Feeding Schedule: The First Year

[Brad Ramsey]

The following was posted by me in another thread, but I decided to extract it and create a thread on this topic.
Before I start an edit in "Raising Kitty",
I would really like to get opinions on this change in my opinion
This is regarding how much to feed young chameleons:

They are certainly good at turning food into body mass in the first year, and can eat a huge amount!
I have been a proponent of feeding as much as they want in the first six months, but am in the beginning stages of re-evaluating this.
The problem (in my opinion) could be growing them too fast.
Bone and tissue development might be better served by offering a sufficient amount of food, but not "stuffing" them (growing them slowly).
At this stage they are very opportunistic and will eat whatever they can find. This is a good strategy in their natural environment where they would need to take advantage of every opportunity in order to get enough nutrition.
It is very probable that "in the wild" every bug would not be caught and a lot more work may be involved in hunting them down. Sitting and waiting for insects to pass by would also not yield the high amounts provided in captivity.
In an enclosure every bug is a success story and we may be over feeding by making things too easy.

Again, this is the beginning of me changing my opinion on this subject .... certainly more thoughts and opinions will be helpful in formulating a schedule.

-Brad

 

[holmesese]

I would agree with limiting the amount of available food items. My experience with feeding young chameleons is limited, but overfeeding with other reptiles (mainly snakes) results in big problems. Milksnakes for example are aggressive feeders and will eat almost anytime a food item is offered and many a milksnake breeder has found that this results in faster growth and earlier age at maturity. While initially this seems outstanding, several breeders who "power feed" animals noticed significantly shorter life spans in their snakes. The assumption is that too much food allows for faster growth but lower bone density.
Translate that to chameleons, who are often voracious predators! Could overfeeding as young increase the chance of bone growth issues? It seems likely to me that it could, especially in less than ideal captive environments. This could cause problems for new cham owners that are getting all the supplementing "almost right" but then having a compounding effect of the cham growing quickly could spell disaster.