Bored with crickets

[isamu]

Hi there,

I have a 4 month old Veiled male that until recently ate very well. He used to eat on average about 25 half criks a day.
He seems bored with them now, only eating half at most. I have been offering him super worms and meal worms which he readily goes for.

My question is, can i give him meal worms and superworms daily?

Thanks

 

[Brad Ramsey]

This is very typical and I do think they get bored.
It is my opinion that you should watch the # of mealworms you give but
Zophoba or superworms are better.
Still...variety is most important. He may only want one thing for awhile, but continue offering new feeders.
Try roaches and silkworms, and the occasional waxworm (2 or 3 a couple times a week is okay)
Since crickets are boring right now I would pull them completely for a week or so....sometimes absense makes the stomach grow fonder.
I have found this finickiness one of the biggest reasons to keep a decent variety of bugs around.
Good luck....it's not the last time you'll go through this.

-Brad

 

[isamu]

Thanks for the response.
I can't get silks at the moment. It is winter here.
I'll try some other buggies and see what the result is.

 

[Ren]

Mime too have grown bored and I did the same thing, I got in some super worms as well as some wild caught beetles and a grasshopper here or there, with hind legs removed, moths,and wax worms,hornworms, mix it up and they will continue to eat for you...

 

[Heika]

Brad is on the spot about finicky eating. I have a panther that pretty much refuses everything except for superworms and silkworms. To reassure you, this panther is about 2.5 yrs, healthy and huge. He hasn't eaten a cricket in.. oh.. a year or so? Once every couple months, he will eat a cockroach.

The most important thing you can do for your chameleon is to supply him with well gutloaded insects, regardless of the type of bug. A little difficult to deliver gutload in only a couple insects, but I give it a shot. Superworms will eat pretty much anything you put in their path, and I gutload mine overnight with a blend of things before I serve them up. Silkworms are really difficult because they eat just mulberry chow, but gutloads can be mixed into your chow. I keep a small batch of mulberry chow mixed with a variety of things that I want my chameleons to benefit from, and feed the silks the chow on the night before they are eaten by my chameleons. I am sure that the chow mixed with other stuff wouldn't sustain the silkworms for very long, but it doesn't need to. As long as it doesn't kill them overnight and they eat it, then the nutrients are delivered to my chameleons the following morning.

The longer I stay with this hobby, the more it becomes apparent that gutloads are as important for chameleon health as water, lighting, temperature, etc. Insect variety is important, but I am starting to think that gutloading whatever type of insect you give is even more important.

 

[Brad Ramsey]

Heika,

Gutloading the silkworms the way you described is brilliant!
I never thought to do that.

-Brad

 

[karebear41486]

Can you gutload waxworms? They seem to live forever in their little bed of sawdust...and at petsmart we throw some oatmeal flakes in there for them to "eat"...but they seem like they would almost eat anything.

 

[Eric Adrignola]

I believe your problem is more along the lines of him being overfed.

I never feed any of mine nearly that much, and I never have problems with them going on hunger strikes. The key is variety, for long term success. For your animal, which is only 4 months old, that shouldn't be an issue.

He's probably stuffed, from his gut to his cloaca. If fed massive quantities of food (as much as they can is certainly qualifies), eventually they'll go off feed for a few days to a few weeks.

When I was young, I'd feed mine as much as they wanted, every feeding. This always resulted in them eating well for a few weeks (10-25 crickets a day), to refusing food for a week or more. it was an endless cycle.

Keep them in good body condition, but always seemingly "starving" for food. In captivity, they have no or little) parasites, and much less activity and stress. They don't' need to eat nearly as much as their programmed to.

Give him a few days, and introduce a mealworm, superworm, or silkworm, etc.

 

[isamu]

How many buggies a day do you recomend for a 4 month old?
I was told at this age, to feed him as much as he wanted

 

[Brad Ramsey]

Karebear,

Waxworms eat honey and honeycomb.....and that's pretty much it.
They shouldn't be in sawdust and they shouldn't be refridgerated.
I keep mine in Honey Bunches of Oats with a drizzle of honey on it, at room temperature.
When I have bought them from petsmart in the past, usually half of them are dead and they're really little.

