Feeding flies

[Heimdallr]

My Jackson's Chameleon will readily eat anything that flies but rarely eats crickets and refuses worms of all varieties. I feed him mostly farm raised flies that are gutloaded and try to supplement with moths, lacewings, craneflies, and leafhoppers that I attract with lights at night. Does anyone here use flies as thier staple feeder or is it not recommended? He refuses to cup feed and I don't trust crickets free ranging until he finally decides to eat one(which may take several days).

My gutload for flies is bee pollen, powdered milk, honey, water to get the right consistancy, and occasionally Herptivite.

 

[VeiledChams]

Leave 2 or 3 crickets in there. He may just not want to cup feed. Take them out at night so you are not worried about you cham being bitten.

 

[Heimdallr]

Thanks for your advice. The crickets seem to prefer hibiscus over chameleon so hopefully this should resolve the biting issue, as it's hard to find crickets amoungst all the vegetation. I'll leave some dandelion greens in there and hope the hibiscus is left alone.

 

[JohnnyD]

You can also put in some food that the crickets will like better than eating your chameleon to keep him from getting bit. I do this if my picky male veiled won't eat his crickets before light out.

 

[ckmazdaspeed3]

My 3 month old veiled loves flies too. He will eat crickets just fine, but he does it slowly and randomly. But the second I pit a fly in his cage... Bang! Gone. It's crazy.

I've also noticed that he is quicker to go after a cricket hiding in the foliage than one climbing on the screen wall, so I'm sure someone will say it's not possible, but it's almost as if he enjoys the hunt.

Oh, and thx for the idea of leaving cricket food in the cage, because I definitely end up w a few in there from time to time