Only superworms

Hello everyone! i havnt posted in such a long time but a new surprising question.

Diezel is about 1 1/4th years old and have UV and basking and everything is perfect but one little thing. He will only eat superworms! I give him crickets and superworms in his feeder cup but he will pick out the worms and leave the crickets. He even spits the crickets out. I havnt changed where i got the crickets from the temperatures have not chaned in the cage nor the humidity. It just strange. any help???

hahaha! i got the same thing goin on.
my veiled wont touch anything besides a supper.
i have used silkies, crix, dubias, mealworms, mealworm beetles, dragonfly, hornworms. he will only eat suppers.
i think brad ramseys veiled Kitty is doing the same thing. i may be wrong tho.

is it bad that this is happening??? how many should i give him hes getting like 3 or 4 a day

I have the same problem the ratio is backwards on superworms. dust often and provide the supers with a high quality gut load. www.cricketfood.com

they are not that bad. but their calcium to posphorus ratio is not that great.
so, dusting is definitely beneficial and you have to gutload the heck out of them

I heard they are high in fat and should be treated more as a treat. I feed mine 2 large supers one day, then wait at least a full day before I use them again. Ive read on other posts that people's chams get addicted to them and once they are, its hard to get them off. My guy definitely prefers them over anything else I feed so I make sure to use them sparingly.

Its all Oliver has been eating for the past two months he wont look at anything else. what do you gut load them with? he can eat 5 in one sitting. He has become a fat stubborn spoiled brat

jesseesperto said:

Its all Oliver has been eating for the past two months he wont look at anything else. what do you gut load them with? he can eat 5 in one sitting. He has become a fat stubborn spoiled brat

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i use advanced premium blend from cricketfood.com as substrate (mixed with oat bran, wheat, and slices of carrots as moisture. Sometimes, i add 5 drops of water into the substrate)

Superworms will eat anything!
Make sure their diet is as good as possible.
I use them as a staple, but still advocate as much variety as possible in feeders.

-Brad

he is only eating worms now! I gave him wax,meal,and superworms and he eats them all, but turns his head to crickets. how should i handle this??

introduce silkworms to him and you should not worry anymore.
Silkworm is much much better than crickets anyway nutrition and care wise.
(they do not stink and nasty like crix).

you can get rid mealworms and sub it for hornworms
wax worm should be a treat only basis.
phoenix worm is also excellent feeder (but due to the small size, it might work only for baby to juvenile cham)

have u try roaches, yet? just recently got one colony. so far so good...

so, you have silkies, hornworms, phoenix worms. (and wax worm for movie night ), and maybe dubia?
IMHO, you got the most excellent commercial feeder your cham can get.

House Flies and young mantis are good too
Mantis might be hard to gutload as they are also insectivores..
but house flies pretty much eat anything and you don't have to wait 24 hours to feed after gutload.
I call both insects as entertainment feeders.
Watching your cham hunts for these two are a sight to see (from a far off course)
most chams go nut when they see these 2.
mantis for the green coloring and house flies for the active flying.

oddly, my chameleon does not touch super worms at all..
he even learn to love phoenix worms over them...

I have a few chams that will only eat supers. There's something about the superworm that is addicting to the chameleon it seems lol.

Chameleontario said:

I have a few chams that will only eat supers. There's something about the superworm that is addicting to the chameleon it seems lol.

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its the crunch. mine seems to try harder to make it crunch.

I wonder, if you were to only offer crickets or silkies, etc for a while, he just might start taking them. If you are offerring a mix then it would seem logical for him to pick out his favorite and leave the rest alone.

Duke

Don't feed him for several days. Then offer him some crickets.

same prob here. i picked up a male vieled at a local reptile show who is about 1.5 yrs. i bought crickets and worms, and he picks around the superworms. but one day i loaded it w. just crickets i also have a cup feeder in which feed from. im not sure if some jumped out but 5 were gone by mid afternoon so i guess he got them. i also put a pinky, superworm and cricket in there today. come home and just the superworm was gone,

so they are an okay diet i would like him to have varity what is a good way to ween a cham off. or is just only feeding him crickets and make him go cold turkey. can that be healthy?

This may sound cruel, but it does work and has no affect on the chameleon health just it's happiness. All you do is don't feed him until he gets so hungry he will try to eat anything that moves. Then give him the feeder that you want to use for a staple. Yes i know that this is harsh, but it's the only thing that got my chameleons off them.

Duke said:

I wonder, if you were to only offer crickets or silkies, etc for a while, he just might start taking them. If you are offerring a mix then it would seem logical for him to pick out his favorite and leave the rest alone.Duke

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Jordan said:

Don't feed him for several days. Then offer him some crickets.

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agreed. the eaiest way to stop your chameleon from eating too many superworms (or other fatty larva) is to STOP OFFERING them.

Offer a variety of well gutloaded anything-but-worms prey for a couple weeks.

Sandra, mine has a definate prefrence also, though still zapps crix. I reason, no supers, a few days, hell eat the crix. Never the less, my worry, and I beleive the posters concern also, is rather, if the cham is stubborn, refuses to eat anything but supers,
exactly how long without eating can it possibly go without there being an effect, eg weightloss, refusal to drink either leading to dehydration etc. I think we panic a bit.
Afterall it is a lizard, an opportunistic feeder thats eats when food is there in the wild.
We 'cottonwool' our chams so when this happens its like 'code red' alert. LOL

Would you say if it dosent eat for a week and still refuses other insects, then feeding the supers might be lesser of two negatives? just to get nourishment into it?
where do you draw the line and decide before its losing condition?
when does perserverance become simply neglegent?

Does anybody have or has ever had, a chameleon that had to be fed only one or a few insect choices its whole life? were you able to maintain its health and condition despite a lack of variety?

exactly, this is a lizard we're talking about.

and frankly a week isnt all that long.

Less input will at worst result in it using up some fat stores (not a bad thing I suspect, given the fatty food its been eating in a captive environment where its not required to be very active) and its metabolism will slow, the chameleon may move around less.

Dehydration is not a concern, water should never be restricted.

For that matter, food is not restricted, just the type of prey. If it gets hungry, it will eat. Offer crickets one day, a roach the next, then if possible something he's never had before (something new will usually break any hunger strike), back to crickets maybe for day four - whatever, just avoid the waxworms, superworms, mealworms and such.

I've not had a chameleon go on a hunger strike since I started rotating feeders and ensuring a wide variety. But way back, with my first chameleon, I had fewer feeder options and I thought I was making my chameleon "happy" by giving it what it seemed to like best. Eventually, Simon went on a hunger strike that must have lasted two weeks (but at the time it felt endless and I was in a panic). He wanted mealworms, but I'd learned he shouldnt eat so many. So he didnt get them. He had other options. But he was stubborn. Luckily, I didnt give in and he eventually was hungry enough to eat what was put in front of him.

But yes some people do use gutloaded supers as a "staple" and report no issues. its not the best choice, IMO - and I do think there is always a choice

I think perhaps if you used three quality feeders, gutloaded, it would be sufficient. Like silkworms, roaches and grasshopper; or, roach, locust and moth.