male and female veileds together

[craig]

Hi. I bought my chameleons a few weeks ago. male is alittle over 3 months and the female over 2 months. The guy I bought them from said the male and female can be together but male and male can't. I was reading in my chameleon book that the male and female should be in separate cages until 6 monthes old. I plan to breed these and want to know your input. These are veiled chameleons. Thanks. Craig.

 

[Vegas Chad]

Hey Craig,
I would never keep my male Veilds together as they get stressed out and will likely fight. Once mature you should keep them is separate cages and make sure that they can not see one another. I have taken out my cage dividers for cleaning and they scamper over next to one another and start getting all bent out of shape and pissed off.
I would not even keep the male and female together unless you have a REALLY big cage. The female will get stressed out by the constant presence of the male. However if you have a large cage it may be possible for her to get away from him. But I think you would really be better off in the long run to keep them both in different cages with a sight divider.
I am no expert and am hardly as experienced as others in here so maybe they can chime in here if I am incorrect. Also, keep a ficus (or other non-toxic plant) in the cage; they love to chomp on them every now and again. Good luck!

 

[Brad Ramsey]

Craig,
Your chams need to be in seperate enclosures ALWAYS. Unless and until you wish to breed them and then they should be together only for a day or so or until the female displays gravid coloration.
Breeding should not happen until the female is at least one year old.
Chameleons are very territorial "solo" animals and extremely sensitive. Close proximity to another chameleon stresses them and stress leads to illness and death.
Regardless of what you were told these two need their own individual homes A.S.A.P.

-Brad

 

[craig]

Thanks for the responses everyone. Well I have them in a cage about 3ft high and 2 ft wide. They seem to not mind each other at all and will climb near each other and everything. The only times I see them get alittle stressed is when I go to grab them from the cage. Well iam going to make another cage the same size and put the female in there. I had veileds before and I had them in separate TANKS(when I was 14 thats what people told me to put them in ) and when I put the female in the males tank he would quickly go to the female and mate. They were neat when when the babies hatched but I had them in a 10gal tank and they kept dying. It must have been the poor ventalation. Iam now getting into them again and iam going to do it right. Thanks for the input and they will be separated shortly. Craig.

 

[cookiegirl]

I have a a male and 2 females veileds. These are my breeders. I only put them together for breeding puposes. The girls each have their own cage. I use a divider in between the cages so the male and females cannot see each other.I do not keep my babies together after 6 months. The females get stressed out at the sight of the male. I would put them in seperate cages with a divider. I used a metal pole with a curtain I made. You may also use a dark trash bag and tape to the outside of the cage so they cannot see each other. I hope this helps you.

 

[craig]

That divider sounds good too. Also, Where can I get one of these thermometers? Iam using my cricket dust that I have now and Iam going to get several kinds at the show 4/22. Iam going to go to the pet shop probably tomorrow and get those reptisuns. Any idead how much they run? Thanks. Craig.

 

[craig]

here is my cage setup. Iam using a reptisun 10.0 bulb and a 60W heat bulb. Iam now housing my male and female together and using my other cage that I made which is the same size as this one for my future jacksons

oh, here is a shot of my bus

 

[Julirs]

craig-they really need to be in seperate enclosures as they are truly too old to be together. Your male looks very much like mine-they are probably siblings.

 

[Vegas Chad]

I agree... You REALLY need to put them in different cages.

 

[craig]

Iam going to put sticks in there with them so they don't keep climbing on the screen Also, Mike said it is okay to put them together as long as they don't show aggression or stress towards each other. He said this is how he bread his first chameleons. Mine don't seem to mind each other and I would rather keep them together. I plan on putting jacksons in my other cage which is the same as this one but it is twisted because I made it Julirs, we might have blood related chameleons. my male is like 4 months and female like 3.

 

[Julirs]

That cage is the same size that mine is in now, and I am looking to move him up soon. Somehow it does not seem big enough for 2...

 

[Heika]

On another note.. I really think you need to sell that VW bus to me, because I have wanted one for half my life...

 

[craig]

On another note.. I really think you need to sell that VW bus to me, because I have wanted one for half my life...

ha, It is cool. I love the bus. Took alot of money to get it where its at. I paid $1250 for it and I had to finish building the motor and buying a bunch of parts to get it slammed to the ground. With the purchase price and all parts and labor from a couple vw shops it cost me over $5000. I have the metal repair pieces and rear seats but haven't installed them yet. I have to start working on this. Runs great though. I need to sell either my beetle or bus because my neighbor is coming back down from NY and I have nowhere to park. oh well, sorry for the off topic

 

[Jordan]

Stress is a word that gets tossed around alot in the reptile community. I think stress is anything that makes a reptile behave in a manner that is unnatural to their particular species. By deriving your husbandry attempts off of their instinct, morphology, nutritional needs and topographical parameters you can make things that are unnatural to them become natural. This is not by taking away from their natural being but rather giving them means to concentrate their development in natural ways.

