Is P. Necas wrong?

[italian chameleon]

Hi!
Today I received the new edition of P.Necas' book (Chameleon: Nature's hidden jewels). It is an amazing book,lots of info about every species, stunning pictures etc... BUT there's something I read in the paragraph about Veileds' captive care that sounded rather strange: "Beyond the breeding season, the relationship between male and female is neutral. Only sometimes the female intimidate males by a disincentive ritual...males either ignore the intimidation or retreat slowly"

Now, from what I read in almost any chameleon forum males and females should be kept separated because of the male stressing the female by trying to mate all the time but this is not mentioned anywhere in the book! Furthermore, I never read anywhere about "neutral" relationship or even females intimidating males...isn't it the other way around???

I'm confused and to be honest I'm starting to think I could house my male and an eventual female in the same (BIG A..) vivarium.

what do you think?

 

[laurie]

I have never housed two veilds together nor seen a female intimate a male, but from my point of view Petr, Chris, well they are way out of my league on knowledge. We will see if Chris will chime in but, I would believe what Petr says. He is a forum member - don't think he stops in much- but send him a pm and ask.

 

[camimom]

I believe the book is wrong.
Males can stress females out with always trying to mate.
Females can stress males out by being in their territory.
It is rare that people can keep males and females together without stress.
Now, as for you, it really depends on your chams and how big your BIG cage really is.
NTM, if you keep males and females together, you are asking for constant breeding, which can take a toll on the females health and shortern her life span.

Sdheli is able to keep his male and females together, but he free ranges them, and for the most part, it is not recommended.

JMO

 

[Texas Panther Man]

Just because the male is not continuously attampting to mate. Doesnt mean that addtl stress isnt induced by them being housed together. Long term that stress will shorten your females life. The goal isnt to see if it can be done the goal is to provide the best enviroment possible for both animals. Our ultimate goal is to provide an exact duplicate of their natural enviro but thats simply not realistic in a captive setting.

To do what your talking about I'd suggest a room sized enclosure so that they could each maintain their own territory. Then you'd still have to worry about possible fighting.

 

[italian chameleon]

To do what your talking about I'd suggest a room sized enclosure so that they could each maintain their own territory. Then you'd still have to worry about possible fighting.

I agreee with you, there must be a reason if EVERYONE keeps em separated...I must have misinterpreted the holy scripture of P.Necas

 

[laurie]

Just because the male is not continuously attampting to mate. Doesnt mean that addtl stress isnt induced by them being housed together. Long term that stress will shorten your females life. The goal isnt to see if it can be done the goal is to provide the best enviroment possible for both animals. Our ultimate goal is to provide an exact duplicate of their natural enviro but thats simply not realistic in a captive setting.

To do what your talking about I'd suggest a room sized enclosure so that they could each maintain their own territory. Then you'd still have to worry about possible fighting.

I would say a room size enclosure very heavily planted would be Petr idea of a large enclosure. And he would say bigger is better. My perception of what he is saying is not that we all toss veileds in together, but rather in a very large setting, think Zoo, that sort of thing, this could be done. He also makes it clear there could only be one male with a group of females. In a large area a male will most likely stress females less if there are several of them in the group. That last sentence is pure Laurie, don't blame Petr for my thoughts.

 

[Olimpia]

No, never seen a female intimidate a male? My veiled hit sexual maturity and would not tolerate the sight of a male even for a second, regardless of species. She would actively go to the boys' free ranges and try to attack them, just because she could see them. So yes, females can have quite an attitude against males when they're not interested.

 

[fluxlizard]

I've done small groups of a male and 2 females together in the past in large walk-in enclosures and I know others experienced who have also, one who did not live near me who used smaller enclosures than I was comfortable with and another who lived not too far away from me who used large enclosures like mine but kept more females per enclosure, so I was able to observe her experience over the years alongside mine.

Things were OK over the long term. But I say OK as in "OK" not fantastic or wonderful. The animals calm down after being around each other all the time and stop constantly displaying to each other. I've done it with a few different species too. But here is the thing- you have to watch constantly to be on the lookout for problems and for intimidated animals wasting away. Intimidation can be really subtle- it doesn't have to be as obvious as threating or gaping and rocking. It can be sitting near another animal or even sleeping near another animal so it doesn't forget the dominant animal is there and he's the boss. And it is usually has a bad effect on reproductive rate. Chameleons kept together all the time do not breed as often in my experience and in the experience of another serious breeder that I lived near for a while who always kept hers in harems. Breeding happens, but with much less frequency. When they are kept together constantly they just aren't as interested in breeding- especially the males.

