Picking them up

[FunkyKangaroo]

My Cham trusts me more than other people but I want to be able to pick him up mostly stress free so I ever need to take him for a checkup or to allow him fresh air in the summer and to move him to a bigger cage. He hand feeds some and does not hide from me but does to other people any advice is great

 

[Carlton]

If you are consistent with him and don't overhandle him so he's stressed a lot of the time you are on the right track. It just isn't natural for a cham to WANT handling, so some stress is going to happen. They are not really wired to be a social creature. Some are more tolerant than others but you aren't going to change that completely no matter what you do. What you can do is teach him that even though you are a rather imposing funny looking intruder in his world, you are not going to eat him, you bring treats, you occasionally carry him someplace out of his territory, and your daily presence is not something to worry about. Chams are understandably very visually oriented. They are going to be suspicious of strangers because they look different. You can teach others to handle him in the same manner you do which will help. It may also help if you are the one who gets him out of his cage initially. Stress is going to happen but you can minimize it by learning his signals (when he's OK with something, when he is mildly upset, when he's really ramped up about something). You'll learn when you really need to back off and when he can handle it for a while.

When you or anyone else picks him up, you can gently coax him to crawl onto your hand or a stick by putting one hand behind his hind feet and nudging him to go in the direction needed. This way HE ends up making the move on his own. Once you have him on a hand, don't cover his back or head. Let him move around and grip YOU, not the other way around.

To take him to a vet put him in an enclosed box with a perch wedged inside so he has something stable to grip. The darkness and cooler temps will tend to chill him out so he's less reactive at a vet visit.