-Brad

 

[kinyonga]

Bet something could be mixed into the honey the way Heika said is done with the silk worms?

 

[Veiled_Cham]

Daily Feeders: VARIETY!

In response to the first post by ISAMU and a few along the way about daily feeders, variety, gutloading and difficulty in providing a steady yet variable diet for our beloved chameleons...

Being that ISAMU is in South Africa I understand that it may be difficult to come by certain feeders seasonally. I have had this issue too between the local pet store running out of feeders my Cham is in the "mood" for an other situations with shipping from the West Coast to my home on the upper East Coast. I started to raise my own feeders from eggs (just the more uncommon stuff like Silkies and Roaches) which is much cheaper and I am finding just as convenient if not more so than buying full grown feeders online or locally. Certain feeder eggs can be refrigerated and grown in small batches...it just takes a bit of research, planning and setup (something that having a Cham at home has taught me ).

I try to give my Cham a variety of feeders such as Silkworms, Roaches, Superworms, Butterworms, Grasshoppers (green soft bodied ones from the nearby pesticide-free organic farm ). I have noticed that by keeping a log book of what I gave him, the size, guload details, his reaction, etc. I am able to keep him happy, stress-free, plump looking but not fat and energetic with great grip!

No matter what though he gets bored here and there and won't eat certain bugs for a while...that's just the nature of a Cham and I haven't found anything otherwise yet. I've learned a lot from being a watcher on this site during the past year or so I have had my Cham. Reading herpetology books and finding a vet that is a certified herpetologist has also helped me.

Whatever you decide to feed him so he won't be bored just be sure to read up on it first. It will save you A LOT of heartache that some others on this site have reported after thier Cham ate something bad for them and got sick or worse yet...died.

Oh and thank you to the poster about the special gutload the night before for the Silkies...sounds like a great idea....I'd love to know what exactly you are mixing in the wet food for the Silkies!

 

[Heika]

Oh and thank you to the poster about the special gutload the night before for the Silkies...sounds like a great idea....I'd love to know what exactly you are mixing in the wet food for the Silkies!

"Last Supper" silkworm gutload mix in approximate order of quantity. I do a 50/50 mix of this stuff with silkworm chow:

Alfalfa meal
Kelp meal
Blue-Green Algae
Dried dandilion leaves
Egg powder
Bee pollen
Brewer's yeast
Calcium carbonate

 

[karebear41486]

Yes, i agree about not refrigerating the waxworms. We keep them in the fridge at petsmart and at least half of them turn back and die. I haven't had to pull a single dead one out of my container since i got them (I bought them on the day that we received the shipment) and I keep them at room temp. I have actually already seen two cocoons...so i might try my hand at breeding them, as i hear it isn't very hard. I have huge issues with a TON of petsmart's policies and procedures...that place makes me SO mad sometimes...but that's an entirely different post that I'm sure I will start sometime when I have more time and energy!

 

[COASTALSILKWORMS]

ISAMU-

We supply our silkworm products to your country year around. Not sure how the distribution works over there but we ship into Gutang South Africa. If you would like their info please email me.

John

 

[karebear41486]

Hey! I just received my order from coastal silkworms this afternoon, and couldn't have been MORE satisfied! Just thought I'd let you know! I will surely be a repeat customer!

 

[Jordan]

How many buggies a day do you recomend for a 4 month old?
I was told at this age, to feed him as much as he wanted

I would think 12-15 crickets would be a better amount for the age and a guess at relative size. With other feeders to get a number kind of size them up to the crickets.

 

[Tiki]

wild food

I am lucky to have a hay field with no chemicals. I drag a butterfly net through the grass and catch grasshoppers and green hoppers. I thow out anything I have not been able to identify or anything with bright warning colors. My panther is happy with this fare. By the way, my juvinial panther escaped for 3 weeks and when I found him by chance he was almost twice the size as when I last saw him if that tells you anything about wild food.