Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well i put my female in the male's cage today, and afer her holding on to the frame of the cage (bad spot!) the male FINALLY spotted her after about a minute of being his tiny-pupilled self. He of course went insano on the colours and curled/uncurled his tail and hissed a bit. He was beautiful!!!
The female wasn't as happy, though. She flipped out and hissed and gaped and curled her tail. She did not turn black. She did have yellow spots. The male was very very intent on mating with her, he took a good holding back to keep him away from her.

How can i get her a bit more relaxed? Is it natural for her to be angry no matter what? I scared her a bit when i bumped her into a branch on the way into the males cage.
Should I try intoducing the male into the females cage?

Any otehr tips? thanks.

Introduce the male into her cage, it may seem less intimidating to her if she's in her own territory. keep an eye on them. She may not be thrilled no matter what so give him a chance to get at her but keep a stick or something handy in case she flips and trys to bite him.
Also, hold him in front of her cage before putting him in to give her a chance to prepare her defenses.

If the female's background was not dark but she was hissing
and swaying and gaping,then she could have been reacting to
the male's behavior thinking that he was aggressing towards her.

When I mate my veiled chameleons, I take the female on a
stick (rather than on my hand...I find that she will be more
relaxed on the stick) and I hold her in front of the male's cage
so I can see their reactions. (I never mate a female until she
is over one year of age.)

If the female has an almost black background and/or hisses
and/or sways from side to side with her mouth open, I put
her back in her cage 'cause she is NOT receptive. I will
try the following procedure every few days and have never had
a female that eventually didn't breed. (I have had a male
that doesn't breed with a female though.)

IMHO putting a non-receptive female into a male's cage is
just asking for trouble. I have had the odd female have the dark
background, but not show agression (hiss, sway, gape, lunge)
to the male....but aside from her dark background she will show
"desire-to-mate-behavior"....and they eill often mate if this
occurs.

Normally, the female that is receptive kinda "hugs" the branch
with her body and keeps her "normal" background color.
She may have yellow spots and/or bright torquoise/blue dots too.)
If this happens, I open the door to the male's cage and hold
her closer to him...but not so close that he could bite
her...and watch for his reaction to her. Often, when the male
first sees the female he seems to mistake the female for another
male....and will turn bright colors, hold one front foot up
close to his neck, move his tail in and out, flatten the body
and push out his gular pouch (throat) and get ready to fight.
This is, of course, all aggressive behavior that a male would
use towards another male who was invading his territory.
Usually, once he realizes that its a female and that she's
receptive, he calms down and starts courting the female instead.
Until he does this, its not safe to let the female
be too close to him....he might lunge at her and bite her.
If/when they are both calm, I place her on the branches
in his cage a little way away from him and try not to let them
see me watching. Sometimes if they see me, they can go back to
the aggressive displays intending the aggressiveness towards
me.... but "mistakenly" take it out on each other instead.

Once I'm sure that they are okay together, I leave them alone
and check on them every couple of hours to make sure that the
female hasn't turned dark in the background and is not repelling
the male (hissing, gaping, swaying). Once she is in
non-receptive (dark background) coloration or repelling the male,
I put the female back into her own cage.

Hope this helps!
Good luck with the breeding!

Whenever i let mine breed i make sure they can see eachother for at least a few hours most of the time i do so for a day(when she is showing receptive colors),
i then introduce the female to his cage if/when she starts teasing him
Then if she starts charging him i remove and try again later
if she walks away i let him do his business untill she starts to show a little more aggressive behavior then i remove her to the breeding cage which is a whole different story
i use different variations on all of these ideas
The best thing to do is to carefully observe the chameleons
and adjust your methods according to them

P.S. The mating looks to be very brutal on the males part
but when the female is not receptive it turns ugly fast as she WILL hurt the male no matter if the male is bigger or not

This is only my opinion
Hope it helps
Im sure im missing somethings so if you have any questions just ask

Sounds like a plan-o, thanks for everyones' replies. I will try all of the listed options, but will run out of time within a month or so when the female is due to lay an infertile clutch.

I do have another female who I wasn't planning on mating for another while, but at the time when I would mate her I will be on vacation, so I might as well mate her now. She is extremely healthy but a little on the small side, would it be alright to mate her?

Also, would having two clutches around the same time be too much for a beginner breeder to handle? The second female has only laid two clutches of infertiles, the one I am mating presently has laid three, this gives me more time for the second female.

My male has alwasy been an extremely aggressive one towards me. He can also be very nice, he's almost bipolar. He hand feeds and loves to come up to the edge of the cage to eat from my hands. If there isn't food in my hand and my hand is under 6 or 7 inches from him he will flatten himself and get in an aggressive posture and has tried to bite several times.

How old is the other female? I agree with the other poster not to breed untill a year old
It can be kinda hectic to have to clutches hatch close to the same time!But if you plan on having ALOT of space,time and small food for a couple of months and after that an outlet for 60 chameleons i say go for it!

Both of the females should be nearing the 18-month mark by the end of 2004. I got them April of this year, and they had already laid a clutch of infertiles in december 2004. The previous owner said they were around 9 months. Yes, i know, 9 months is usually a bit early for a first clutch but this guy didn't know much about how to keep them. They were both in the same 18x24x36 screen cage their whole lives. They now live in two seperate 2x2x4' enclosures, all screen.

I think the timing was just bad, because I've shows the female to the male before and she got very very pretty robin's egg blue with some soft yellow spots and slowly walked in the opposite direction of the male. One observation I made when I did that, was that her blue dots had a ring around the edge of them that were a lighter blue, very pretty!