My interest was always in having chameleons that bred, so after dabbling in it a few years with different species and observing my own results and the results of my friend, I just stopped doing it altogether. Even for species that it was not unusual to keep them that way at that time (jacksons, quadricornis, montiums, melleri). It just isn't worth it IMO, and too easy to miss subtle stress and intimidation or even worse, accidentally interpret subtle bullying as pro-social behavior instead of anti-social behavior.

Proximity doesn't always equal love and affection when there is no where for one of the lizards to escape to should it wish to be left alone by the one initiating the closeness. And the one initiating the closeness sometimes indicates claiming the space so the animal less dominant leaves.

I'm not even a big believer in it for melleri.

I don't think it is a horrible thing to try if you watch your animals carefully and can remove if weight is lost. I've done it with veileds and panthers and oustalets long term and they were fine in addition to the 4 I've already listed. But for someone who hasn't been around many chameleons for a lengthy period of time and doesn't have a very good ability to read their animals- I wouldn't recommend it even in larger enclosures.

Believe it or not, take it or leave it.

If you really want to try it out- IMO the best way is a large walk in enclosure with 2 or 3 non-gravid females and no male.

But bluntly- it's not the greatest idea in the world anyway.

edit- I should explain too that I didn't do this on a big scale. I just wanted to try a group of each of these species to see how they would do after reading in books or articles of others who had succeeded with these same species in groups. Necas isn't alone- bartlett, devosjoli, schmidt, tamm and willewitz and numerous magazine and research articles describe group housing for various species. I used to read a lot out of the British Herpetological Society journal and there was a lot of breeders publishing in there who did this kind of housing, Langerwerf used it also for his bradypodion species and others who published in the vivarium and maybe even reptiles magazines (I'm pretty sure a quadricornis article there using shower stall housing).

I'll bet very few would really recommend it today.

 

[laurie]

No, never seen a female intimidate a male? My veiled hit sexual maturity and would not tolerate the sight of a male even for a second, regardless of species. She would actively go to the boys' free ranges and try to attack them, just because she could see them. So yes, females can have quite an attitude against males when they're not interested.

Are you teaching those girls women's lib or what? It does sound like females can have attitude - thanks.

 

[sdheli420]

Like camimom mentioned, i keep my male and female together in a large free range, with basking points for each cham..I can say that i have seen my female every so often intimidate the male, but its very brief, then they get back on with their day..so far they bask with eachother, eat out of the same feeding cup, and will come too me at the same time..so they seem to be of the rare exceptions to the rule..however i , myself would not reccomend keeping males and females together

p.s. i am here to observe them during the day, so i watch for any aggresive behaviour..

 

[Carlton]

So, remind ourselves that Necas may be basing his statement on the observations of individual breeders. We all know cham temperment is individual and that there are often exceptions to personality "rules". How stressed or intimidated one individual cham (either M or F) decides to be can be affected by other added stressors that lower its tolerance, territory size, ability to escape, health, affects of the local climate on hormones, learned behavior, or even a passionate dislike of another particular cham.

I think I'd say the book is neither wrong or right...a statement was made of a general trend, not an absolute (though I'd like to know more about how he arrived at the comment).

How's that for a non-committal, wishy washy opinion?

 

[italian chameleon]

Thank you so much people for sharing your experience!

It's quite clear at this point that cohabitation is not an option for veields unless you have loads of space (which I don't have ).

My cham's cage is 2 meters (h.) x 1.50(w.) so I think is big enough for my male only. If I decide to get a female I'll buy or build her a vivarium and that's it!

After reading the book I thought about trying and put a female with him by adding a basking point (1 more spot lamp + uvb) and lots of plants to give her shelter or by putting something to divide the vivarium in two, like a sheet of solid plastic or plywood but now i realize that "one cham one cage" is the best option!

P.s: According to the book, veileds are found like anywhere in Yemen, even in the 2 major cities, in places like people's back gardens and urban vegetation near major roads, with up to 1 male per tree in some areas, now how cool is that ??!!