Mom needing opinions .. please

[ChameleonBoy26]

Hello I am the mother of a reptile obsessed son. I am posting under his account. My question is true blue Panther chameleon verses ambilobe panther chameleon. QUICK backstory..He cared for his veil chameleon that we later learned was wild caught for a year. Unfortunately the chameleon was not healthy and we eventually lost him. He was completely heartbroken and used most of his allowance to purchase the reptile and all the things to care for him. My sons father purchased him without any information on the breeder. Anyway he has been caring for a bearded dragon now for 2 years. He has done endless research on chameleons. Loosing his first reptile crushed him so if you have any advice on what type of chameleon or breeders I would greatly appreciate it. He will read this with me so please be kind. Thank you ! A.Welt .

 

[kinyonga]

I see your son has only posted a couple of times…so I’m welcoming him and you to the forum! This is a great place to learn…and we are a friendly group. Many of us have kept chameleons and other reptiles for years and we understand how things can go bad for first time owners with all the bad information or even general lack of information out there.

First of all, I would recommend getting a male because then you can avoid the reproductive issues that take so many of the females at early ages from mistakes we make with husbandry. (Many females make eggs without having mated and can develop metabolic bone disease, follicular stasis and egg binding that arises mostly from improper husbandry.)

Veiled chameleon males often have more “attitude” regarding handling, so need to be worked with or else accepted as they are to get past this…but some are very tolerant of interacting.

Panthers chameleon males are more mellow as a rule… it just like other animals they all have their own personalities and limits to interacting.

I recommend you read and follow Neptune the Chameleon… https://www.youtube.com/c/NeptunetheChameleon
and Chameleon Academy..
https://chameleonacademy.com/
for good information too.

Be sure that you get the husbandry right to help avoid health issues.
You can get a husbandry review on here by answering these questions as thoroughly as you can…
https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/how-to-ask-for-help.66/

Just a bit of info on beardies too…they do develop MBD if their lighting, supplements and diet are not good….so if you need help on that, there are quite a few of us on here that can help with them as well. I wouldn’t like your son to have issues with the dragon either. Is it a male?

 

[ChameleonBoy26]

Yes he is very healthy and acting normal

 

[GrannyK]

Hi and welcome!!! I agree with everything kingyonga said. I also want to recommend one of our sponsors for when you make the purchase. Frams chams, Ready’s rainforest, kammerflage creations or ipardalis. They are very hands on breeders and will be helpful even after purchasing.
Good luck and keep us posted. It is a real chamily here on the forum!

 

[ChameleonBoy26]

Ok thank you so much.

 

[kinyonga]

Regarding MBD…often you will think everything is going well, and then suddenly one day, it shows up as bent/curved/broken arms or no trunkal lifting, etc ..and then you can correct the imbalance that caused the MBD but your lizard is left with the damage that was already done…so prevention is what we need, rather than correcting the damage when it sneaks up on our reptile. Just a word of caution as to how important it is to get things right,if we can.