Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am a supervisor of an interactive Zoo exhibit, and I am interested in aquiring some Chameleons to do public presentations with. I would like to feedings and would like to know how readily they will eat insects out of one's hand. Any info/experience with this subect would be much appreciated.
Thanks

Chams routinely take favorite foods from forceps or fingers, but doing it reliably in front of "strangers" such as your visiting groups might be a problem. They would get quite distracted by the onlookers if they are moving around much and some chams WILL NOT eat in front of their keepers. My suggestion would be to cultivate a favorite special treat insect such as a hornworm that is not given as a really routine food, and only offer it by hand. To get the cham to try it initially you may have to perch it on a cage branch so that it moves around to attract it's attention. Once the cham recognizes it as food it will be more likely to take it from your hand. You may just have to train and try it with one or two staff people watching and gradually increase the group. Panther chams are a bit more mellow in personality and just might react less to the audience. But, they are individuals. Also don't overfeed your cham once it is an adult. Every other day feeding is fine and a bit of hunger will help.

Another general comment. Chams don't tend to make good display animals. They will stress if exposed to view from day to day and end up freezing and hiding in their enclosure. You may have to have several individuals that rotate on or off display, or only display them for specific short programs. Actually, just seeing a live cham in person whether or not it shoots that wonderful tongue is a treat for most people. Another option for watching it feed is to put the cham on a perch with several insects in a clear feeding box within range. Let the cham decide to shoot insects moving in the box so the audience can watch it find, focus, aim and shoot several times while you are giving your presentation.

I was planning on having four or five Chams, and only having them on display for short periods of time during the day. We have many other animals that we do presentations with, so I was planning on rotating through them and hopefully doing about two or three 5-10 minute presentations per day with different Chams. I expected to have to desensitize the Chams to eating around people, but I wasn't sure how readily they will take insects from hand. I do like the clear feedbox idea though. I would love to have a couple Panthers too, the more the better right. Thanks for the feedback, I usually just deal with snakes, so any help with our legged reptilian friends is useful.

I can give you my expierences. My female veiled is very picky, she just has rich blood. Crickets are underneath her. She likes exciting things like flys, waxworms, and mealworms. She will eat crickets, but not as readily and flys (and others are garanteed to eat at least on the first offer, subsequent additional may be uninteresting).

But, my male is a vaccum! He will suck up everything in his cage faster than you can count them. He is very exciting to show feed with because I can let a cricket loose on my arm and keep it within sight and he will hunt and nail that thing right off my body. All that is needed is a little luck in not having the cricket jump off. Now if you get a big cham you could do this with a cockroach on your back or something (like you don't know it's there), then turn to look for it infront of hte kids and your chamvac (tm ) will snatch it right off you. I think it would be exciting and the kids would get a kick out of it. So you see, it is dependant on the chams personality (and with a cockroach their size), but definately do-able and in theory and very neat idea.

Do veileds eat from your hand? They will depending on their personality. Mine likes to be hand fed. I do have a clear cup for him though and let some loose for hunting. I have to be careful what color nailpolish I wear b/c he sometimes will suck in my finger and chomp down on it! lol! No harm done to him or myself.
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1.1 veiled chams