New Chameleons - Female Pacing Cage

[Brian Detweiler]

We recently acquired two veiled chameleons off of Craigslist.
They were advertised as two females, and when we picked them up, they were set up in a homemade cage, together, with the light inside the cage. After about 15 minutes of googling, we realized these people had no idea what they were doing.

We brought them home in a small aquarium they gave us, and one was hissing at the other and turning black and just looking generally pissed. So we went out and bought two chameleon cages to separate them.

After some more googling, we realized one is actually male, and the other is female. The female (the agitated one) has been pacing her cage like crazy, whereas the male has been pretty chill. We put a small aquarium full of sand inside her cage and covered the cage with towels so she could have some privacy. She at least seems to be checking out the sand.

The question here is, is it normal for male to be chill and female to be crazy, or is she probably trying to lay some eggs? We're going to let her do her thing for the next day or so and see what happens, but since this is our first foray into the chameleon world, we want to make sure we're doing things right.

Thanks in advance!

 

[jpowell86]

If you could post a picture of the female, it would be more possible to guess if she is gravid based on her colors. Are they still in sight of each other?? This could cause stress that would explain the pacing behavior as well. I know you have the cage covered with towels at the moment, but if you lift them and she can see the male, it will set her off. Especially since they were housed together previously. Poor girl is probably at her wits end. I would definitely check out jannb's blog on veiled care if you're new to the game. I would also make sure the laying bin is at least 12 inches deep and I would do a 50/50 ratio of sand and peat. I'm glad you got the two of them out of such a crappy situation. Good Luck!!

 

[kinyonga]

How old are they?

If they are sexually mature then the female probably does need to lay eggs....thus the pacing. If she is producing eggs then she would be acting aggressively to the male and turning dark colors to indicate that she doesn't want to mate.

Use an opaque container at least 12" deep by 12" by 8" full of moistened washed playsand. I leave it in the cage all the time once an egglaying female is sexually mature.

 

[carol5208]

I am attaching a great caresheet for you to read. It will tell you everything you need to do and what you need to buy if you haven't already. If you could post pictures of both of them it would be helpful to us to see if we can tell if the female is pregnant(gravid) and just to check their health out in general. Do you have a UVB light? It is very important to have one.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/veiled/