How to Keep Veiled Chameleon as Pets

Video Transcript

"NICOLE BRAGG: On behalf of Expert Village, I'm Nicole and I'm here to tell you about Veiled Chameleons. Veiled Chameleons are more of an animal that you would purchase when you want something that's entertaining and fun to watch. These animals are not for somebody that wants an animal that can be held or played with. These are not very social animals. She prefers to be left alone. She--as far as temperaments go, they're not good for holding. As you can see, if I try to reach my hand in here, she gets very upset with me, she gets very defensive. What she's doing right now with her arms up against her body like that is she's in the defensive pose. This is how she's trying to look very big, very mean and she's trying to scare me away. She'll also turn the dark black stripes with the green in between; she'll get her bright spots. They do hiss and they do bite. Now, this is something that you want to be aware of before you purchase your chameleon because they are temperamental. They're very temperamental and they are capable of drawing blood with their claws. Their teeth are not very sharp. They do have ridges that can scrape your skin. But as far as chameleon bites go, it's not something that's going to be dangerous. It's not something that's going to hurt too bad. Now, chameleons are very sensitive animals. They thrive on the correct temperature and the correct humidity and they need to be fairly stress-free. A stressed out chameleon is very prone to diseases and several other problems can arise if your chameleon is stressed out. They will not eat properly, which will cause problems in the digestive system and it can--it often leads to death. Chameleons need to be in an area where there's not a whole lot of high traffic. Any traffic that is in the area should be viewed from a distance as far as a chameleon is concerned. That's why I keep her back in this corner of my reptile room here. I want to keep her where she can see what's going on but where she doesn't have a whole lot of people walking right up to her and sticking their hands in her cage all the time. This will stress her out and I want to avoid that. So, if you do plan on purchasing a chameleon, just make sure that your chameleon is in an area where you can provide fairly quiet afternoon time and it's kept away from mainstream traffic."