handling???

[Rango317]

At what age should I start handling my Veiled Cham? I don't know his exact age but he is fairly young (5 weeks?) I got the courage to get him out today... too bad that was a fail. He ran from me in the cage and wasn't fully comfortable with being out of the cage and in my hands. I put thim away after 5 minutes. Later this evening I went to collect and uneaten worm from the branch by him and for the first time he launched at me and tried to bite. Is he too young?

 

[Preekoo]

Good Method

What I did with my guy when he was little was avoid eye contact with him completely and try and hand feed him once a day and make eye contact with him that one time a day. After about 4 days of failed attempts of him eating out of my hand, he went for it. I did that daily for about a week and soon I let him crawl around out of his cage on a plant and let him get use to being around me outside of the cage. They're very timid little fella's, just put your mind into theirs and imagine what you would be thinking if you were in the situation of being trapped inside of a box all day and then all of a sudden a giant comes walking up to you staring you down. What would you do? (Ya know if you were a wild animal, not a human being). Just take it slow man. Maybe try and handle him when he gets a lil bigger so he can grip onto your arms a little better so he wouldnt slide around every where like my guy did

 

[Rango317]

Thank you. I will try that. I havent been successful with hand feeding him but I will try and keep persistant. He seems really young but I wanted to get him use to handling as soon as possible.

 

[nightanole]

Just use the crawl on your hand rule. If they wont crawl on your hand with a little nudge then dont handle them. Some will hang out on a finger and eat flightless fruit flies, others are not as hand friendly (never seen a baby lunge at a finger before).

Start with just having the hand in the cage. Then have the hand put bowls of treats (something other than his staple diet) in the cage when the cham is ready for some cup feeding (babies wont really cup feed till around 90 days). Then work your way up to trying to get them to eat while the hand is in the cage. Then eat from the hand something extra wiggly. At this point i try to get them to eat a staple food from my hand like a cricket. Once they will eat a staple, try to get them to move towards you to get the food, lead them along. Next step is eating on your hand, and the training is complete. Hopefully by that time they want to have hand rides.


With my guys training(6 months old and eating full size crickets), I can get him to crawl on my hand by putting my hand under his 2 front feet. The tail is some times a problem, but he never curls it(a sign of stress). Once out of the cage he will crawl onto a 4 year old kid and hand feed crickets. I still cant pet him in the cage, but then again ive never known a cham that liked touched other than maybe under the chin.

 

[RicoRoxy]

best way to make friends with your male cham..

Our male, Rico got friendly with my husband after he got him the girlfriend he had promised.. Funny but true

 

[Decadancin]

Possibly easier than hand feeding crickets would be some greens! My wife was extremely happy the first time she tried to hand feed him some kale after only two days. He was rushing up the vine before she was even ready for him. Plus, I find it hard to hand feed these small crickets without crushing them! He is still not always in the mood to be handled, so I don't force the issue.

 

[Rango317]

Possibly easier than hand feeding crickets would be some greens! My wife was extremely happy the first time she tried to hand feed him some kale after only two days. He was rushing up the vine before she was even ready for him. Plus, I find it hard to hand feed these small crickets without crushing them! He is still not always in the mood to be handled, so I don't force the issue.

How old was your little guy when you started hand feeding him?

 

[Olimpia]

I outlined here what I did with my last few chameleons to make them all either friendly or tolerant: http://muchadoaboutchameleons.blogspot.com/2012/04/to-handle-or-not-to-handle.html
It may not work for every chameleon but I've made very mean aggressive ones learn to tolerate me, which made going to the vet a much more pleasant experience for everyone. Even if you can just start handfeeding, it would be a huge first step.