Caring for your insects

Rebekah.A

New Member
I am very interested in getting a chameleon in the future. As a result I am doing lots of research on care. One thing I would like some tips on from the pros is how to take care of insects. How to gutload certain bugs and how to keep them before feeding. Do you have to buy fresh everyday or can you keep bugs to feed over a period of time? Thank you for any tips you have!
 
you should gut load your insects, man if i had to buy fresh everyday i would be broke!!! gutloading provides nutrients for your cham and keep the bugs alive over a good period of time.
 
One thing I noticed was how fast pet store crickets die. If you have something you can keep 500 or more crickets in (like a small tank) it's so much more worth it to order on line. I've been experimenting with making my own cricket gut load. Mines high in A vitamin rich foods because my chameleon unfortunately has a deficiency. But there are some great post on this site about gut loading! I'll see if I can link one for you.
 
Thank you very much! Definitely gonna be weird to get use to handling crickets!
I HATE bugs. I have made it about a year with out touching one! For the crickets I use tubes from the cricket keepers but I use a 10 gallon tank now. I use tweezers for everything else.
 
I'm failing at getting the link for the gut load information to work. So if you go to the menu and select blogs you'll be able to filter by user and you want to search sandrachameleon.
 
When I have larger bins of feeders, I'll feed them fresh veggies, and the night before I take out what I will feed in the morning and place them in a separate container with their gut load.

Honestly there are probably as many techniques and routines as there are keepers. Lol. As for the insects themselves ... I think the biggest questions to ask your self...

How much space do you have? Can you keep a huge tub of 500 crickets, or have to stick with a shoe box sized container?

What feeders will you keep? This can often depend on where you live and the availability to you, although willing to buy online will broaden your options.

Once you know what and how much you can keep at once, and if you want to breed them or just keep them in supply... atart searching the forums for husbandry ideas, like the best way to set up a 500 cricket bin

Lastly, there will be some insects you buy and feed off pretty quick. Like hornworms, they can grow VERY fast, so they are not gonna be bought in bulk
 
Thank you for your help. I am most likely going to be keeping crickets and superworms. Definitely researching and preparing before bringing home a chameleon. :)
 
Just a little side note try not to get meal worms if u have access to them because they r harder for the Cham to digest :)
 
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