Diet Help?

Jaymetheturtle

New Member
Hello I feel as if my juvenile panther chameleon is becoming tired of his crickets. What are some good healthy meal choices for him? His main staple is cricket, but he also eats super worms and sometimes meal worms.
 
There are black soldier fly larvae (and the adult fly), hornworms, waxworms, silkworms, various roaches, and if you live in the country you can catch wild caught bugs as long as they are not toxic or poisonous, although that's more of a seasonal thing.
 
My cham loves her roaches, and I have had dubias for about 5 months. She is always excited for them. Then again, I have a veiled chameleon, and every single cham is different.
 
I use dubias a lot but my one panther goes through stretches where she refuses them for a few weeks and I understand that a lot of panther adults refuse them all together. I have started my orange head roach colony since they are said to be accepted more readily.

Black soldier fly larvae (aka: calci worms, pheonix worms, repti worms) are a great source. No calcium additive needed. They last several weeks before pupating and when they do, they make a fun addition to the cham's diet. They will enjoy hunting the flies down but the flies are slow enough that if they get away from you, you can catch it with a cup.

Green banana roaches are great additions. Pretty expensive to buy as feeders and a little more difficult to culture. I bought mine a few weeks ago from Full Throttle Feeders. Fed off a few right away to break a hunger strike.

You can get mantis ooths (egg cases) pretty cheap. Hatch them out and feed them off.

Vietnamese stick insects are a good choice as well for a treat. takes a long time to get established but once they start hatching you will have plenty.

The more variety the better it is for your cham and less likely to bore them. The local pet shop feeds their chams almost nothing but crickets so when I go in with dubias, they will take them out of my hand while ignoring crickets. My chams get crickets as a treat so they will sometimes ignore dubias while attacking crickets.
 
I suggest Dubia Roaches personally, they are rather expensive but if you buy a few of them at first, you can get a colony going in almost no time at all and then all you have to do is feed.
 
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