Reptile & Amphibian Forums

1. What kinds of CHAM are there?
2. What is considered the tamest?
3. Can they be held?
4. Can my Daughter touch them?
5. Which Spec. doesn't grow very big?

I know these are dumb questions, but i dont know anything about these guys. thanks!

>>1. What kinds of CHAM are there?
1. There are tons of chameleon species, Veild, Panther, and Jackson being the most common ones you see in the pet trade.

>>2. What is considered the tamest?
2. Veileds or panthers are the tamest, although veileds are significantly cheaper.

>>3. Can they be held?
3. They CAN be held but its their choice basically, some can be sweet hearts and like to be held, while others wouldnt give you the time of day. It depends somewhat on how they were raised, by a pet store or a good breeder.

>>4. Can my Daughter touch them?
4. If they were friendly she probably could, but these animals aren't very good companion/cuddly/pet and squeeze pets. They are definitely more "look at and carefully hold" pets.

>>5. Which Spec. doesn't grow very big?
5. Not really sure how big you are asking for. Jacksons are on the smaller end, but are harder to care for. Pygmy (scientific name cant remember...) are the smallest chams available to us I believe.

6. There is so much more you need to know about these guys though. They arent really a good childs pet. (Not sure how old your little girl is) You CAN handle them but like I said above, it depends on the animal itself, and if they are unhappy enough they can give a nasty bite. And there is a TON of care that you need to do to keep them happy, healthy and *unstressed*. Topics such as their diet, dusting for nutrients/calcium, UV lighting, misting and drippers, plants and large cage size to name a few.

If you are serious about getting a chameleon I would recommend doing ALOT of research on them. Once you get the hang of it and know what to do, they are great animals to have. I posted some links on the bottom to general care, and at the top of the cham forum page there are alot of breeder names (Kammerflage, Champaradise, Bluebeast etc.) that you can check that can give care sheets, general info and more about different species.

Good luck!
Erin

Check this page out, tons of links and towards the bottom, alot of general quetions about their care

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1:0 Veiled (Gene)
1:0 Sambava Panther (Knoxville)
1:1 Albino Clawed Frogs (Phedre and Jos)
?? Fire belly toad (Harold)
Various cats and dogs

These are only dumb questions if you ask them AFTER buying a cham! You are doing the right thing now. There is an article on the site below about "Chameleons and Kids" that talks about chams as kid's pets and sort of covers a lot of the basics.

Basically, they are fairly technical and time consuming to keep compared to a leopard gecko or a bearded dragon that can be really good kid's pets. They won't be very much fun for a child who wants to pet and play with them. The cham can resent all the attention and can even get sick and die from all the handling stress. Smaller species can be tricky and fairly fragile too. Any of them will need pretty large cages compared to a reptile that can live in a glass terrarium too. Here's the site I'd suggest reading.

http://www.chameleonnews.com