What got you into chams?

[BackwaterReptiles]

When and how did you get into chameleons?

I was thinking it may be an interesting subject because, if you think about it, it's a pretty specialized hobby.

Personally, I've been heavily into reptiles and amphibians since I was in 2nd grade, but I had never kept a chameleon until 20 years later. I had read they were sensitive, and had short lifespans, so I avoided them.

Finally, I forced myself to get a young 10-inch Meller's chameleon, and the rest is history. I was hooked.

 

[APailthorp]

I bought a 6+ month mail veiled a month ago on impulse. Not entirely, I'd seen the animal before at the local chain pet store where we get cat food, and my 11 year old niece (I'm 52) recently got a young Jackson female. (I think it may have come from Backwater.) My wife and I picked up some cat food, I showed her the male veiled I'd scoped out a couple of weeks prior, and we talked about it for an hour or two before turning around and going back to the pet store.

Not the best way to take on the care of a sensitive animal like a chameleon, but there you go. I'm having a blast, not so sure about Henri. I bought his first cage at the same time I bought him and he's in his second cage now, but I think he'll settle in, and we'll all get used to each other. Until it is time for my second chameleon...

Friday I get to see if I can get some panacur in him for pinworms without pissing him off too much...

 

[RobSquared]

I have had fish for 15+ years. Everytime I would walk into a pet store if there was a chameleon I would always be in shock by how unique they were. Finally many years later I decided to buy a book. It was over after that. Now I eat, breath, and sleep chameleons. Hell, even when I dream I don't have sheep crossing the clouds its chameleons.

 

[dlegare]

For me it was a fairly short exotic animal bucket list.

Indian Hill Mynah bird, Check

Emerald tree boa, Check

Green tree python, Check

True Chameleon, Check

Reef Aquarium, Check

Unfortunately (For my wallet) chameleons are somewhat like Lays potato chips. Try having just one...

 

[nancyszoo]

I started with a Jackson and mis-information. The Jackson did not live very long. Could have been age, illness, never found out. The vet couldn't find anything outwardly wrong with him. I then researched more about the care and keeping of chameleons. When Repticon came to the area, I was more informed and left with a young Panther. It has been absolutely fascinating watching him grow. I keep reading how my cage is just under the size I need for an adult panther. That can only mean buying a larger cage, but then I have an empty one. Hmmmm, what to do with an empty cage? I can see adding to the zoo!!

 

[ChamSky]

Honestly the state! I've been keeping reptiles for a long time and never considered one because in my home state they were illegal to keep and sell. So working at a pet store I just never paid them mind till my other half visited a friend who had an adult male vield in NY. We had just moved farther north to NH and he wanted a reptile. I said no because I've had them all and they were 'too easy' for me. Until I learned that chams are completely legal here!!
Have been gathering supplies for a month and won't stop talking about it. Haha. I can't wait till I get mine and I'm totally obssed now after reading about then and their difficult needs. A challenge? Right up my alley!

 

[ponders]

As a 5th grader, our science book had a Johnstoni on the cover. I was hooked.

But alas, in PA in the 70s all we had were anoles "chameleons". So I had many of those. But not what I really wanted.

Fast forward to 1990, I was in a pet store an CA, they had a cage full of baby veiled. I took one home that day. I've had many different species over the years, but just last year I finally got that Johnstoni!

 

[fluxlizard]

I was always into lizards- as a preschooler I lived in California and was already catching my first sceloporus off of the fence and woodpile in the back yard.

In the early 70s for Christmas someone gave us kids the "wildlife encyclopedia" set (20 something volumes- excellent for the time with color photos and lengthy entries). I didn't do much with them for several years, and then I began noticing the beautiful lizard photos in the volumes, and started reading about those lizards. Particularly I remember the green tree monitor photo and one of a big iguana and another of a chamaeleo hoehneli. I lived in a smallish town and there were only a couple of small pet shops for miles around and in those shops there were only fish. So I have no idea why, but I started thinking about those lizards in the encyclopedia's as "pets" and just accepted the idea that I could and would keep them someday. I daydreamed of having a huge iguana (6' sounded really big in those days! I envisioned something more alligator sized on a leash walking down the street with me!).

In the 6th grade I made a poster in art class out of cut-out bits of paper. It featured a jackson's chameleon and the words "chameleon's for sale". But there were still no lizards in our pet shops.

Later about that same age, I met a girl who said she had a chameleon at home. It lived in a "TV top" terrarium (these were clear plastic tiny terraria molded to look like television sets- they were probably 1 quart volume only! People kept anoles and hermit crabs in them in those days I guess) and she had it for several years and didn't want it any more. She offered it to me, and I accepted, sight unseen. My father picked it up and brought it home in a gallon pickle jar. I looked at it with eager anticipation- no turret eyes, no "pincer hands" no long tongue. But it did change color. I quickly looked into my "wildlife encyclopedia" chameleon entry to compare with the photos of dilepis and the other chameleons there, back and forth I looked from lizard to photos. My father (trained scientist and veterinarian) spent the next couple of days trying to convince me that the green anole in the pickle jar was the same as the green colored dilepis in the encyclopedia!

Poor anole didn't last long. But that was the last lizard that I kept that didn't have proper care.

Eventually I finally got my first iguana when our family visited St. Louis and as a 12 year old or thereabouts I called all the pet shops in the phone book until I found one with iguanas. When we visited to get the iguana, I don't remember seeing any chameleons (too much in love with the baby iguanas on a very beautifully made display about 2x2x3' on the counter). But I do remember the tokay geckos I saw that day which looked huge to me, and they had sungazers there too! I think for $35. Can you imagine that today? Interestingly, the price of iguanas then is about what it is now for babies- $20 in the shop.

