Handling Chameleons
Handling Chameleons
The golden rule of handling chameleins sounds: never handle a chameleon unless absolutely necessary.
Chameleons are very contradictory animals.
At one side, they are very sensitive and can die in your hand from stress only.
On the other side, they are not made of sugar and if you need to handle, handle them.
Do not try to tame them.
It is not possible.
Either they will allowe you to come closer or not.
They merely can get used to your presence and not encounter stress from it, not more.
The trick with offering chameleons hand feeding may work by lowering their vigilance and fear.
However, it usually requires lots of patience. It is very individual and the result is not guaranteed.
All those claiming that they have a special bound with their chameleon, and their chameleon asks for their attention in knocking on the cage door and similar, crawling readily on their hands, shoulder and heads should understand, the motivation is something different than their positive attitude towards the keeper. They either feel discomfort and want to escape or they are motivated with somewhat what they see and it reminds them on something attractive in their natural environment (source of food, high positioned branch, basking place, light etc.)
All swearing their chameleon is tamed and has special relationship with them should bring it to any bush outside and let it there for 5 minutes only.
The will not only not encounter the readiness of the chameleon to come back and climb thier arms and shoulders, but they will very likely never see it again.
And all who swear their chameleon can recognize several words and commands, beware, they do not hear sounds.
(There is one exception in entire world, who. An talk to chameleons - she lives now in Mexico and she is a good chameleon fairy…)
Beware, chameleons are afraid of humans. They can pretend they do not notice you but they really are afraid for good reasons:
- We, humans, look like their most feared predators: cats, civet cats and monkeys (you might not but I do)
- We are extremely big for them: we equal in size in comparison to them 10-15 elephants! Imagine: how would you react if something looking like a lion and of the size of a house would approach you and try to handle you. Hard to imagine good intentions, right?
- They do not like any touch of their bodies, not even water drops. The reason is, because the only situation when they feel to be handled is when they are caught and eaten by a predator! (And females during the mating, when they are under the influence of hormones and can tolerate it for couple of hours or days.)
So, it is understandable, they do not consider us friends.
In case you absolutely need to handle chameleons, consider the following hints:
You need to be decisive and not be affraid of them. They feel it and stay vigilant and/or aggressive.
Handle on a stick only.
Best let them crawl on it or use a hand like stick instead.
Never grasp their bodies from above,
always from below unless absolutely necessary to do otherwise.
Better ask someone to assist you. 4 hands are always better than two, for some manipulations yiu need a lot of experience to do it yourself and not stress the chameleon too much and/or too long.
While handling chameleons:
- Make a concrete plan and know what exactly you want to do
- Prepare all you need on one working space in advance, keep everything clean, sterile, tidy, ready to use
- Sterilize your hands before manipulation
- Act decisively and bossy, do not leave space for resistance
- Be gentle and minimize the touching and stress to minimum
- Minimize the handling time to minimum
- Make sure they can always grasp something with their feet
- Handle them with attention and carefully, stay safe and avoid bites and scratches with nails, protect yourself with surgical gloves if possible
- When handling, do some routine checks too
- Refrain from any kind of cuddling, touching his head, crests, body, extremities, tail
- After handling, return the chameleon back to the place where you have taken him from or to a designated place (like lay bin, hospital bin, new cage…)
- Clean the place and clean up all used materials and tools, dispose safely all waste
- Clean and disinfect your hands
Chameleons are to-observe and not-to-touch animals, so best do not handle them at all.
Provide them optimal care and let them enjoy not being handled.
If necessary, be quick and careful.