Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have just recieved 3 baby veiled chameleons. they are almost 3 months old. There are 2 females,and one male. The male is only a little larger then the females at this point. I am currently housing them in a 38 gallon reptarium,which is doing awesomely. I only wanted one baby because i know it is not advisable to house them together. But my father came home with three because he saw the breeders setups and she housed many of them together,and they were gorgeous and thriving.absolutely beautiful. The place was spotles,sand all of her animals were very very healthy. Nonetheless,if i were to house these 3 together how big of an enclosure would i need? I plan on building it myself with my boyfriend,and would like to make 2 of them actually. I really big one for outside(theyll be there all summer,with the exception of nights and bad weather,i plan on having an awning to put over in case of rain or sunshowers)and a smaller one so i can keep them in the house when needed. so what would you recommend?anything shy of a greenhouse will probably be okay, just let me knwo what you think.thanks!

why boughter putting them in something bigger? Just let them kill each other in the small cage!!!!Now seriously,especaly Veileds,NEVER count on these guys being nice to each other.
3 separate cages,period.You say you already knew this,listen to your instincts.

From what I've read on here, and elsewhere, the odds are against you as far as those three chams living together, happily ever after.
If you have the space, and the means to build one LARGE enclosure...then build three smaller ones instead and do like CharmParadise/John (I think it's John anyway) and hang towels as dividers between the cages. Then you could still have them side by side, simulating one large cage, and you'd have them all safely separated.

It's not worth the risk of losing one or more, OR the frustration of ending up having to build or buy separate cages down the road...just do it right from the beginning.

Not to mention the fact, if you house that male with the females, you're going to have eggs and babies galore, which is a whole OTHER issue...

Good luck to you and your newest family members!
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Kim

Well, if you build a LARGE enclosure, it won't be big enough. In order to get a trio to coexist with no OBVIOUS (not counting hidden) signs of stress, I had to make a 12 foot by 8 foot outdoor cage. Anything smaller, you can get them to live well, and they WILL looks spectacular. This is because the females and males will constantly be displaying threat color! The constant excitment will dramatically shorten the lives of the females, and possibly the male. I managed to put my trio of deremensis in a single place, but it's nearly half a room, and they just sit there and change color, veilds will persist, constantly mate or try to mate, harass, display, and it's not good for them.

Here's a simple fact: One trio of veilds in one cage will need, at the bare minimum, with the most compatible veilds in existance, a cage that is at least 6 feet high, 6 feet wide and 4 feet deep. And you will still probably have shorter lived animals.
One trio of veilds in 2 cages will need 2 cages (male in one, females in the other) at least 3' high, x 18"x18". And the females MAY not like each other, in which case you'll need another cage.
The space required exponentially increases as you add more animals to the same cage, they are way too territorial to house them together under normal cage conditions.

The reason that the breeder can keep them all together happily is that they're babies and not really into maturity yet. Even a baby will do better by itself. Once they mature, you'll have all of the problems that people here are mentioning. The key is keeping them so that they can't see each other.

If you build outside enclosures so that they can get some real sun, they'll love you for it.

hth,
Joel Fish

You can house a trio of veileds together, I have seen it done. Mind you the person who had this trio had a decade or more experience with numerous species of chameleons. His cage was about 5 feet by 2.5 feet by 4 feet with 1.2 veileds.
He said IT IS POSSIBLE, BUT NOT ADVISABLE. If you're going to house chameleons in pairs or trios or communities, you have to monitor and TAKE NOTES on each individual's behaviour, feeding habits, stress levels, mating habits, aggression, basking, hiding, roaming, lethargy, etc etc etc etc etc. It sounds like less work keeping them together, but in the end it is more work because you have to watch so many things you wouldn't have to if they were individual, especially making sure they all eat the food you give them equally. As you can see, the majority of the people here advise against it. I, on the other hand, suggest you try it. I suggest you make a cage 6'L x 3'W x 5'H, if you see ANY aggression whatsoever from ANY of the chameleons, put plywood dividers so you make 3 separate cages in the one larger cage. So each cage will be 2x3x5, which is good individual dimensions. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE PLYWOOD DIVIDERS BEFORE ANYTHING HAPPENS, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THEM READY FOR WHEN THE TIME COMES. Don't wait to go out and buy them, please make sure you have them beforehand.

The breeder who kept them together picked them out of about 400 chameleons, so they were used to each other for a while, and he was lucky they stayed nice to each other as they aged.

Remember that the male will live almost twice the age of the females, and when the females die he will be all alone and could actually die of lonliness, just like some dogs and other pets do. Chameleons do have a good memory despite the popular belief that humans are the only ones with brains and feelings.

-Brock

Thank you for your advice. i think i will let them stay togeether like you suggested and the first sign of agression,thats it, the dividers go up. hope it works out well,thank you everyone,i appreciate all of your advice.

I had a feelign those would be the answers.thank you for all of your replies. I will be building one enormous cage and then dividing it into three sections,one for each,and of course making ti so they cant see eachother. As far as the breeders house, she did house many adults together,which would explain why she had over 300 babies i suppose. they are not related,all are forom different bloodlines,so we will probably introduce breeding with the lesser agrresive female and the male. we will see what happens for now, thank you!

After all why chance it with their lives. That breeder that kept them together probably won't show you the ones that got mauled by a cagemate when it didn't work.