First Chameleon is gonna come!

Brandi

New Member
Hey everyone!

Okay, so, I thought it would be MONTHS till I got a cham. Well, for my birthday, my family is pitching in and helping. I now have the opportunity to order it anytime! I am ordering things from several places, so I gotta make sure the supplies comes first so I can hook it up and get it going. :D

I am comparing different breeders at the moment, which I have been for awhile, and I have found a ton of good choices! I also have to go to some nearby nurseries and get some pothos that doesn't have any chemicals.

I just wanted to post my excitement~ I cannot wait! :)

-Brandi
 
Thanks!

I am pretty sure I will be getting an older juvenile veiled, no specific morph yet.

Also, just making sure, for the plants, I need organic soil, correct? Is there any specific brand that is good?
 
A veiled is great to have for your first chameleon but get a male, females just offer too many problems, and this is from someone who has kept them for years. Now my veiled population is one male.
 
I'm going to re-iterate what laurie said: get a male! Female veileds will lay eggs even if they haven't been "fertilized"...and every "lay" is difficult and dangerous....Get a male.
 
Thanks alot for all the info on the soil! I will see if I can pick some up at the nurseries.

And I had already had my mind on the male, so I am for sure it will be male. I have read about the difficulties of females, and I would rather start out with the male.
 
Thank you!

Okay, now I am debating which place to buy my cham from. I am not sure which place I should get my cham from, considering the breeders I have looked at are all good in my opinion.
 
My first is a female veiled. So far she's been great but has not been gravid yet in my care. I already have a bin set up for her .. I've seen her try to dig in the soil last week but she doesn't have eggs. My bro in law said I would be able to feel them. Is this true?
 
Reptile shows are usually cheaper since there is no shipping and you can hand pick the animal. Any site sponsor is pretty good. If you're considering someone else that you don't know much about, look on faunaclassifieds BOI.
 
FlChams has awesome chameleons. LLLreptile is a petstore and gets whole sale stock. You wont know who the sire is, but you could end up with an amazing cham anyways. It's up to you. Where do you live? Are there any shows coming up?
 
I live in Kentucky.

I think I am going to get my cham from LLL reptiles. :) Is 24 x 24 x 36 too small for an adult veiled male? I was just wondering, because I am trying to get an older juvenile.

A show comes up in March 27th here, but I don't know if I can take the wait. :p

EDIT: nevermind about the cage question, I am gonna go ahead and get a 24 x 24 x 48.
 
good choice for a first cham if ya wanna see baby veilds look at my lombardi babies thread there really cute lol... there few weeks old now...
 
I sort of have issues with "shows" because it seems to me the animals are being subjected to a lot of difficult situations just so they can get sold. You'll be told over and over that you shouldn't put more than one chameleon in a cage because it freaks them out, but at the shows, there will be 10, 12 chams in the same cage. The last one I went to the kids all gathered around for a great show of chameleons having sex....of course, someone was going to buy that female later and not know what had happened.

My initial impression, if you don't have a reputable reptile specialty store in your area, is the less shipping the better....But LLL ships next day, so I guess it's no worse on the animal to travel across country rather than a few states.....unless you think the plane changes and all would be stressful...

I think that cage size is probably fine for a veiled juvenile based on posts here...you will probably want to go up in size when he hits full size (again, based on posts here).
 
And that is why you go on the first day as soon as they open. How could a vendor possibly fit 100 or so cages for ever Cham, most of which are babies? At the Sacramento reptile shows I only saw baby chams and females in the same cage as others of the same age/size. The only cage that I saw that was just terrible in my opinion had 1.1 panther adults and a larger juvi mellers in a 2x2x4, but they looked so sick that anyone who knew reptiles at all would not buy them.

My Pan turned out just fine. I do not suggest buying from a pet store unless the husbandry is correct or else you are supporting a bunch of other bad stuff that I don't feel like typing about. Shipping would also be acceptable, but again the shipping can be really expensive, more than the veiled even! :eek:
 
Well...the female Fischer's I lost was bought from the LLL booth. She was in a cage with a load of other chameleons and the clerk told me (me being stupid) that it would be just fine for me to buy her and put her in the cage with my male Fischer's (write that screenplay out, it was as horrible as you can imagine). There were loads and loads of adults of many species mixed in small cages. Being as I live not that far from LLL I went in shortly after she died and discussed it. I learned that in the store they won't even house them in pairs, but at the shows they will say it's okay just to make a sale. The clerk didn't know I'd bought her from the LLL booth when I told her the story (emitting the name of the store) she said: "Oh, they just did that to make the sale, that sucks"

I understand that this is sort of "the nature of the beast" but if you have the opportunity to get an animal that has not been subjected to that experience, why wouldn't you?

they looked so sick that anyone who knew reptiles at all would not buy them.

Sadly, they probably got purchased because a whole lot of the people at such shows are not knowledgeable, they just think it would be cool to own a reptile.

I rather doubt most people can get to a show in the first hours its open...in the case of the big show here, it started shortly after I started work...rather difficult.
 
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A veiled is great to have for your first chameleon but get a male, females just offer too many problems, and this is from someone who has kept them for years. Now my veiled population is one male.

What kind of problems have you had with your females?
 
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