Calcium Lick?

Justin Carl

Justin Carl

Avid Member
I was wondering if anyone has ever offered their female chameleon a calcium lick. a lot of animals i know will use them if supplied. maybe a medicine teaspoon cup thing filled with calcium. that way if she wants she can come over and take a chomp. just wondering if anyone has tried or heard of it.
 
Interesting thought. Both my beardie and my side blotched lizards will respond to sprinkled calcium. My blotchies (they are small lizards from SW USA) will actually "ask" for it, especially my girl and lick it right up from the sand. I decided to put a cuttle bone in and scraped some of it so it would be loose and she will use it but seems to prefer when I sprinkle it. I don't know if a chameleon would lick it since they use their tongue differently than other lizards. Hope you get more thoughts on it.

lele
 
I suppose one concern would be getting too much calcium which can cause problems. It might be hard to monitor. IF you have a girl that you are concerned about you could give her a drop of liquid cal (NeoCalglucon) from time to time (check with your vet) during/after laying. They like the taste and will take it readily in my experience.

lele
 
Bump Bump!

I just figured I would bump this thread.
I aksed this question back in December, but it wasnt much of a hit.
You constantly see threads about chameleons eatting dirt.
Our husbandry is usually always spot on, but they still eat dirt.
I tried putting river rocks over the soil, but that didnt work.
My male Veiled, Igor, would turn the smallest rocks over to get to the dirt.
Why?
Now I have removed all the rocks and make sure I have organic soil in all my cages.
I have also been sifting the top most layer.
This makes sure no large chunks can be ingested, so you dont need to worry about impaction.

I've been doing a little experimenting with my Veileds.
I have a female Veiled that will most likely be producing several clutches per year, and I also have three adult male Veileds.
The results happened a lot faster then I anticipated.

For the past two months I have been trying different ways to offer calcium for my female.
She has never been a big dirt eatter, but I've seen her do it a few times.
The first thing I did was place a square of black plastic about 6"x6" on the base of her cage.
Then I sprinkled a small pile of calcium onto it.
It took a few days, but I did see her shot her tongue at it.
I tried it a week later and It she ate it again.
The next day I took a medicine cup and cut it in half or around the 1 1/2 tablespoon mark.
I filled it to the top with calcium and suspended it from the screen.
Now she shoots her tongue or takes a chomp out of it every couple of days.

My males were a bit slower to catch on, but are slowly getting there.
Usually when I offer calcium sprinkled at the base of the cage they will eat it.
I usually do it once a week.

I have also been offering different calciums/supplements each time.
MinerAll seems to be the favorite with the males and females.
Sometimes I will also mix in a bit of Herptivie or Sandfires T-Rex Chameleon Formula.

The dirt eatting hasnt stopped, but I dont see it nearly as much.
 
funny that when i interview Dr. Ferguson, he also suggested that i try calcium lick when we talked about the geophagy behavior.
 
Funny you put this up now... I just witnessed something similar the other day. I was dusting supers and feeding the "zoo", By the time I got to my gravid fem veiled Caddie there was a some powder that had accumualted on the super lid (I place the supers on there lid and reach it in for them to eat from, Some of them won't eat off my hand.) When i reached it in there with the big worm for Caddie(who has never missed a shot) she saw the powder and shot at it instead of the worm. She seemed to enjoy it, then she ate the dusted worm... I had never seen that happen... I thought maybe she missed...But it seemed way to intentional from a girl who has always had perfect aim.
 
interesting, my male veiled is only 4 mo and i can tell he is gonna be a big dirt eater, im gonna give this method a shot, every morning he's down chompin on some dirt, so i will put the dish there. let you know how it goes.
 
Dodolah, thats good to know that Dr. Feguson brought the idea up.

Joe, thats exactly what I'm talking about!
It would be great if you did a little experimenting with me.
Maybe offer her some calcium in a similar way.

Josh, let me know if it works out for you.

Thanks for the replies.
 
thanks for reminding me, just setup two piles of calcium on base of his shefflera. he goes down there about every morning for a lil dirt, he cant miss em.
 
interesting.... yesterday little turk didnt touch the mound even though he was at the bottom like usual.

but......., kamila my 5mo female seemed to have taken a big swipe of the pile.
she is totally antisocial and wouldnt do it in front of me, but the little mound was messed up and looked like some was missing, didnt look like a water drop knocked it out.

so yay!!!!!!!

i will repeat process to confirm my assumption that she IS licking the calcium powder.let you know.
 
Hey Guys,

Well...Justin I think you are onto something here... My Gravid female Caddie ate some out of a little cup hanging off of her basking branch... Nice little chunk gone. I also tested it with my 8 month Male Veiled and he ate a worm from the lid... after I offered the same lid but empty except for a pile of Calcium... It took about half a second to decide he would take some of that too... He shot at the pile twice... and seemed to enjoy it. That's it so far... I am yet to witness this in Panthers or my Jax... But my Veileds love the White Powder:eek:... Maybe I should get them some help...;)

~Joe
 
i wonder if she keeps licking the powders, i can stop dusting her food all together and just put a little pile of the supplement needed periodically for her to choose from.

my next experiment if all goes well, is to see if she can differentiate between the different powders, whether it be calcium, d3, or reptivite. im sure they all tasted different and look a lil different.

ideally, no more dusting; just a powder dish.:)
 
Are there any negative side effects of them ingesting too much calcium?

I don't see my cham eat dirt, but he will chew off some thin strips of fiber like bark every now and then.
 
hmm, i will try it out and report back to see if my panther takes a liking to it.

If i were to keep up with it, i think it would be a once a month only kinda deal for me, but thanks to the both of you for the interesting research :D
 
Hee heee hee

This thread makes me laugh!
I'm going to glue little cow horns onto the chams:D.

But seriously, when Kitty was a baby he used to shoot at calcium that was on the floor of his enclosure.
This was supplement that had fallen off a feeder ... in the beginning (when I didn't know better) I dusted pretty heavily.
I observed him doing this several times.
Subsequently, he has not had this opportunity ... nor has it been presented to any of the others.
Certainly can't hurt to experiment with this, as long as no D3 is involved.

-Brad
 
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