GanonPascal
New Member
Hey there, I’ve posted to this forum before for other reasons but this is something that’s been going on for a while, and I’ve tried to correct it as much as I can but nothing but nothing seems to be working/helping
So to start off the story, about a year after I got my first chameleon I was at the local petsmart grabbing some crickets with my Husband. The employee who was packing our crickets asked what reptile we were feeding and we told him a Chameleon. Then he told us that a woman was at check out looking to “get rid” of her chameleon. My husband immediately went to find her and they exchanged information. About a week later, she brought him to us. His cage, his live plant, as well as all his lighting and other gear. At this point, she hadn’t disclosed why she was rehomeing him. It was obvious the moment we brought him inside and began to set him up.
She told us that she got him from a breeder when he was a few weeks old, and that he’d been aggressive since day one. She told us that she’d tried to hold him once, but he tried to bite her. After that, she never picked him up again. In fact, she had his cage in a completely isolated room and only came in to feed, spray, and turn his lights on/off. This Cham has basically lived his entire life so far as a wild animal.
After just a week of having him, he began to open up and would actually come out of his cage to explore. He could be hand fed, and he was genuinely social. The first time he ever came of us his cage, he came to my friend that was visiting. (She also has chams.) She’d only been in the house a few minutes, and he immediately came out to her.
About a year later, something suddenly changed. He stated acting fearful out of nowhere. He began death dropping, running to the back of the cage to hide, striking at anything that came near the cage, etc. So immediately I thought something had to be off either with his health or his husbandry. But nothing had changed. One on of his “good days” we got him to a reptile specialist and they said he looks completely fine. He had X-rays to see if he was impacted, or if any bones/joints were inflamed and causing him pain. But everything was fine. He didn’t even seemed to be very stressed while the specialist was handling him. That was the best I’d ever seen him behave.
So I did some tweaking, gave him a more extensive diet, started monitoring the humidity and temperature of his cage even more throughly.
After that, he was fine for about a year. (He was almost a year old when he was rehomed to us, he’ll be three years old this summer.)
Recently he’s been so aggressive that you he doesn’t even want anyone near him or the cage. He puffs up, flaps his crest, flashes his most beautiful colors, and stikes the mesh. He’s struck the mesh so much that his mouth will bleed. It’s to the point where it seems like he’s not even fearful anymore, just overwhelmingly angry. I’ve never done anything to make him even more aggressive than he already was, I have two other chams that are social and will come out to me as soon as I open the cage door.
I can’t help but feel like I’m not giving him his best life, I feel like he doesn’t thrive in this condition with always feeling like he as to defend himself. If anyone has any advice on what I can do, please let me know. I don’t care if he will always hate me, but I want him to have the best quality of life he can, and clearly this isn’t it. It’s so strange that he went from wanting to be let out, letting us handle him, hand feeding, etc. , to being so angry that he hurts himself because of it.
So to start off the story, about a year after I got my first chameleon I was at the local petsmart grabbing some crickets with my Husband. The employee who was packing our crickets asked what reptile we were feeding and we told him a Chameleon. Then he told us that a woman was at check out looking to “get rid” of her chameleon. My husband immediately went to find her and they exchanged information. About a week later, she brought him to us. His cage, his live plant, as well as all his lighting and other gear. At this point, she hadn’t disclosed why she was rehomeing him. It was obvious the moment we brought him inside and began to set him up.
She told us that she got him from a breeder when he was a few weeks old, and that he’d been aggressive since day one. She told us that she’d tried to hold him once, but he tried to bite her. After that, she never picked him up again. In fact, she had his cage in a completely isolated room and only came in to feed, spray, and turn his lights on/off. This Cham has basically lived his entire life so far as a wild animal.
After just a week of having him, he began to open up and would actually come out of his cage to explore. He could be hand fed, and he was genuinely social. The first time he ever came of us his cage, he came to my friend that was visiting. (She also has chams.) She’d only been in the house a few minutes, and he immediately came out to her.
About a year later, something suddenly changed. He stated acting fearful out of nowhere. He began death dropping, running to the back of the cage to hide, striking at anything that came near the cage, etc. So immediately I thought something had to be off either with his health or his husbandry. But nothing had changed. One on of his “good days” we got him to a reptile specialist and they said he looks completely fine. He had X-rays to see if he was impacted, or if any bones/joints were inflamed and causing him pain. But everything was fine. He didn’t even seemed to be very stressed while the specialist was handling him. That was the best I’d ever seen him behave.
So I did some tweaking, gave him a more extensive diet, started monitoring the humidity and temperature of his cage even more throughly.
After that, he was fine for about a year. (He was almost a year old when he was rehomed to us, he’ll be three years old this summer.)
Recently he’s been so aggressive that you he doesn’t even want anyone near him or the cage. He puffs up, flaps his crest, flashes his most beautiful colors, and stikes the mesh. He’s struck the mesh so much that his mouth will bleed. It’s to the point where it seems like he’s not even fearful anymore, just overwhelmingly angry. I’ve never done anything to make him even more aggressive than he already was, I have two other chams that are social and will come out to me as soon as I open the cage door.
I can’t help but feel like I’m not giving him his best life, I feel like he doesn’t thrive in this condition with always feeling like he as to defend himself. If anyone has any advice on what I can do, please let me know. I don’t care if he will always hate me, but I want him to have the best quality of life he can, and clearly this isn’t it. It’s so strange that he went from wanting to be let out, letting us handle him, hand feeding, etc. , to being so angry that he hurts himself because of it.
