truth about dusting crickets....

hi all,

recently ive been questioning the practice of dusting live foods and would like a friendly debate/discussion about it.

i have kept leopard geckos for the past 13 years. It all started when I asked fora snake for my birthday when I was 11 and was actually bought a very tame female leopard gecko. I had her for a total of 11 years before she passed away. On the morning of my birthday I was presented with a 2ft tank housing my new pet and was also given several leopard gecko books to read through to tell me all about my new pet. I was told about what they eat, how often, heat mat, lighting, handling etc and my gecko was never ill or bad tempered.
The gecko was bought from a local breeder who did not mention or sell my mother any sort of minerals for dusting crickets and my books didnt mention anything of the sort.
So for 11 years I kept a gecko feeding only crickets, wax worms and locusts and she did very well on it.

Firstly i was wondering why it is that i never knew about dusting when i had my gecko. Did they use this practice 11 years ago? I mean, im sure if i had of seen these products I would of questioned why i wasnt doing it.

Secondly as people swear by using them now, how is it my female gecko was healthy and happy up untill the day she died without it?

Now I have a baby veiled cham and because im new to chams I wanted to do everything 'by the book' and did buy a tub of multi-vit dusting powder with my box of crickets however I would just like to question how neccesary this practice actually is and how much of it is just manufacturers trying to cash in, because it does seem bvery expensive.

I have always fed my crickets on pieces of cucumber, orange, pepper and grape and so the lizards are not simply eating empty crickets.

It also made me think because I used to work at a big chain petstore and they use their own brand of soluable vitamins in rabbit/guinea pigs water bottles and when an animal is purchased they INSIST you purchase these vitamins.
I have kept and bred rabbits myself and have never heard of this before I woked at this chain store and it is completely un-neccesary, so made me think if cricket dusting is much the same as this?

If you beleive it is absolutely neccesary, what exactly is in these various dusting powders? and is there not a natural substitute such as various fruits/veg that can be fed to th crickets?

Would be good to hear some views/comments.

thanks

Hello! When I got my veiled I found this to be the most helpful site on the forums. I still refer back to it when I have a question.
http://raisingkittytheveiledchameleon.blogspot.com/

Dusting, UVB lighting, basking light and gutloading are very important in keeping your chameleon healthy. Search the forums for MBD and look at the pictures of the chams that did not have properly dusting and lighting. It is soooo sad!!!!

You need a Reptisun 5.0 tube (VERY IMPORTANT) not compact, a basking light, some gutload and 3 types of supplements. Rep-Cal Calcium without D3, Repti-Cal with D3 and Rep-Cal Herptivite Multivitamins. A baby will need alot more dusting that an adult. You will dust with the Calcium with D3 twice a month and the Multivitamins twice a month and use the PLAIN Calcium just about every other time that you feed. A light dusting is all that's necessary. Your crickets do not have to look like ghost. I buy most of my supplies at:
http://lllreptile.com/store/catalog/reptile-supplies/vitamins-medicines-and-cage-cleaners/ Much cheaper than the pet store. And one again I highly recommend reading and studying the Raising Kitty site. The "search" here works great and you also have ALLOT of experienced members to help you and answer your questions. Jann

Hiya,

im not really after advice as such, i am equipped with dusting vits because i do want to do everything properly with my cham. i already have a 10% UVB repti-glo light set up and a basking light on a thermostat, i picked up my baby cham on weds and he has a healthy apitite, i dusted the crickets today with the multi-vits i got from my local store.

i was just kinda questioning the need for the dusting seen as ive never heard of it in my time keeping geckos and they all turned out really well. I was wondering whether it may be one of those products that are hyped up by the manufacturers to sell them rather that actually being need by the reptiles.

will search for pics of chams who have not had the dusting, however are the pics of chams who had no dusting or no dusting AND lighting as i know what no lighting can do to them.

Anyone else got an opinion or a story about using these dusting powders?

first of all, the most significant thign here is that you were talking about a leopard gecko. nocturnal animal, doesnt' need any UVB radiation, light, etc. They extract calcium from their prey (and from eatign soil, too) - and locusts generally have a good amount of calcium.

Chameleons >may< get enough calcium from their diet as well, but they NEED D3. Either from the sun (or bulbs), or from dusting. Leopard geckos just have a much lower need for D3 than chameleons.

A third point: - and this is nothign against you - Leopard geckos can live over 20 years. Maybe she wasn't as healthy as you thought. Lack of vitamins can make them weaker and more vlunerable to illness. I've seen a leopard gecko that was alive and ok after going without food and water and heat for 4 months. They are much more forgiving than chameleons when it comes to less-than-perfect care.

