Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey everyone,

I was curious to know if two females could be housed with one male of same age. (4 months) The cage is a
3ft high, 2 ft wide. Its a large screen cage. I currently have two females in there but wanted to add a male that I recently acquired. Any thoughts??? thanks in advance

Cresty

The short answer...no. Individual cages for individual chams.

That is correct. An adult cham (male or female) should have its own cage of 4x2x2. A small female could live in one size down, but the bigger the better. If you want to house more than one you need a VERY large enclosure where they can completely hide form one another and have thier own "territory". Chams are solitary, not social animals. How old are the females? If over 3 or 4 months they need to be separated.
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IMHO there is NO way you should keep two veileds of the opposite sex together after they are about 3 months of age...no matter how large the cage is. As soon as the male is old enough, he will attempt to mate with the female. If you allow a female to become gravid (pregnant) before she's fully grown herself, you are putting calcium (and other) demands on her to make fertile eggs when she should be using the calcium and other nutrients to make her own bones/body. This is a "recipe" for health problems for the female. (And I do realize that veiled females can make/lay eggs.)

Keeping a pair together after they are a year old is adding unnecessary stress to their lives. If the female is gravid while they are together, she will have to show it to the male every time he comes near her...and they could easily fight if the male doesn't pay attention to her warnings. Do you really want either of them to be injured?

Keeping two females together (without a male around)is stressful to the females too. You may not see the signs of stress between them and just end up with one of the females going downhill and dying.

Not only should they not be sharing a cage IMHO, they should not be able to see each other from their cage. The only time they should see each other or be together is for breeding purposes.

In the wild, chameleons have the option of moving away from each other (out of each other's territories)...in captivity we don't give them that choice since they are confined to a cage.

One more thing...sinced female veileds can produce eggs at an early age without having mated, I always keep a container of washed sandbox sand in the female's cage so that she can lay eggs in it if she has eggs to lay. If you don't provide the female with a suitable place to lay the eggs, she could die eggbound.