Eating (urgent)

[MontyAndMelissa]

So I made a huge mistake and forgot to buy crickets yesterday. Charms ran out the day before. I got some today, but its late. she gets put to bed at 10, its 8:45. Is it okay to feed so close to bedtime?

 

[Andee]

How old is she? If she is subadult to adult she'd be fine going a couple days to a week without eating as long as she is well hydrated. Just feed her well tomorrow.

 

[jajeanpierre]

So I made a huge mistake and forgot to buy crickets yesterday. Charms ran out the day before. I got some today, but its late. she gets put to bed at 10, its 8:45. Is it okay to feed so close to bedtime?

Why wouldn't it be okay?

 

[Vanjan]

Best is to feed them in the first half of the day to leave enough time to digest the food properly.

 

[jcarlsen]

Why wouldn't it be okay?

Plus if you throw a large amount of crickets in and the cham falls asleep, there's a chance they can chew on the cham while it sleeps.

 

[jajeanpierre]

Best is to feed them in the first half of the day to leave enough time to digest the food properly.

That makes no sense at all. Do you really think the gut shuts down at night?

 

[Blink]

That makes no sense at all. Do you really think the gut shuts down at night?

Chameleons require heat to aid the digestive process. Of course they will still digest during the night, but not as properly as they would with the correct heat and UVB lighting available to them during the day.

 

[MontyAndMelissa]

How old is she? If she is subadult to adult she'd be fine going a couple days to a week without eating as long as she is well hydrated. Just feed her well tomorrow.

She's about 8 months old? I've had her since April and she as already a few months old at that point. I fed her this morning before work.

 

[MontyAndMelissa]

Plus if you throw a large amount of crickets in and the cham falls asleep, there's a chance they can chew on the cham while it sleeps.

If I had fed her last night. I would have waited until she ate them all (I would have only put a few in, to hold her over until this morning.) But I waited anyways.

 

[jajeanpierre]

Chameleons require heat to aid the digestive process. Of course they will still digest during the night, but not as properly as they would with the correct heat and UVB lighting available to them during the day.

Do you think digestion takes less than 6 hours? Do you think a wild chameleon stops eating at noon?

Unless I'm missing something, I think this is just something that has been repeated over and over so many times that it is taken as a truth and has no basis in biology.

Heat controls metabolism. If they are very cold everything slows down, including digestion. The only time I would worry about digestion being so slow to cause trouble is if the metabolism is so slow the gut shuts right down. It never gets that cold in most people's set ups.