mouth open

[hfrey]

my female chameleon is 3 years old and whenever her mating male gets near her in their cage she sways back and forth with her mouth open sometimes... what does this mean? do i need to seperate her from him? or is it just some mating habit

 

[beeze]

Seperate them. It means she does not want to mate. Are you housing them in the same cage?

 

[hfrey]

yeah they have always been housed in the same cage he usually stays near the bottom and she stay at the top level its a 5 foot tall cage... we seperate them when she lays her eggs.. but if we keep them seperated to long the male wont eat.

 

[beeze]

It in not recommended to house chameleons together except a few like pygmy and sometime Mellers.

 

[hfrey]

when we bought them they had been housed together for 2 years and if we seperate them they wont eat.... i tried seperating them and puttin the cages close to each other but that did not work either... i thought that they had to be seperated to but our exotic pet person said they could be housed together they are veiled chams.

is that normal for them to not eat when they arent together?

 

[Psi]

our exotic pet person said they could be housed together they are veiled chams.

That isn't correct. Usually one of the two will be in serious trouble when together.
It is possible that due to the size of the cage they could be tolerant of each other for most of the time, but I'm sure they stress each other out now and again.

is that normal for them to not eat when they arent together?

There's a lot of questions that needs to be asked about this.

How long have you separated them for the longest time?
Is it both or just the male that wont eat when you remove him?

 

[philanddeb818]

my female chameleon is 3 years old and whenever her mating male gets near her in their cage she sways back and forth with her mouth open sometimes... what does this mean? do i need to separate her from him? or is it just some mating habit

If they've been successfully housed together for 3 years and separation causes them anxiety, then the answer is obvious. They need to be together. Sometimes during mating the female will display an open mouth before accepting her partner as part of the courtship. If she keeps a receptive color, which would be in the case of a Panther, more of a peach color, then she's fine to accept his courtship. If she's bugging him, he'll figure it out and bug off after a while.

The only concern I have is the separation between he and she when he lingers at the bottom while she's up top because he needs to have his share of UVB exposure. If possible, try a larger cage setting so they can share the light exposure.

With as little a I know about what you've posted, it sounds like they're doing well.