New to the forum meet my Pygmy Chameleons!

[Jessalyn]

Hello! My name is Jessalyn as my username would suggest and I recently got two Pygmy chameleons.I have been raising frogs and tadpoles, but I have always been absolutely fascinated with chameleons, and have been trying to get my boyfriend to share the same interest. He said they creep him out, and that we could only get a Pygmy, which was fine with me since they are so cute and I figured it would be a good way to start my hobby

Well, the Pygmys got here, and instantly my boyfriend fell in love with these amazing freaks of nature. I of course love them as well, and they are even better than I imagined! The female seems very sassy (for a creature that moves slower than a turtle) and instantly climbed out of her container and right onto my hand. The male seems very timid (I'm sure he's also pretty stressed) and we got them both into the enclosure immediately.

One thing that concerned me a little was we had the enclosure door open to fix a couple of things, spray it down, etc and the male slowly but surely made his way over to the opening ledge. Once the female saw he was there, she did the chameleon version of running over to him and started grabbing onto his tail and him with her pinchers. We had to gently redirect her pinchers and put him back on his stick. She tried doing it again a little bit later in the enclosure (doors were closed) but fell before she could reach the poor little dude (we have a thick layer of spaghnum moss to break their falls just in case). I'm assuming it's just a mixture of stress, thirst and hunger from their journey because they seem to be doing fine now.

Anywho, here's a picture of the little jerk (just kidding) I'll post pictures of the male when he seems more comfortable, he seems a little wary whenever I come near their enclosure so I've tried to stay away for now.

 

[SilverWolf]

Welcome to the forums! Probably the best website for information, help and insight regarding chameleons. I do not have experience keeping pygmy chameleons but how old are they? Also the first thing I would say is to have separate enclosures (perhaps someone who keeps pygmy chameleons can correct the statement), as chameleons are typically fond of sharing the same enclosure with each other, even if they are very small and in a large enclosure. Especially in your case, where your female seems to bother him. Which is very interesting to me actually. It seemed at first when he was leaving the enclosure that she may have been trying to save him! XD

Anyway, when you mentioned the male climbing out, it reminded me of what happened the first time I left my chameleon's enclosure door open for just like 15 - 20 seconds, and he crawled out! That picture is included in the video I made of him (which you can see in the threat "100 Days with my first chameleon" but I'll just pose the picture right here so you can see.

Picture: https://www.chameleonforums.com/att...s-whats-your-chameleons-name-tricky-day-2.jpg He was so little, young and…perhaps overzealous. XD

 

[Jessalyn]

Ahh I watched your video! So great, I love it! One day I'll get a bigger chameleon! From what I've read it's okay to house one male with a few females provided the enclosure is large enough but in hindsight I probably should have separated them so they could calm down a bit after their journey. I couldn't get an exact age but I believe their around 6 months give or take.

I do kind of wonder if it's possible she thought he was in danger, she's a pretty smart cookie. She watched a cricket go under the moss and she started trying to pull the moss up and look under it hahaha I haven't seen her do any more crazy stuff to the poor dude, but she does like to be near him it seems, they were sitting on the same stick for awhile but then again I'm pretty new at all of this and am used to my frogs that love to cuddle in the same leaf

 

[SilverWolf]

Ahh I watched your video! So great, I love it! One day I'll get a bigger chameleon! From what I've read it's okay to house one male with a few females provided the enclosure is large enough but in hindsight I probably should have separated them so they could calm down a bit after their journey. I couldn't get an exact age but I believe their around 6 months give or take.

I do kind of wonder if it's possible she thought he was in danger, she's a pretty smart cookie. She watched a cricket go under the moss and she started trying to pull the moss up and look under it hahaha I haven't seen her do any more crazy stuff to the poor dude, but she does like to be near him it seems, they were sitting on the same stick for awhile but then again I'm pretty new at all of this and am used to my frogs that love to cuddle in the same leaf

Thanks for watching it! The official one (or at least the one I want) will be done when he is a year old or so.

Yes that's cool she'd pull moss up and look under it. She seems cute from what you describe and looks cute in the photograph as well. It's hard for me to tell the exact age of pygmy chameleons for me, so I'll just take your word for it. But yes, housing them together should be fine after looking into it a bit more, especially if they have adequate space and they don't seem to bother each other much. Are you going to let them breed? Also since your chameleon is a montane species (like mine) they don't have the same supplementing requirements as other chameleons. Do you supplement, and are you gut loading the crickets?

 

[Jessalyn]

Yes and yes I gut load my crickets for my frogs as well and use roughly the same supplement regimen with calcium 2x a week, calcium&d3 once a month as well as a multivitamin once a month.

As far as breeding goes, I'd like to at least once, I think it would be a pretty cool experience!

 

[SilverWolf]

Awesome! It looks like you're all set and so far you're doing everything right as far as I can tell! Mind posting a picture of your enclosure set up though?