Crickets

[jesse57]

my chameleon has stopped eating crickets and will ONLY eat mealworms. I have always mixed up the food but now she will only eat mealworm?? please help??

 

[carol5208]

how old is your chameleon?

 

[ChameleonsInMyHouse]

try offering silk and hornworms, chams will almost always go for thoughs! also your chameleon may take a liking to roaches, maintids and such too.

 

[jesse57]

she is 3months

 

[carol5208]

that is kind of odd for her to go on a cricket strike at such a young age. My breeder told me not to offer any type of worm until about 5 1/2- 6 months due to the fact that alot of them prefer worms over the crickets. My cham stopped eating crickets at abvout 7 months and mostly east a variety of worms, supers, wax, horn, silks, phoenix. He will eat them all! Try not offering the meals and do the crickets only, but do not starve the baby! Some people hold off on feeding their chams to try to starve them into eating crickets. Maybe as an adult but I would not suggest doing that as a baby. They need to eat, eat eat!!

 

[pssh]

First off, don't give her mealworms. Use small superworms instead when you need to. One day wait a few hours longer than normal to offer other food. If she won't eat it after 5-10 minutes take it away and wait another few hours, and so on, but I wouldn't go longer than maybe 24-36 hours max without feeding her. Well gutloaded superworms aren't the worst thing to be stuck on. In fact many chameleons have refused other items except superworms and they have done just fine as long as the worms are gutloaded very well.

 

[jesse57]

Ok I normally leave about 6-8 crickets in before work and for the last 3days all the crickets have been there when I got home. But when I give worms there gone in 2 minutes.

 

[Psi]

How heavily are you dusting your feeders?

I ask this because I have a female that will ONLY eat completely ghosted crickets.

Makes staying on top of supplementation a pain

 

[mardithepanther]

from what I understand, mealworms hard shell can be hard to digest and can cause constipation. Id suggest small Dubia Roaches to ween him off worms...

 

[moviemanmania]

superworms shells are suppose to be easier to digest. Or so I've read. Superworms are higher in fat than crickets so their not a first choice, but I've seen beautiful chams raised on superworms. Also, you may want to offer her crickets in a week or so, she may like them after having a break from them.

 

[pssh]

I believe they are not actually higher in fat, don't quote me on that though. And they work just fine as a 'staple' but it's not ideal.