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Do you love keeping chameleons so much that you are thinking of adding another one to your household? We talk a lot about what you should consider if you are getting your first chameleon, but a favorite topic of mine is what you should consider if you are getting your second, third, or fourth chameleon! If the thought has crept into your mind that you might be interested in another mini tree dragon hanging out, then let’s talk about what you should think about!

When you add another chameleon to your household you have advantages over when you brought home your first chameleon. You already have the food supply chain down and a care routine set. It might seem that adding another cage won’t change what you are doing much at all. And there is truth to that, but let’s review three ways this could go sideways.

First, this conversation assumes you have already firmly established your husbandry for your first chameleon and have it down so well that you have the time to think about another chameleon! I highly recommend resisting the standard candy shop/ Pokémon mentality of collecting them all. Having a lot of chameleons in itself is nothing to brag about. What is worth bragging about is how well the chameleons under your care are cared for. Having more chameleons can definitely be an enriching experience. You just have to do it right and know when to stop. This episode is all about how and when we can expand and not lose the exhilarating feeling we have that makes us want to expand our collection! So, appropriately, the prerequisite to getting another chameleon is to make sure your present chameleon is being cared for to the best of your ability. Invest in your first one with a larger cage, better lighting, UVB meter, and even getting a microscope to monitor the parasite situation. Once you have reached that level of excellence in husbandry for your one chameleon you will be able to replicate that experience for another chameleon. So, yes, this will be a fun episode filled with me saying how awesome chameleons are, discouraging getting more, and sharing how to get more properly. The consistent undercurrent that flows through all of them is that chameleons have greatly enriched my life, but I know how easy it is to get too much of a good thing and the burn-out that comes from overextending yourself. And it is so easy to do this with chameleons. My motivation here is not to discourage you from getting another chameleon or two or breeding, but to lay out how to do it in a way that it is an experience you will treasure and not a nightmare you will want to forget. And, yes, I have observed both!

I will also mention a second prerequisite for getting another chameleon – they are kept separate. Doesn’t matter male, female, brother, sister, calm, friendly, baby adult, special species, special circumstances….simply do not keep chameleons together. No exceptions.  They can hang out together while mating, but then back to their own cages. Interestingly enough, I am actually not having to say that as much anymore. It seems that more members of this new generation of chameleon keepers look at cohabitation and don’t feel like it is a personal attack on their husbandry skills to say, no, just don’t do it. So, we are making progress! The bottom line, if you are new to this, is that chameleons don’t have the same social bonds that we do. They don’t have family groups and they have no idea who their parents are. Some animals get benefit from forming social groups and some animals don’t/ That is why a dog loves to be pet and cuddles up with you at night. But a chameleon doesn’t like to be touched. The dog has a concept of a family pack and you are it. There is no situation in a chameleon’s life where another animal touching you is comforting. I have done an entire podcast on this subject so you can dive deeper into it if you like. But, for now, let’s just have the baseline understanding that we keep every chameleon in a separate cage.

With that business taken care of let’s get to those top three items to consider when getting another chameleon:

When you already have a chameleon you have stabilized an environment and established a care schedule. The simplest way to  add another chameleon is to be mindful of being able to use what you have already built.

For example, a panther chameleon benefits from a night time drop in temperature, but it isn’t as important as it is with a Jackson’s Chameleon. So you may be going along happy as can be with your panther chameleon, but if you put a Jackson’s chameleon in the same room you can easily end up six months later with a sick Jackson’s Chameleon next to your healthy panther chameleon.

Perhaps a better environmental choice would be a carpet chameleon. Carpet’s benefit from a night time drop in temperature, but, like the panther, aren’t as sensitive as a Jackson’s. So, a carpet chameleon could be in a cage next to the panther chameleon cage. But, the astute listeners will now say, but Bill, a carpet chameleon eats smaller food than a Panther and so you now have to get different sized foods. Great point! If you don’t want to take on different sized foods then maybe look into a Furcifer oustaleti or Furcifer verrucosus. Wait a minute, what is with the Scientific names? Well, the fact is that if you are doing research like we are doing now, you will bump into the scientific names more and more. In fact, we chameleon people end up using the scientific names 90% of the time when we go beyond the top five most popular species.

