Am I overfeeding?

[zombiepixel]

I feed Trogdor (8mo male veiled) around 20-25 crickets a day. He eats them all. The crickets range from 1/2"-3/4" in size, and they are fed collard greens daily with the occasional carrot treat.

Am I overfeeding him? I was reading little-lard-butt and it seems like maybe 20 is a bit much.

 

[VonSockthroat]

Woah, 20-25? You gotta buy tons of those hah! Feed my 5 mo. panther 8-10 crickets a day.

 

[panthercham]

At 8 months he would be perfectly fine on 4 to 6 crickets every other day. You risk serious health problems with how much he is getting right now.....as well as becoming a little fatty

Also try and add a bit more variety into your crickets gutload. Just collard greens is a good start but add carrots more regularly along with apple, sweet potato, kale etc

Have you read this yet? http://raisingkittytheveiledchameleon.blogspot.com/

 

[jannb]

Yes you are over feeding. No more than 12 to 15 a day (1/2" size) depending on the size of your crickets. Are you giving him any other feeders besides crickets? Chams need a variety of food. He is also getting to the age where you will need to cut back to every other day with his feeding in a month or two. Post a picture of him.

 

[zombiepixel]

Yeah i've read Brad's blog. I would start giving him less but he is still small in my opinion and he doesn't seem to be gaining weight.

 

[jannb]

Didn't he battle parasites earlier???? Have you had a fecal lately to make sure they are gone? Please post some pictures.

 

[zombiepixel]

That is my biggest worry right now, that the parasite treatments and all the cleaning didn't do the trick, or even did greater damage. It has been a couple of months since we did the treatment so I'm trying to gather up a fecal sample as soon as I can get my mits on a fresh sample.

here are some pics from a couple of weeks ago:

This is a pic i just took with as he was trying to avoid my phone camera:

Depending on their posture they could look skinny as a rail or fat.

Another thing is that i've noticed that when his abdomen is wider on the sides it looks like his ribs are poking out on both sides. I don't even want to know what the diagnosis of that is, it looks anything but normal.

 

[jannb]

He does not look to fat. I would advise you to get a fecal ASAP. He may very well still have coccidia and it kills.

 

[eisentrauti]

The guy must have some parasits. If you gave him everyday more than 20 crickets he'll probably look like a tennis ball after some weeks

 

[jannb]

His casque and face looks very thin. I would get a vets visit now. Ask the vet for Panazuril this time for the coccidia and it want be hard on him.

 

[warpdrive]

His casque and face looks very thin. I would get a vets visit now. Ask the vet for Panazuril this time for the coccidia and it want be hard on him.

I fully agree.

with the amount of crickets that you are feeding, he should be huge by now, and he is not.
while his "pants" looks ok, his casque and uper body looks way too thin.
regardless of the outcome of the vet visit, I would add one more misting and a superworm or two to the weekly menu to help add more fat storage.

I would also add some orange slices, strawberrie slices, and blueberries to the gutload of your crickets for more antioxidents and vitamins/minerals for your cham durring his time of need.

Harry

 

[zombiepixel]

Damn...I was so affraid of this, I kinda new it though.

I can get a fecal done whenever I want, my girlfriend works at the clinic where our local herp is. The problem is he is out on vacation until wednesday. I do have panacur and albon at home but no panazuril.

What really sucks about this is I moved him into a new very nicely built enclosure because I was worried that his treatment enclosure was stressing him out from the lack of furniture. Dissinfecting is the worst part of this, I have a high temp steam cleaner because I don't want to use chemicals for the risk of not rinsing them off perfectly. I wish there were parasite goggles.

 

[jannb]

I stress again to get the panazuril......it takes awhile to get it because a compound pharmacy has to make it but it does not have the bad side effects like the Albon.

 

[zombiepixel]

You don't have to stress the pros of panazuril, i've experienced the negative effects of Albon first hand.