Establishing Relationship

[Theirin]

I'm a noobie. I have heard many things about handling and Chams that just do not like to be around humans at all. Is there any method I can use while my guy is still young that will help develop a good relationship to where I can handle him without too many issues?

 

[Olimpia]

I'm going to be lazy and edit a post I made a few minutes ago:

Some chameleons hate people, and some tolerate them, and some love them. So what personality your cham has is completely luck of the draw. But you can try handeling him for short periods of time every day/other day to get him used to you.

Although I would try free ranging better. Something like putting a small plant on your desk and letting him hang out with you while you work or something. It lets them be with you, without being on you, which is less stressful. It's worked to de-sensitize a couple of mine to me. An if he seems ok with being on your hand, slowly increase the time he's out on your hand. This, along with hand feeding, will do a lot to help "tame" your chameleon, or at the very least make him less aggressive towards you.

With my last two new babies this is what I did. I had them set up in a cage and hand fed them the first two weeks they were here, to help ease them into their new home and get them aquainted with me. Then I would leave the cage door open with a fake ficus infront so that the cham could exit the cage on their own. The first two-three days of this I would let them come in and out on their own for as long as they chose. And then I began putting a hand infront of them to see if they would climb on, and they would. But these two chameleons have super docile personalities to begin with, so this "taming" has been pretty easy.

However, that said, it's not always going to work. Some chameleons just have that personality and regardless of what you do they are just never going to trust you enough to be comfortable on your hand. And you have to read your cham and respect the signals he sends you. If he hates it, leave him alone. Out of my 6, I have to leave 2 alone because they just don't like me.

 

[Theirin]

I'm going to be lazy and edit a post I made a few minutes ago:

Some chameleons hate people, and some tolerate them, and some love them. So what personality your cham has is completely luck of the draw. But you can try handeling him for short periods of time every day/other day to get him used to you.

Although I would try free ranging better. Something like putting a small plant on your desk and letting him hang out with you while you work or something. It lets them be with you, without being on you, which is less stressful. It's worked to de-sensitize a couple of mine to me. An if he seems ok with being on your hand, slowly increase the time he's out on your hand. This, along with hand feeding, will do a lot to help "tame" your chameleon, or at the very least make him less aggressive towards you.

With my last two new babies this is what I did. I had them set up in a cage and hand fed them the first two weeks they were here, to help ease them into their new home and get them aquainted with me. Then I would leave the cage door open with a fake ficus infront so that the cham could exit the cage on their own. The first two-three days of this I would let them come in and out on their own for as long as they chose. And then I began putting a hand infront of them to see if they would climb on, and they would. But these two chameleons have super docile personalities to begin with, so this "taming" has been pretty easy.

However, that said, it's not always going to work. Some chameleons just have that personality and regardless of what you do they are just never going to trust you enough to be comfortable on your hand. And you have to read your cham and respect the signals he sends you. If he hates it, leave him alone. Out of my 6, I have to leave 2 alone because they just don't like me.

Ok. My cham doesn't hate me, but he does run away when I try to handle him, I will begin hand feeding him more often to help him get used to me. It is difficult to not scare him in his current enclosure since it is smaller and he is smaller as well so it seem it is easy for me to startle him. I will also try to get some plants to get him to free range outside of his cage and see how all that works out. The main thing I have noticed is that he gets a bit worked up when I go to get him, but once he is on my hand he is calm for the most part. Thanks for the advice! You seem very knowledgable Olimpia