Different insects for my veiled cham

[botton132]

hey im just wondering if its bad to only feed dubia roaches to chams. i heard that dubias are too high in protein to be the main food supply.can you help!?

 

[Ricardo]

Hi,

I think dubia is good as a staple, but it is highly recommended to feed as many kind of insects as many you can! (just imagine if you only could eat grill chicken with fried potatoes ONLY!) Try some crix, roaches, silk and hornworms, superworms etc... searc for them at the site sponsors, im sure you will find a lot.

Dubia (and crix and supers) can feed with dog/cat food as a protein source, thats why they are high in protein, which is NOT good for the chameleons, it can cause gout. So you need to gutload the feeders 24 hours before feeding up!

So in my opinion its bad to use only one feeder.

 

[botton132]

thanks! what do you mean by gutloading?

 

[ryno202]

thanks! what do you mean by gutloading?

search...here or google for gutloading.

essentially gutloading is how your insects are fed. fruits, vegetables, specialty dry food mixtures and so on. your cham is pretty much eating what your feeders ate as well, so they need to be fed properly.

 

[sandrachameleon]

A variety of feeders is very important.
Gutloading is also VERY important.
read more:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/74-feeders.html
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/75-feeder-nutrition-gutloading.html

 

[Texas Panther Man]

Do NOT feed you feeders dog or cat food. Your asking for issues. Feed dubia just like you would cricks. Ex: Dry food/Crick Crack or the equivolent and mix in some veggies and fruits for hydration and variety. If you feed a high quality dry gutload you can use your veggies and fruits in smaller quantites and it keeps your cricket bin cleaner and less smelly.

 

[houzah]

just throw some potato chunks in the cricket cage, and leave it for a few days.

 

[Lizardlover]

Thats not proper gutloading, potato has very little nutrients to it. Try sandras blog, I personally use cricket crack and sometimes will use dandelion as well. I always have fresh grapefruit as a water source.

 

[Ellie And Me]

I'm still pretty new at owning a chameleon since I've only had Ellie a few months. But I've had a few other critters in my years from pythons to geks, I've found the best thing to do from the stat is to feed alot of different things, You don't want to get a pet stuck on one type of food. It's not good at all. My berm python at over 10 foot only would eat jumbo rats. Now I've learned from that big mistake. I've always raised my own feeders from rats to now meal worms. Rule of thumb is if your feeders are healthy you pet is healthy. If you chose to raise your meal worms I would go organic as possible. What you feed your food source is going to be in your pet sooner or later. That's the main reason I will not feed Ellie super worms since they give them hormones to be sterile so they will not go into the next stage of the life cycle and just be a bigger worm. I might have to do a post on my thoughts on the organic way of feeding our little family members.

 

[Ellie And Me]

OK correction on my last post jumbo meal worms are the one give the hormones not to go in to the next cycle. super worms is a whole bug. sorry about the mis information

 

[sandrachameleon]

... I've found the best thing to do from the [start] is to feed alot of different things, ...

Agreed!
Variety is the way to go


Potato, dog food ad cat food are poor (one might say bad) gutload choices
good choices include: dandelion leaves, butternut squash, papaya, kelp, oranges, carrots, ....