eating plants now

[chelsie]

my cham is starting to eat my live plants and i was wondering what vegtables and fruits would be safe to give her? so just maybe she would stop eating her live plants that she likes to hide in.

 

[lumbasammler]

Hello,
chameleons should not be eating any kind of vegetables or fruits anyways.
I know well that you americans think differnetly referring to this topic, but those are informations given by vets who have had many years of experience in chameleon keeping themselves and have specialiced on them. Eating plants is most probably a sign of dehydration, he eats the plant in order to get the fluid inside them.
So you simply need to provide him more water and maybe raise humidity a little, because a lot of the water balance is controlled through the skin, so the higher the humidity, the less water they need to drink. This does not mean that you should turn your cage into a swamp, it´s important that the cage can become dry from time to time.

 

[Jakedn]

Some chameleons do eat plant matter, which is a perfectly fine adaptation to get moisture. Some chameleons will eat plant matter regardless of water availability as well, my veiled however only eats the flowers on his Cape Honeysuckle plant when he is thirsty and/or hungry.

I'm not entirely sure what vegetables and fruits you could give her, but you could just give her a quick misting if you notice her eating her plants and see if that gets her to stop eating it. In my opinion though, if it isn't too excessive and it isn't an unhealthy or toxic plant, eating a bit of the plant matter is a perfectly natural behaviour.

 

[lumbasammler]

BTW what i wrote before is mostly regarding to fruits. Vegetables may be fed rarely, but really only rarely, maybe once a month. The problem is that a chameleons digestive system is mainly made for digesting insects, and nearly only insects. They can not digest the sugar, contained especially in fruits, very well, which makes them become fat a lot quicker than we do.

 

[Jakedn]

BTW what i wrote before is mostly regarding to fruits. Vegetables may be fed rarely, but really only rarely, maybe once a month. The problem is that a chameleons digestive system is mainly made for digesting insects, and nearly only insects. They can not digest the sugar, contained especially in fruits, very well, which makes them become fat a lot quicker than we do.

Yeah, I wouldn't feed fruits, that seems very unnatural.

 

[chelsie]

im only feeding her crickets right now i was asking for advice about what to feed her.

 

[brooklynelizabeth]

Provide your feeders with the veggies, Butternut Squash, Carrots, that kind of thing, but also make sure that the veggies are not in the cricket container to long, as they can mold fairly easy. If your feeders are provided with the veggies, thus your cham will be too. a simply solution. I agree that most chams will start eating vegetation when they are not getting enough water, so its a usual sign of dehydration and a simple fix is to up the misting and water supply via dripper or however you provide your cham water.

 

[Hoj]

my veiled eat everything, and loves fruit he has been eating it for a year now and it has never shown any problem with it, he also drinks from a hand dropper so its not really a water thing,
however i do agree that hydration is one thing i would look at if a cham starts randomly munching plants.
jmo
hoj

 

[lumbasammler]

It´s true that veileds love fruits, on the other hand people love sugar, fat or tobacco which does by no means mean that it´s healthy.

 

[Jakedn]

I provide to my chameleons the most natural habitat and diet possible. I don't just feed them what I think they love. I don't think they would eat a fruit ever in the wild, so I don't ever feed it to them.