Feeding/ Supplement Schedule

[bjohnsey]

I have read through lots of posts on here and everyone seems to have there own feeding/ supplement schedule, and i was wondering what you guys would suggest for what i have. I am afraid of over supplementing and causing harm to my chameleons.

I have 5 ambilobe panther chameleons... (2 W/C males and 2 W/C females, and one captive bred female.) The one wild caught female is very small only 30 grams and has the coloration of being gravid never lightning up very much... I have them all seperated from each other so i know they haven't bred while under my care but the wild caught males and females were caught as pairs so they may have bred before being caught. I have herptitive multivitamins and repcal calcium with d3.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Thompson]

Mon-Fri calcium w/o d3
Sat nothing
Sun alternate calcium with d3 and miner-All

 

[sandrachameleon]

I have read through lots of posts on here and everyone seems to have there own feeding/ supplement schedule...

Ya, that's to be expected. There is no one schedule that fits all situations. What I do, what works well for me, what anyone else says, may not be the best choice for you and your chameleon.

You may want to buy a calcium supplement that does NOT contain D3, for use on crickets most of the time.

Those that get access to sunlight need very little D3 in their diet, if any. Those with excellent gutloading and a variety of prey insects may need less supplementation dusted on prey than others. The brand of supplement makes a considerable difference. Rep-Cal has 400,000 IU/kg of D3 whereas Miner-All (I) has 4,400 IU/kg of D3 and I think 150IU D3 in Nutribol. That's a considerable difference in D3 strength.

You also want to properly balance Vitamin A with D3 and Calcium. Herptivite uses beta carotene, so is very safe (but does not provide prEformed A). Reptivite has some preformed vitamin A and thus should be used cautiously (especially if you are supplementing with preformed A in other ways) with this in mind.

My panther chameleons essentially do not go outside. Therefore I add D3 to their diet by LIGHTLY dusting feeders approximately twice a month, even though I do have UVB bulbs (either reptiGlo or ReptiSun 5.0, NOT passing through a screen). I use a vitamin supplement (without preformed vitamin a) once every other week maximum (generally the week opposite to using D3). I use a calcium (no phos, no D3) powder lightly dusted on most crickets. I rarely dust anything other than crickets, mealworms (which I dont offer often) sometimes superworms, and occassionally silkworms. I almost never dust stick insects, moths, roaches, butterworms, cabbage loppers, isopods, etc. I pay great attention to gutloading well, and providing a wide variety of insects.