Of course, the simplest way to add another chameleon without all this research is to just get another one of the same. If you have a panther chameleon then there are so many color locales available you could work with panther chameleons all your life and never get bored.

It is true that a second chameleon adds almost no extra time to your routine. And a third or fourth Chameleon starts allowing you to order feeders in bulk. But this is an insidious trap many of us find ourselves in. Since the increase in work is so small we often find ourselves overwhelmed and not sure how we got there. It crept up on us. And, somehow, we ended up working to care for our chameleons so much that we are no longer having time to enjoy them. The best time to stop adding to your collection is when you have time for more. And, yes, I wrote that correctly. Stop when you still have that excitement.

I start my weekly topics, such as this one, in my email newsletter and I receive feedback from the community. I’d like to share some of the feedback I got on this item.

From Nate Rowley was encouragement to consider additional infrastructure that allows you to more easily care for the additional chameleons.  A great example of this is hydration. I recommend getting a misting and fogging system for your chameleon, but if you have one chameleon and you have the time, you can get away with hand misting the cage. Maybe you can handle manually misting another cage, but very soon the automated misting system becomes a necessity rather than a luxury.  So, take a look at what your care regimen consists of and, as your number of chameleons increase, know that you may have to build out some other infrastructure.

Marsha Ipsen, Mikey Ben, and Suzan Molloy all wanted to reminded us to consider vet costs. With more chameleons comes more opportunities to have to go to the vet. Make sure that is able to be financially covered. This is a great point. It isn’t common for people to set aside a contingency veterinarian fund.

Mikey Ben also cautioned us to be extra aware of the feelings of our life partners. How will they feel with something taking up more of your attention and space in the house. More bugs? Wonderful. Couples counseling is way beyond my training so I won’t dip my toes in those waters, but, from experience, I can say making sure this addition is done in a way that won’t damage your relationship is key. Now, you know your spouse or partner the best so you know how they function or even what you can get away with. I know I am highly susceptible to anything that may make my wife, Yvette, happy. She can get away with a lot! But, there is a point where even I will ask soul searching questions to confirm this is truly the best direction. You know your situation. Sometimes what muggles don’t know won’t hurt them! Just be careful. And it doesn’t hurt to give them some extra attention to make sure they know they aren’t being forgotten with your new obsession.

The important point in this is that you do not let the excitement of getting the new chameleon mask how much more time and resources it will take both up front and for the life of the chameleon. One hard lesson those of us who have been around for a while have learned is that having lots of chameleons is nowhere near as satisfying and enjoyable as having a few chameleons taken care of with the highest husbandry standards. It is so easy to be enthralled by their colors and shapes that you get into a collecting mindset. To a controlled extent, this is okay. That is, until you overextend yourself. And that can happen slowly and without you realizing it.

What could be better than a mini tree dragon? How about a bunch of baby mini tree dragons? Breeding is a goal for many keepers and I have to say that raising chameleon hatchlings is one of my favorite hobbies. But it is full of joy-sucking challenges. For example, chameleons should be kept separately. That requires a great deal of infrastructure or else you are bin raising them and the experience when the smaller ones are bullied and you aren’t able to monitor the health of each one turn it into an experience to get through instead of one to be enjoyed. Breeding is a great experience, but it is a significant step that needs to be gone into with serious preparation and planning.

One assumption I would like to address is that you will sell all the babies at three months. In fact three months, or sometimes even sooner, is a standard trip point where everything goes south. You see, preparing to house and support babies only until three months of age has been the down fall of many breeders. Even people deciding they only want to do it once. Because it is tough to sell chameleons. Sure, the big name breeders seem to be selling out and have waitlists. That isn’t always true and when you talk with them you find out that those waitlists are for males of a specific bloodline. What about the females? How about the other bloodlines? And, for the first time breeder who does’t have established bloodlines or a celebrity breeder stud panther chameleon, you could be having to work hard for each sale. You may be holding on to the babies for six months. It is even worse if you bin raise because that is way past the point where the stress dynamics between babies go from psychological to physical. And now, with bite marks and nipped tails, you are having an even harder time to sell.