I began accumulating a few books about lizards, and reading what I could find at the library and learned that chameleons were impossible to keep in captivity for very long. And I put the idea on the shelf until my early 20s.

It was about that time that lizard keeping exploded in popularity. You guys who are younger have no idea what you missed! It was an exciting time for someone like me. I went from having almost no decent literature and using sunshine and bird vitamins to reptile specific products like lighting, supplements, and even veterinary medicine. (My first iguana had an unfortunate accident when I was a kid and got a broken leg as a result- he needed surgery. The college of veterinary medicine had never had a lizard patient, had never done surgery on a lizard (we had an excellent surgeon for him though- friend of the family). They had to figure out how to do the anesthesia too- they tried gassing him in an aquarium at first but he held his breath for 30 or 40 minutes so they had to give up and work out something that could be given in his blood!) Now even veterinary medicine was getting in on the act, and dosages for worming and so forth were worked out for chameleons.

So fast forward to my early 20s- about this time that I discovered the British Herpetological Society's journal in our local university library. There I read nearly every volume going back decades and with great excitement I read about Robert Bustard's success keeping and breeding a variety of chameleons, and how he housed and fed those chameleons and how he incubated the eggs. He was THE pioneer of chameleon husbandry, learning so he could study their social behavior. I was in heaven with this information. Not long after, the old AVS black and white care booklets were available in a pet shop in the mall of a city about 30 minutes from home and I came across them one day- De Vosjoli's chameleons vol 1 and 2. Now I was really set, and then not long thereafter I came across reptile and amphibian magazine and began buying those(that was a great publication! Much better than today's reptiles). In the back of that magazine in the classifieds- I found someone who bred veiled chameleons, and I ordered my first pair. It was about $500 for the pair if I remember right, and the breeder would only send them delta airlines, so I had to drive 40 minutes to the airport to pick them up. They were only about 3 inches long! I couldn't believe I had thrown down so much money on such tiny creatures! I held my breath for their survival, but they grew super fast, and that is how I got my first chameleons and my first chameleon breeding experience. Must have been 1991.

 

[Lulu6603]

Its started with me by getting two eastern collard lizards.. The bright blue of the male is gorgeous. Then visiting reptile shows and seeing the chameleons and their colors. After books, interned, and reptiles magazine I got my first cham. Simon is my 2 year veiled. He is a grumpy little soul but I love him. I just put a deposit on my first panther blue bar ambilobe. He is only three weeks old right now so long wait..

 

[Zobert]

Steve Irwin and the Parson's chameleon he was loving up made me want one. I quickly realized how rare and EXPENSIVE they were so I set my sights on something lower.

I went to Petco and got my first chameleon without knowing anything about them really. I built him his own cage out of screen doors, made my own dripper, bought the lamp and gave him a ficus. I hated crickets (still do) and like I said did everything wrong so he got fewer of those and more of "fatty" foods, I guess. He ended up being huge, overweight because of what he ate (mice, cockroaches, tomato worms, stink bugs) and because I didn't realize he was supposed to hate me I would just grab him off is tree and drag him across the house on my shoulder. Even doing everything wrong he lived forever.

Towards the end of his life I got into learning more about them and realized what a bad chameleon mommy I was. He lived to be a little over 6 years.

RIP Willie.

 

[happy]

I got my first chameleon when i was 13-14(ish)..... im 32....He was a Jackson's. I didn't research anything, as there wasn't much information available back then. I got him, a male Jackson's. he was $40-ish, and i dint get a female because the horns made them look.... so prehistoric... any ways, the Budweiser commercials were always on, with Louie the jack sons(female BTW)... i could feed Louie by touching his mouth... he loved being out of his cage(a 20 gallon tank) and i put him in a 5' spruce tree every day when the weather was good(Oregon coastal climate). he would stay in that tree until dark, when id come get him. he would see me, and bee-line strait to me.. I really miss him....

 

[reptileman]

I have a very simple story, I really wanted a pet reptile and my parents didn't like any of them, thought they were creepy and kept saying no until I found a panther chameleon, they thought it was so cool they even payed for my first one and it's been an a wild experience since!

 

[JonRich]

I adopted a Veiled some years ago and it's been a downward spiral ever since . I mean that in the most endearing way possible. haha. Super cool animals.

 

[kplatvoet]

I got my first when I was living in Ethiopia when one of my school mates brought one back from where his parents were stationed as missionaries back in 1970- I didn't get my second until a girl at work had unexpected baby jackson's almost 2 years ago ...

 

[FlChamMom]

I have a very simple story, I really wanted a pet reptile and my parents didn't like any of them, thought they were creepy and kept saying no until I found a panther chameleon, they thought it was so cool they even payed for my first one and it's been an a wild experience since!

Same story for me- but I was the "reptiles are creepy" mom... Now I have 3 and my son has none!

 

[jannb]

I laid eyes on my first chameleon in the summer of 2004 when my daughter came home from college for the summer with one. At first I thought what does she want with that thing????? Then I quickly fell in love with her. By the next summer she came home with several and the summer after so many they wouldn’t all fit in the house. My daughter has traveled a lot with her boyfriend so I was always the cham-sitter. She had mostly panthers and Melleri. She's also had a veiled, Bearded dragons, a Leopard Gecko, a Chinchilla and more recently two cats.

I didn’t get my very own chameleon until 2007 when my husband surprised me with Luie. I got Camille a year later in 2008. Camille laid a fertile clutches of eggs in 2009 and I raised a clutch of 27 babies in 2010. Then Camille's 6 month retained clutch hatch and I had my precious little preemie Elly. Then I got my Parsonii and in 2010 my daughter decided she no longer wanted to keep chameleons and left me with 7 panthers.

 

[ChiMeleon]

Very unique animals and love there colors!