Crazy about worms

[Lala0]

My cham went off crickets and now will only eat worms, I have been feeding him silk worms, super worms and mealworms. I want to get him to eat a variety of food and not just worms. I've tried roaches and he seems to have no interested in them either. What can I do to get him to eat crickets and other bugs again?

 

[Alexl]

Feed less insects at all. Healthy chameleons will only choose their favorites if you offered too much feeders. He's just full and he shouldn't be.

 

[sandrachameleon]

My cham went off crickets and now will only eat worms, I have been feeding him silk worms, super worms and mealworms. I want to get him to eat a variety of food and not just worms. I've tried roaches and he seems to have no interested in them either. What can I do to get him to eat crickets and other bugs again?

its simple - stop offering him larva and only offer him crickets for awhile. (Assuming this is a healthy adult)
When he is hungry, he will eat the crickets instead of the fatty superworms and mealworms. It will not starve itself, but it will very likely hold out for awhile to see if you give in (as you apparently have before) and give it the larva instead.
Once he returns to eating crickets/roaches, slowly add the silkworms back in periodically. You may want to stop providing mealworms and superworms for a few months, and then only provide them once every few weeks. Make sure you switch up what he gets from meal to meal so that he doesnt get "stuck" on a particular food.

 

[Lala0]

its simple - stop offering him larva and only offer him crickets for awhile. (Assuming this is a healthy adult)
When he is hungry, he will eat the crickets instead of the fatty superworms and mealworms. It will not starve itself, but it will very likely hold out for awhile to see if you give in (as you apparently have before) and give it the larva instead.
Once he returns to eating crickets/roaches, slowly add the silkworms back in periodically. You may want to stop providing mealworms and superworms for a few months, and then only provide them once every few weeks. Make sure you switch up what he gets from meal to meal so that he doesnt get "stuck" on a particular food.

I read somewhere else that I shouldn't feed him for a few days and then just crickets until he eats. Is this ok? He is a 7 month old male.

 

[reptilover]

Yes that's fine.. offer crickets daily so hes not deprived but it may take a few days, veileds are good about hunger strikes they can go awhile

 

[Lala0]

He's a panther so hopefully won't take to long!

 

[sandrachameleon]

panthers can be equally stubborn !

Do offer the crickets daily and he will eat them when he is hungry.

Being only 7 months old, rather than full grown adult, you probably wouldnt want him to go more than a week without eating. Hopefully it wont get to that point. But it might. In which case check back in with us

 

[therealmermaid]

I had the same problem with my panther cam! I got him mealworms as a treat and for a while that's what he would eat, he looked utterly disgusted when I offered him crickets. But mealworms are not good for him as a staple diet, so I stopped the mealworms completely and just offered him crickets.

It took him a while to get back to his normal routine (about 3 days hunger strike and a whole week after that to get completely back to normal), but he's perfectly happy with crickets now!

Good luck!

 

[Sleaper88]

After reading this I think I need to start feeding mine more crickets again, I tend to give mine crickets for 2 days then worms for 1 day then cricket for 2........

 

[pigglett79]

I had a problem with my Jackson for a while. He wouldn't eat anything. Then He ate meal worms, but wouldn't eat crickets. I spent too much money to order roaches and expedite shipping and of course he wouldn't eat those either. I then ordered silk worms and horn worms and he loved those. But when they ran out I only offered roaches....and eventually he would eat the roaches! He also would only hand feed and now after a couple weeks of working on it he will even eat from his food bowl. You just have to be patient and when he gets hungry enough he will eat the crickets.

 

[sandrachameleon]

After reading this I think I need to start feeding mine more crickets again, I tend to give mine crickets for 2 days then worms for 1 day then cricket for 2........

Depending on the types of worms/larva you are offering, that may be okay. Silkworms are fine that often, for example. But I probably wouldnt offer mealworms that frequently, or superworms and Definately not waxworms!

 

[DavidBuchan]

My Veiled had the same problem at just a little bit older. Bear in mind that a healthy Cham can go a long time holding out for his favourite food. Nearly 3 weeks eating almost nothing before my guy started behaving himself and eating his crickets again. He won't starve himself to death if there are crickets on offer and it's worth it to get a good variety of feeders and gutloads inside him. Good luck......

 

[Swayne8998]

I would stop the mealworms completely. He can move on from those and they are harder to digest... think about eating a peanut with the shell on. Waxies are ONCE and a while.

Isn't it funny that crickets are probably the best for them to eat and they all seem stubborn to eat them? My guy doesn't particularly LOVE them, but he eats them I guess to pass the time I can't believe he doesn't like roaches! My guy absolutely loves them. But what I was told is that anything that eats crickets likes roaches, and apparently your guy doesn't like crickets. LOL. But supers should probably only be fed once every week or two, just cause he can get hooked... literally. Those things are little jerks...

 

[sandrachameleon]

I would stop the mealworms completely. He can move on from those and they are harder to digest... think about eating a peanut with the shell on. Waxies are ONCE and a while....

I have to disagree here. Mealworms are harder to digest than some things, but they are not intollerably hard to digest. Indeed having some chinton in the diet is beneficial for digestion. When gutloaded well, they can form up to 10% of a chameleons diet without issue. More, if the rest of the diet is primarily soft bodied feeders like silkworms. Plus mealworms are cheap, easy to breed and the adult beetles are sometimes useful as occassional prey too. Im not advocating for mealworms as the food of champions, but they seem to get an overly bad rap on this forum sometimes. http://chameleonnews.com/03OctWells.html

Waxworms offer almost no value whatsoever. If you're going to leave something off the list of choices, that's the one to skip over.

 

[Lala0]

Day 1 of just crickets and he seems to just "puff" at them.....

Maybe more luck tomorrow