grab him he will puff up and try to bite but then after 20 seconds he's back to normal and let's me grab him with no problem. Am I stressing him? I'm worried!! I want him to live a long healthy life! So plz let me know if my routine or not is OK

 

[Carlton]

Hello everybody! I had a quick question I would like to ask and hope what's best for my little guy. As of now my male veiled chameleon is 6 months old. I got him when he was only 6 weeks old so he is used to being handled. Since he was little we had a routine of just handling him 3-4x a week with maybe lasting 15 minutes. He is perfectly fine. No signs of stress , he will even come by the door to say hello. Because he is in his "teenage" stage when they start to become grumpy and sort of aggressive I was wondering if my routine he's had from little will effect his health? For the past 3 weeks he has finally started to gap and hiss and turn into dark colors but after a while he will be back to being calm and with bright colors again. Is it alright to continue our routine? When I reach to grab him he will puff up and try to bite but then after 20 seconds he's back to normal and let's me grab him with no problem. Am I stressing him? I'm worried!! I want him to live a long healthy life! So plz let me know if my routine or not is OK

At his age he's feeling his hormones and may be starting to defend his territory more. He is viewing you as more of an intruder than he used to. Many chams go through this "Terrible teens" phase, but mellow out again as they get older. I think that a cham that is showing signs of overhandling will tend to get reactive and pissy right off the bat as you approach (rather than getting pissy gradually) and stay pissy a little longer than usual. A sign that their personal stress threshold is lower than it used to be. If he's not thrilled about being handled right now maybe you can leave him alone a little more. If he tends to calm down once he's out of his cage you could try leaving the door open and let him crawl out on his own, then pick him up and take him to a favorite place in the house. See if that helps.

 

[chameleons707]

thank you! will try the opening door thing and keep updated!

 

[villanueva11]

My veiled is about 18 months old, I got him at 2 months. At first I would reach in and grab him, at about 5 months old he started to get real mad about it. It was upsetting to both of us. I decided to start leaving his door open whenever I was in the room. Before long he started to climb out. Once he'd start to come out I slowly walked over & held my hand out... after a while (4-6 weeks) he'd climb right on my arm to say hello. Now He comes out every day. Sometimes just for a few mins-sometimes for a good part of the day. He has a jungle-gym I built for him that he stays out on. The reason that this works, imo, is because he has his space-I do not ever invade that space except to put food in his cup. I don't mess with his plants/branches or anything in there unless he is out on his jungle-gym. He comes out when he's ready to never because I make him. So he knows he is safe in his space. He's learned that I respect that its his & he doesn't have to be aggressive to protect it. Now he will actually go to where the door opens up and scratch on it almost like a dog would the door to outside, waiting for me to get over there and let him out. Now I understand that a lot of them don't do well with being handled daily, but just like people they are all different, what works for one may not for the next. No one knows your little guy like you do.

 

[Suzapalooza]

My veiled is about 18 months old, I got him at 2 months. At first I would reach in and grab him, at about 5 months old he started to get real mad about it. It was upsetting to both of us. I decided to start leaving his door open whenever I was in the room. Before long he started to climb out. Once he'd start to come out I slowly walked over & held my hand out... after a while (4-6 weeks) he'd climb right on my arm to say hello. Now He comes out every day. Sometimes just for a few mins-sometimes for a good part of the day. He has a jungle-gym I built for him that he stays out on. The reason that this works, imo, is because he has his space-I do not ever invade that space except to put food in his cup. I don't mess with his plants/branches or anything in there unless he is out on his jungle-gym. He comes out when he's ready to never because I make him. So he knows he is safe in his space. He's learned that I respect that its his & he doesn't have to be aggressive to protect it. Now he will actually go to where the door opens up and scratch on it almost like a dog would the door to outside, waiting for me to get over there and let him out. Now I understand that a lot of them don't do well with being handled daily, but just like people they are all different, what works for one may not for the next. No one knows your little guy like you do.

That sounds a lot like our 9-month old male veiled, Neil. He comes out on his own if we leave the door open, but gives us the "evil eye" and turns away if we reach into his enclosure.

He was ill for about six weeks, so we had to handle him twice daily for meds and force-feeding. He wasn't thrilled about it, but he never bit or hissed. We tried to approach him slowly, and from the bottom, giving him ample notice that we were coming towards him. Luckily, one of his favorite perching spots is also a limb that can be detached, so we could remove him and the branch all at once without too much disruption.

We were worried that he would never come back out on his own again, though (associating being out of his territory with force-feeding and meds), but much to our delight he's been back to his old self, climbing out about once a day when we leave the door open. We also did all of the meds and feeding in another room, so hoping that helped, too.

It really does matter if you respect their space.