I love breeding and we need new breeders to produce more captive bred chameleons so our community can grow without wild caught chameleons. So I am absolutely not discouraging you from breeding. I just want you to go into it with eyes wide open enough that you prepare for it and it will be a good experience.

John Donahue shared his experience with Jackson’s Chameleons with me. Jackson’s are amazing chameleons. One of my favorites. The problem is that there is a large source of introduced Jackson’s Chameleons here in the US. And the price of wild sourced Jackson’s is way too low. And if the females have babies in the holding facilities then the facility sells those babies way too cheap just to get rid of them. Unfortunately, those babies tend to die quickly in the customers’ hands, but the published price has done its damage and people legitimately breeding Jackson’s Chameleons have enormous trouble selling them for a price to make it worth it or even selling them at all. It is 100% true that the quality of getting Jackson’s from a conscientious breeders is worth it. I always say, never price shop animals. You are not getting a good deal. So, John had baby Jackson’s that wouldn’t sell and he finally just gave them all to a local reptile store. And now has a lot for cages and equipment to find homes for!

Where does that leave us? I feel I have dumped cold water over all the excitement and enthusiasm of getting another chameleon! Of course, it is not my intention to discourage you from getting another chameleon or breeding chameleons. I want to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly of it so you can make the best decision and be well prepared for going forward. There are many pitfalls that easy access to purchasing chameleons puts us in danger of falling into! And, yes, I am, personally, well aware of those pitfalls and if you fall in you will notice my name carved on the walls of most of them. Believe me, I am not coming from a position of judgement. I am coming from heaven position of experience and I want your experience with a new chameleon to be as fulfilling and satisfying as possible! So, maybe I can share some of the lessons learned and you can hop over those puddles.

So, what if you do feel like it would be a positive addition to your life to add another chameleon. What would I suggest? Well, I have gone over all the warnings, pitfalls, cold water, and general gloom so I think we can concentrate on the fun part now!

To start, make sure your present chameleon or chameleons are cared for excellently. Once you have that down then you can consider expanding. Themes are great. There are people who want to collect different locales of panther chameleons. They methodically add one each year. They bring one home to put into a cage that they have spent the year building up. Then they start putting together the next cage over the next year and the add another male panther of a different locale next year. I stood with a guy who did this at one of our annual reptile shows. And he would spend hours at the booth of his favorite breeder. But he had it all set up and ready for which ever one he decided to bring home. And with an entire year to put together a set-up it was done right. This guy had a system and loved panther chameleons. Of course, don’t forget the females. Female panthers look like a different chameleon, but can be kept like a panther chameleon. So you have enough different panthers that you don’t have to go elsewhere. The only thing to be very careful is, if you get some females, is don’t fall into the temptation to breed them unless you are absolutely ready!

If you enjoy different species then this is where you just need to do some research into the different conditions needed by each and work on providing those conditions in whatever environments are available in your house. This is more challenging, but can be done. You get a deep appreciation of husbandry skills by doing this! Many people have a warm room for their panthers and a room with a window AC unit for their Jackson’s, Parson’s, and other cool weather chameleons. Or else they specialize in cool weather chameleons or warmer weather chameleons or chameleons that can be kept outdoors if you are lucky enough to live in those areas.

The bottom line is that you can be successful in adding a chameleon or even breeding a chameleon if you do the homework before hand and prepare. It doesn’t hurt to discuss this with other people who have already done the expansion you are considering. We are a community and that is what community is for!

These topics are meant to be a discussion. If you would like to be part of the discussion, I introduce the topic in the Chameleon Academy newsletter which goes out every week. Each newsletter has a topic and I get feedback from the readers which I share in the subsequent newsletter and sometimes on the podcast and/or YouTube video. Yes, I share my decades of experience, but the Chameleon Academy has always been about the community and the perspective is greatly enriched when I hear from you. You can sign up for the newsletter here: Chameleon Academy Weekly Newsletter

And, with that, I think it is time for us to go out into that world and be awesome! Thank you for joining me on this journey to explore chameleon husbandry and the relationship between us and our chameleons. This is Bill Strand singing off. I will see you next time!