First of all, I don't recommend keeping a male and a female veiled
together after they are about 3 months of age. I also don't breed
my females until they are over a year of age (full grown). I like
to let the female finish forming her own bones before I put extra
demands on her to use her calcium to make fertile eggs.
(Infertile eggs, IMHO put less of a demand on her.)
Since they are about 6 months old, they may have already mated
and she may already be working on her clutch of eggs. What color
is she? Does she have bright torquoise/blue spots? Yellow
markings? Is her background color quite dark (almost black)?
How does she react to the male? Is she hissing, swaying, gaping,
lunging at him when he comes near 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.
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. 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 can be
mated if this occurs.
Normally, the female that is receptive kinda
"hugs" the branch with her
body and keeps her "normal" background color.
If this happens, I open
the door to the male's cage and hold her closer
to him...but not too
close...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,
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 or is repelling the
male. Once she is in
non-receptive (dark background)
coloration/gaping/hissing/swaying
towards the male, I put the female back into
her own cage.
Hope this helps!
