Am I feeding him right?

[MyChameleonIsBro]

This is my first cham and he is a 5 month old nosy be panther. Everyday I grab about 10 crickets, powder them all with D3 calcium powder and toss them into his cage early in the day. Every couple times a week I give him some meal worms w/o the powder.

Also I give the crickets High Calcium powder and Cricket Quencher.

So has this become a decent schedule for my little guy or what?





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[KarmaChameleon1337]

You use without d3 and without phosphorous everyday, twice a month with d3, and 1-2 times with multivitamins. I'm not an expert on Panthers but don't they eat more than 10?

 

[Lizardlover]

Congrats on your new cham. You should not be giving him D3 at every feeding and definitely ditch the mealworms, use superworms instead. You should also look into varying his diet a bit more, silkworms, hornworms, butterworms, roaches, grasshoppers, katydids, mantids, stick insects, etc. are all good additions to a captive chameleons diet. I would use Calcium w/out D3 two or three times a week and D3 once a month (unless you give him natural sunlight) That is not a sufficient gutload, zucchini, squash, dandelion, collard, mango, sweet potato, citrus, escarole, carrots, papaya, are all good items to include in your gutload (and not just one at a time), I make a blend of this once a month and freeze it into ice cube trays which I then defrost and give to the feeder items, I also use a dry gutload called "Cricket Crack" which you can get from Tiki Tiki reptiles. Please use the search tab next time before making a new thread because it could answer your questions for you.

 

[MyChameleonIsBro]

You use without d3 and without phosphorous everyday, twice a month with d3, and 1-2 times with multivitamins. I'm not an expert on Panthers but don't they eat more than 10?

Okay I'll make that change very soon. Is it bad that I've been giving him the same powder for over two months?
Also, I saw somewhere that it should be basically 8-10 crickets at 5-6months of age. I sometimes offer him more at the end of the day by hand just to see.

 

[MyChameleonIsBro]

Congrats on your new cham. You should not be giving him D3 at every feeding and definitely ditch the mealworms, use superworms instead. You should also look into varying his diet a bit more, silkworms, hornworms, butterworms, roaches, grasshoppers, katydids, mantids, stick insects, etc. are all good additions to a captive chameleons diet. I would use Calcium w/out D3 two or three times a week and D3 once a month (unless you give him natural sunlight) That is not a sufficient gutload, zucchini, squash, dandelion, collard, mango, sweet potato, citrus, escarole, carrots, papaya, are all good items to include in your gutload (and not just one at a time), I make a blend of this once a month and freeze it into ice cube trays which I then defrost and give to the feeder items, I also use a dry gutload called "Cricket Crack" which you can get from Tiki Tiki reptiles. Please use the search tab next time before making a new thread because it could answer your questions for you.

Thank you for the insight, duly noted. Also I give him about a couple hours a day outside in his cage. I'm out there constantly checking the temperatures just in case.

 

[Lizardlover]

Thank you for the insight, duly noted. Also I give him about a couple hours a day outside in his cage. I'm out there constantly checking the temperatures just in case.

No problem, being that he gets lots of natural sunlight I would definitely skip the D3 (it's main purpose is to act as a substitute for D3 that chameleons get from natural sunlight). It does get quite hot in Florida, but nothing too hot for a panther as long as he's not constantly exposed to it and has shade (and is given the opportunity hydrate afterwards) so you shouldn't have to worry too much. If you feel it is too hot it's always good to just give him a good mist. I think natural sunlight is super important to a chameleons health and used to keep my panthers outside 24/7.