Now with that being said these are pets not wild animals. I would hope that you want to ensure that your pets live as long and happy lives as they can. Chameleons are creatures of solitude. While they would encounter each other in the wild there would really only be three primary reactions with varing degrees of them: fight, flight, or have sex. The most common reaction is probably flight. Once the opponent is sized up the winner can be declared in most cases. Some things can push them to fight like food, water, the right to mate, territory (and all the amenities that come with it) or simply just having a strong willed personality which veileds have.

Husbandry will be awefully hard with both of them in the same cage. Each will required monitered food intake of different amounts, different supplementing schedules, I personally keep mine at different temperatures. Females also will lay eggs that they may or may not do with the presence of a male.

All in all caging them together will amount to more work and extremely low statistical odds of survival.

 

[kinyonga]

If you keep a male and female veiled together all the time its almost certain that eventually one will go down hill.

In the wild, if a male chameleon comes across a female chameleon, the female can move away if it doesn't want to mate (is already gravid). In a cage it can only move as far away as the cage's size allows....which is not nearly far enough. Thus, by keeping them in the same cage, you are keeping them both in a constant state of stress which will depress their immune systems.

Not only that but if you keep them together from the time they are young, the female will undoubtedly become gravid as soon as she is sexually mature ...and it will more than likely be before she is full grown.

See "battle wounds"...
http://www.mythicalchameleons.com/vetcases.htm#battle

 

[craig]

GEEZ......okay you convinced me, they are in separate cages now. I went to buy another 18" flourescent light and I open it up and there is no plug its one of those that use electrical wires like a fan would. oh well, it will go back to the store and Iam going to find another one. Seems like the male is getting more aggressive towards me. every time i reach for him he hisses and tries to bite.

 

[FL Chams]

Raising Male and Female Veileds Together

Just to answer this for all of you. When I first started raising chameleons I raised an unrelated trio together. They did fine and never went downhill. The males and females were not aggressive towards each other. All chameleons have certain personalities. If you have chameleons together and they seem to be stressing another one out then FOR SURE separate them. If they seem to be doing fine I would still observe them like you would with any species your keeping. It's not like I'm talking about a few chameleons I've had or hatched. My trio all grew to appropriate sizes and the male was never way larger than the females during this time period. Once the male and females were of breeding age they bred and all the females had a 100 percent hatch rate and the clutches ranged from 50 to 60 eggs each. Once the females went gravid of course they were separated. From that point on they were not with each other unless for breeding exclusively. It's not realistic to house each baby chameleon together as a breeder with limited space. Babies and juveniles are kept in small groups to accommodate large collections. Everyone here is entitled to their own opinions on this subject. Keeping them separate is definitely a way that works. But to think that other ways don't work because of your experience is a little naive. The only problem I see from this forum is that people are getting a lot of book advice from people that really don't have the experience behind it. I am specifically talking about Veiled Chameleons. I do not recommend what I'm saying for any other species. Especially NOT Panthers. New keepers might be less likely to accurately notice possible signs of problems when raising or keeping animals together. I have easily worked with thousands of baby veiled chameleons and have little to no problems with them at all.

Anyone with extensive and direct experience please chime in and let others know your experience not from people who have a couple of chameleons that they've heard this or that.

-Mike

 

[TylerStewart]

I agree with this... It's not realistic to raise them individually, and I doubt that any major breeder would make that claim. I'm not saying it would be a bad thing to do, as I know someone raising panthers individually and I think it's kinda cool, but I don't think it's something that's going to decide the life or death of the animals. As with anything chameleon related, you've just gotta have an eye for problems, an eye for hostilities. If you have a group of 8 and one is growing noticeably faster than the others, he/she gets pulled into a "bigger sized animal's cage."

I currently have 3 breeder male veileds, and every one of them lives permanently with at least one female. I have virtually zero problems with these animals, because any animals that I noticed a problem with were pulled and caged individually. When they're raised together from a young 'pre-breeding' age, they usually learn to adapt to eachother's presence, much like raising a dog with a cat.

To say that a young animal can be caged with another young animal isn't really wrong. I don't notice hostilities if raising like-sized animals together until one is gravid or occasionally just incompatible at maturity.

I know this may go against what many books or outdated websites say.... Just keep in mind, these are the same books that say you "have to breed a veiled female at her first receptive period or watch her be egg bound and die."

 

[Brad Ramsey]

You guys need to remember that we deal with lots of novices on here (I still include myself in that group) and a lot of times the advice given is to create a "best case scenario".
For a 13 year old boy, for instance, telling him he can keep male and female veileds together could result in a very bad outcome, not to mention the likelihood of too small a cage.
I think it's interesting from an advanced hobby perspective to know what you are doing and what has proven succesful for you but (in my opinion) these discussions should carry a disclaimer. It's hard enough for some people to get the basic husbandry right with one animal.
Tyler, are the pairs or groups of veileds you keep together housed outside? How big are the enclosures? I'm really interested in the idea of having my veiled live outside full time in the summer.

-Brad

 

[Brad Ramsey]

Okay, before any offended or angry 13 year old boys respond to my last post, let me say that I think many of you are probably doing a really great job and it was unfair to use you as an example.
There are plenty of 40 year old boys who don't get this right.
And lets not forget the women and girls whose husbandry sucks....
'nuff said. Now I've pissed everyone off!

-Brad