The goal is to make dusting a supplement. Supplement their dietary intake of vitamins and minerals - not replace it. Keep the diet varied and healthy, and supplementation is less necessary. It's very hard to get things right without supplementation, in captivity.

In the wild, they eat hundreds fo different things that have gut contents of thousands fo different things - can't replicate that in captivity.

Dusting is a must if you want to have a healthy chameleon.

sorry, i didnt say in my first post, my first leopard gecko was 6 years old when i got her. she was a breeding female that the breeder owned. the reason my mum bought me an older one is because she was tame and not so easily spooked by an eager 11 year old girl! so in fact she was 17 when she died.

so will my cham get vitamin D3 from my 10% UVB bulb and basking light or not?
also i aim to feed my cham a mixture of crickets, wax worms and small locusts. If this is the case he will already be getting a small amount of calcium from the locusts, is that right?
so does that mean i have to dust less? Is it possible you can over-do the dusting?

It just puzzles me why I never was taught about dusting all the times I had my geckos, i never ever came across products in the shops or read about it atall. Obviously there is a difference with leos and chams, my leos actually did have a UVB bulb in the tank so maybe thats why they were ok?

Yes, you can over dust; that's why jannb said to lightly dust and not make your feeders look like ghost. If you over dust you will see a white powder coming from the nostrils. Calcium comes from natural sunlight. Is your UVB bulb a tube style? There is a big difference in caring for gecko's and chameleons. Chameleoms can be very hard to keep alive and keep healthy.

yes my UVB is a tube style. its a 10% 15w repti-glo tube.

foxymiche said:

yes my UVB is a tube style. its a 10% 15w repti-glo tube.

Click to expand...

.10 should be fine in a fairly large cage and tube style is the only way to go. The compact's cause damage to the eyes.

Hi foxe, welcome to the forums!

I appreciate your experience raising geckos (I have one too) but notice a little bit of reluctance to accept friendly advice on chameleon keeping.

"im not really after advice as such"

I STRONGLY suggest reading http://raisingkittytheveiledchameleon.blogspot.com/ It will save your baby a world of difficulty.


Our gecko thrives with very little attention, while the chams keep me hopping 24/7. (these little beggars are among the most difficult reptiles to keep healthy. Or alive for that matter!).

They can seem perfectly vital, then suddenly get very sick and die "for no reason". Actually the reason most often is uneducated husbandry.



"Now I have a baby veiled cham and because im new to chams I wanted to do everything 'by the book' and did buy a tub of multi-vit dusting powder with my box of crickets however I would just like to question how neccesary this practice actually is and how much of it is just manufacturers trying to cash in, because it does seem bvery expensive."


No scam here. No one is promoting a specific product.
You need the PROPER vitamin for a chameleon and then only dust them twice a month or so. CALCIUM is a must, both without (every day) and with D3 (MUCH less frequently as stated in the blog) if they don't get unobstructed sunlight. They are VITAL or your cham will get MBD (major live-threatening bone issues)

Please don't get defensive, most of us on the forum learned the HARD way.

Check out the health forum here and fill out the questionnaire. Everyone will be happy to work with you.

Once again WELCOME!

Ok, the age makes a huge difference. A grown leopard gecko's calcium needs are very small compared to a growing one. A growing chameleons' are even larger.

foxymiche...you have several choices...you can chose not to supplement or you can chose to do whatever supplementation you feel should be proper or you can follow what most/many of us do and supplement with phos.-free calcium at most feedings, with a vitamin powder and a phos.-free calcium/D3 powder twice a month...time will prove your success.

However, I don't understand why you would want to risk not supplementing when someone says that their veileds live to be very old and healthy and they tell you exactly how they look after them. When I first started out over 20 years ago, I did things differently and through experience/errors/etc. have come to the methods that I use now.

I have leos that I have had since they were a few weeks old that are over 15 years old and still going strong. They did however stop reproducing a couple of years ago.

I hope whatever choices you make your chameleon will not suffer and will live a long healthy life!

Hi Foxy,

I think Eric had a very good reply for you regard how you have been find such big differences in keeping geckos and chams. I have had my day gecko now for about 9 mos and she has been through her ups and downs but requires no where near the same amount of care as the Chams do.
I have had to progressively buy things to make the cham care easier.

As far as your D3 question, your 10.0 will help your cham to produce its own D3 but he/she will still require occ sup as nothing can replace real sunlight. I have seen sup schedules for D3 as little as 2x per month to once a week. And yes you can over supplement.

As for other vit and sups. If you can provide a very variable diet such offering every kind of insect that would be available to you cham in the wild the need for supplementation would be nil. but because we are restricted due to convience we need to make up for the lack of variety with suplementation.

Hope that helps

OPI