Last weekend I put my newly adopted baby veiled outside to get some real uvb. I took the entire enclosure outside and left him for a little while. When I can back out I saw him try to shoot at a fly through his enclosure but obviously couldn't get it. I was going to leave him on a plant or something in my backyard while I cleaned his enclosure. My concern is I have a lot of flys in my backyard due to my dogs. If he gets a hold of one of these flys will it be bad for his health?
Eating outdoor flys while sunbathing
- Thread starter Timcity
- Start date
pssh
Avid Member
It could have parasites or pesticides and what not, I wouldn't if you can prevent it. Make sure someone is ALWAYS watching when he is outside and uncaged. They can disapear in the blink of an eye, and some hawks/predatory birds aren't afraid of people and will swoop down and grab a chameleon with the owner a few feet away. My boyfriend had a crow try to go for his jacksons while he was watching him 3 feet away. The crow would have gotten the chameleon too if he hadn't immediately fallen to the ground and my boyfriend got in it's way.
dodolah
Retired Moderator
i think it's best to have two enclosure. One is for outside and the other one for inside. Most cham owner usually start with a small cage for the baby cham. When he reached adulthood, then the owner bought a big cage. With that said, if you have a small cage now, you can simply buy a big cage and use it for outdoor cage. When your chameleon reach adulthood, simply switch the big cage to become indoor cage and the small one for outdoor cage.
I am assuming, of course, that your chameleon will spend it majority time indoor, and the outdoor cage will only serve as temporary hold when you need to do a major cleaning on your indoor one.
I am assuming, of course, that your chameleon will spend it majority time indoor, and the outdoor cage will only serve as temporary hold when you need to do a major cleaning on your indoor one.
DGray
Avid Member
you are what you eat...
I'm in favor of using a variety of wild insects as feeders. I cAtch all sorts of bugs for my chams. But not flies. Wild flies could have been living on or eating carrion. They might have dangerously pathogenic bacteria in their guts. I try not to let mine eat any wild one.
OTOH, lab-raised flies are great and the quads love 'em.
I'm in favor of using a variety of wild insects as feeders. I cAtch all sorts of bugs for my chams. But not flies. Wild flies could have been living on or eating carrion. They might have dangerously pathogenic bacteria in their guts. I try not to let mine eat any wild one.
OTOH, lab-raised flies are great and the quads love 'em.
weezyboi94
New Member
Wild caught flies have had their larvae(maggots) go through large amounts of rotting vegetable/carrion in order to develop and therefore they almost always carry some kind of bacteria or pathogens...
Always try your best to keep the flies away, most of the time the cham is too quick for you.
Always try your best to keep the flies away, most of the time the cham is too quick for you.
Considering that at any given moment 91% of the households in the world have at least one fly in it, it is impossible to say whether a fly is or is not a danger. Every insect is susceptible to being exposed to some kind of pathogen or parasite, and it is naive of us to believe that just because we've purchased our bugs from local pet shops, that those bugs are "clean" or free from any kind of danger that those common house flies might carry. Yes, flies eat crap, but so do crickets, and I don't know about everyone else, but my cricket cage smells ungodly after a couple days. I'm fairly sure that those bugs are just as funky as any flies would be. We all grow up knowing that flies eat dog poop, so we have a natural aversion to flies. Crickets on the other hand make a lovely sound on a summer night and for maybe that reason we think of them as nothing else but peaceful. Reptile owners know better though,don't we? I just have a very hard time taking things for granted, and for that reason, I think that a fly is as good as a cricket as far as protein goes. Granted, I'm only talking about an occasional fly here and there, and not changing a chameleons main food to flies. I'm saying that I just don't think we need to worry too much about our chams becoming sick from a fly or two - or five if that's what they eat while outside.
kplatvoet
Member
I have a panther who doesn't seem to like me very much - and doesn't seem to want to do anything but hide when I put him in his out door cage to clean his indoor - I put some blue bottle flies in his outdoor cage last time and he hunted them all down and looked like he was enjoying himself (at least when i was pretending not to watch) I bought the flies - I know what they ate before I fed them to him and they are pretty cheap - cheaper than a vet visit. His outdoor cage is a zippered laundry hamper I got on Amazon for about 15.00 with vines - It folds up and works as an emergency cage.
little leaf
Avid Member
I guess I am the odd man out on this one- I keep my chams outside 24/7 - and they LOVE flies - I used to panic about everything they eat 
but I also have a mantis colony I feed off to them ,and it is wild, and I know they eat the flies - I do keep a close eye on everyone tho - get weights on Sundays just to be sure no one is losing ( or gaining to much ) - and do fecal test about every 6 weeks or so on random chams - so far I have only had to treat one cham ( Olive of course 
) for pinworms - and the load was light - I worry more about the bee's then the flies ( but I agree - flies are just nasty when you think about it )
but I also have a mantis colony I feed off to them ,and it is wild, and I know they eat the flies - I do keep a close eye on everyone tho - get weights on Sundays just to be sure no one is losing ( or gaining to much ) - and do fecal test about every 6 weeks or so on random chams - so far I have only had to treat one cham ( Olive of course ) for pinworms - and the load was light - I worry more about the bee's then the flies ( but I agree - flies are just nasty when you think about it )Good idea on the hamper. I've seen some very long ones at Ikea that would be great outdoor enclosures. I live in Colorado and our usual humidity is too low to keep a chameleon in an open enclosure for too long. It's usually 3-12% humidity, but thank God we've been having a couple weeks with a lot of rain bringing us out of droughtconditions and bringing relative humidity up to around 50%.
TIMMYBOY
New Member
No worries
Hey check this out I have a female Yemen just a baby wouldn't eat any thing and I thought she was gonna die and I was bumming... Until I caught some flies on my porch. I crossed my fingers and she ate them all .....lol now I have to breed flies to keep my girl alive...only time will tell if I harmed her with the flies but I'm NOT A BUG ,.....lol
Hey check this out I have a female Yemen just a baby wouldn't eat any thing and I thought she was gonna die and I was bumming... Until I caught some flies on my porch. I crossed my fingers and she ate them all .....lol now I have to breed flies to keep my girl alive...only time will tell if I harmed her with the flies but I'm NOT A BUG ,.....lol
little leaf
Avid Member
you can order flies on line, much easier and WAY less smelly then breeding them - they are pretty cheap too - check the sponsor links - they come like little brown rice crispy's - lol and you just hatch out how ever many you want to feed ,gut load for a day or so, and keep the rest in the fridge - but keep offering your little one other food items, she will need other food to stay healthy - try silk or horn worms too- most love them
but an all fly diet is not very good, she needs more - but at least you got her to eat 
