Clouseau ate his first worms! Questions now!!

[ridgebax1]

Yea Clouseau finally ate something besides crickets. I have some hornworm babies that are about 3/4 of an inch long and I put some on his vines before I fed him his crickets and he snapped up 5 of them. What would be an appropriate number of horn or silk babies for a juvenile panther? I have a few cocooned silkworms too so hopefully some babies will be coming soon too.

 

[FlChamMom]

He is such a cutie! Glad he is a dude too.

 

[ridgebax1]

Thanks he is very handsome but so are most baby chams. I think they are cuter than human babies! I still am wondering how many worms would be adequate for him in order to be a single feeding. I did give him crickets after the hornworms cause I did not think that 5 is enough for a growing cham.

 

[TLC]

I thought you should feed babies as much as they will eat and not hold back food because of such rapid growth during this stage.

 

[ridgebax1]

That is what I thought as well but just not sure how many horns a baby would need if that was the only insect offered. I started with the horns, he ate some again today but still put a couple dozen crickets in his feeder bin and free range.

 

[Progrmor]

I dont think you should feed them everyday and not in great numbers since they are not a staple feeder? I might be wrong though

 

[kplatvoet]

I would give him as many as he wants early in the day - especially if he doesn't mind you putting them by him- My panther would head for the hills when I would put something anywhere near him for the first week or three I had him- It took me a while to get mine to eat out of my hand - I use a cup for crickets and try and get my panther to eat his worms from my hand or with some interaction- If I'm running late for work I use the 2oz little cups with a velcro button on it and one on a milk lid for the outside of the cage for worms - since i don't dust the worms I figure that he'll eat the crickets at some point while I'm at work, and if he doesn't seem to be eating at least a couple of crickets I cut back on worms so I know he's had his calcium.

 

[ridgebax1]

I don't use horns or silks as a staple. But when I feed them that is generally the only type of bug given that day, so I am not sure how many would be adequate for a baby. I only gave him a couple today and he had 5 yesterday. I was worried about his hydration as I was in the hospital over thanksgiving and he went a day without his dripper being on. He still got misted but I like them both to have free access to water so they can get a drink when ever they want.

 

[Olimpia]

You want variety in the diet and you don't want any one bug to be the bulk of the diet, BUT, I think it's totally fine if they pig out on one thing for a couple days once in a while.

For example, I just bought some hornworms as well. And since they grow so large so quickly I can't exactly just restrict it to one worm per chameleon per day or half of them would go to waste. So if for 3-4 days they get a handful of hornworms each, then so be it. The next week will be back to alternating other worms, roaches, and crickets. And next time I get hornworms they'll get several of them again and we'll go back to our normal rotation. And then another week when grasshoppers are in season we'll eat a great deal of grasshoppers for a few days while I'm able to catch them. And then we'll go back to our normal rotation again.

What I'm saying is that feeding doesn't have to be a set-in-stone scheduled thing. If one day he gets a little more of one thing than another, that's ok. As long as your over-all diet plan doesn't make one single feeder species 40% or more of the regular diet.

If hornworms lasted longer it wouldn't be a problem to space them out over a week, but with how toasty it is in Florida they double in size overnight.

 

[ridgebax1]

I swear you can just see them growing before your eyes if you watch long enough! There are only a few tiny horns left so Clouseau will get them tomorrow before his crickets. I have more horn and silk eggs on the way.