jajeanpierre
Chameleon Enthusiast
Panthers are quite hardy and easy to care for, and yes, I consider them a good chameleon choice for a novice.
In my opinion at this time in the US, I think raising a healthy veiled is not something most novices can do. Most veileds hatch from females that are poorly nourished so are not able to put enough nutrients into the egg. These nutritional deficits have long-lasting effects on the long-term health of the animal and future generations. There are a few people who can do a good job producing healthy babies, but these breeders are few and far between and do not produce very many babies. The fact of the matter is that veileds wholesale for $8. You cannot raise healthy babies for $8 apiece. I was told by a big dealer that veiled breeders cull their females after one clutch because they are spent. There is a reason there is so much MBD in very young baby veileds. I would not want to produce babies from a veiled that came from somewhere that sold it for $8 even if I raised that baby from hatch. Too much nutrition goes into that baby before it hatches.
I also consider the montane species I work with--Trioceros quadricornis quadricornis and Trioceros quadricornis gracilior--to be very good species for novices. I've found them to be very hardy, even the battered wild caughts I have bought, as long as you give them some basic requirements which is lots of humidity and reasonably low temperatures. I find them easier to deal with than a veiled because I don't worry about basking lights and getting temps high enough in winter.
It is quite easy to give them what they need, even for a novice. I keep mine very differently than @bobcochran and we are both successful getting wild caught pairs to reproduce. His temperature parameters are much, much different than mine. So, to a degree, they are very flexible, I've found novices do well with them as long as they listen to me and are observant and honest.
Honesty is incredibly important. No keeper wants to be criticized about their husbandry but if a keeper defends poor husbandry practices, or worse lies about how they keep them, then they will never be able to learn because they are stuck with a closed mind. You have no idea how many times I have looked at pictures of cages and their placement and read the descriptions of how much misting the keeper does to know they are out and out lying. You cannot mist a screen cage that sits on top of a carpet or a wood table or a TV console for minutes at a time every few hours and not have a flood and damage. I doubt many people give even a minute of hand misting at a time because, well, it is difficult to do and misters wear out pretty quickly. I think most people simply write what they think we want to hear so they won't be criticized.
Also, remember keeping a veiled alive is not the same as them thriving.
