Safe to feed
- Thread starter Jay3479
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Paulycham
Member
I would ditch the mealworms and do superworms, better for him/her.
brownie64
Avid Member
You should probably use crickets as a staple if they are available until he gets old enough to eat larger insects. Like was said mill worms are high in chitin and feeding them as a staple could cause impaction.
brownie64
Avid Member
Wax worms (bee moth) are very fatty, and should only be used as a treat as well. Not very healthy to use as a staple. Your staples are well gut loaded crickets, roaches, locus, butter worms, horn worms, silk worms, and supper worms. Hope this list helps. Never herd of supper worms burrowing through the chams belly before I guess I've been real lucky.
Nicholasdeaan
Avid Member
You can't gutload butterworms. Once exported and hit with radiation, they stop feeding and won't pupate either.
JGuinan007
Avid Member
Butterworms are irradiated? Scratch them off my feeder list.
Nicholasdeaan
Avid Member
Low levels. They're safe. It pretty much just makes them unable to pupate or reproduce. Sine they would be considered highly invasive. Not all radiation is going to bring harm. Your microwave uses low level radiation! Lol
Jay3479
Member
I came home from work noticed a black brown dot on the under belly had given him 3 super worms in the am buy the evening there was little fluid coming out of the dot so I packed her up n went to the vet. Vet said she wasn't going to make it. N asked if she could dissect it to c the cause she was about 5 or 6 month old. End result was that she must not have chewed it
Theveiled
Avid Member
trickedoutbiker
Avid Member
I use Superworm Darkling beetles to add variety, feeding them to my cham a few times a month. He gobbles them right up very quickly most of the time. Chameleons don't have a very good sense of smell, so I'm not sure if the slight odor would be enough to drive a chameleon away unless the chameleon is right up on the beetle and gets a huge whiff. Mine doesn't seem to have a problem with them though. Every time I've ever put one in his cage, it got eaten that same day.
Just as "Nicholasdeaan" mentioned, your microwave uses low levels of radiation.... not enough to really harm you though, even though you probably use it daily. Cell phones emit radiation in the form of radiofrequency energy (radio waves), which is a form of non-ionizing radiation, from their antennas, and you also probably use your cell phone daily. Even the sun emits all of the different kinds of electromagnetic radiation, but 99% of its rays are in the form of visible light, ultraviolet rays, and infrared rays (also known as heat).
Truth be told, naturally occurring radiation can be seen in many things all around us, all over the planet. The Earth itself is a source of terrestrial radiation. Radioactive materials (such as Uranium, Thorium, and Radium) exist naturally in soil and rock. Essentially, all air contains Radon, which is responsible for most of the radiation dose that people receive each year from natural sources. Since Radon is a gas, it is inhaled into our lungs as we breathe, but it is diluted by all the air that is available. Radiation can also be found in soils, in our air and water, and even inside of us. Because it occurs in our natural environment, we encounter it every day through the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. It is also in building materials and items we commonly use. There are 3 groups of naturally occurring radiation, mostly based on where the radiation comes from. First, there is the radiation in the soils, rocks, water, and air, called Primordial or Terrestrial Radiation - meaning, it comes from the Earth naturally. Then there is radiation that comes from space, called Cosmic or Cosmogenic Radiation. This can be things such as solar flares which enter our atmosphere. The third kind of radiation is human-made, creatively enough called Man-Made Radiation, which is something created by humans that wouldn’t exist otherwise or something that contains more radiation in it than normal because humans have done something to it. This can be things such as X-Ray machines or nuclear warhead fallout. Truth is, naturally occuring radiation exists all around us, but in such small doses, it's a part of life and completely harmless for the most part. I mean sure, you can get skin cancer from too much natural sun radiation, just as you can get lung cancer from too much Radon in the air over many many years... but things as such are completely out of our control unless we take measures to reduce the risk, such as wearing sunscreen to protect you from the sun.
It's very small levels of radiation that they blast the worms with, no worries. Your chameleon isn't going to mutate and turn into Godzilla, nor will it die from eating the worms. The Butterworm, which is the larvae of the Chilean moth, is irradiated before being exported from Chile to kill off bacteria that may leave the country, and to sterilize the Butterworms from pupating into their moth form. The levels of radiation required to warp the worms' cells are quite low, just enough to prohibit them from being able to turn into the Chilean Moth. These insects are considered a pest anywhere outside of Chile, which is why breeding is not favored outside of the country. Although there have been a few very very rare cases of a non-sterile worm leaving the country, strict import laws regulate the flow of these insects to assure that breeding moths are not introduced, accidentally, outside of Chile. The moths can get quite large, about as big as your hand. Imagine that buzzing around your yard...
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trickedoutbiker
Avid Member
@KapitalJ - you are from Canada.... can you help this homie out? Have you ever had any kind of roach before?
Didn't know roaches were illegal in Canada??? I wouldn't see why.... a Dubia would die outside in Canadian weather and not make it past winter even if it did survive a summer.
trickedoutbiker
Avid Member
I was actually asking "KapitalJ" if he has ever had any kind of roach before.
Where did you read that at? I'm not sure I would put a lot of faith in that story. It would be very very difficult to breed, let alone survive, with no food or water for that long. It would be almost impossible, although I can't say for sure if it's doable. I would just find it very hard to believe that they lasted that long with no moisture for hydration. That sounds like BS to me.
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