Help With Feeders Please?

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I swear every time I read something it's different than what I've read before. I'm in Canada so my access to feeders is a bit limited compared to those in the US - I can't get any type of roaches.

Here's what I can get locally - crickets (pretty much any size), mealworms, superworms, hornworms, butterworms, waxworms and silkworms.

I've been giving him (Boy George, a ~1 year old ambilobe) about 5-10 crickets (however many I can catch), 1 superworm, 2 butterworms, 1-2 silkworms and a hornworm every other day. Once a week I give him 1-2 waxworms as a treat (I get them for my geckos for treats, he gets the "extras"). All of the feeders, except the hornworms, are in a feeding cup - otherwise I have too many escapees and can't monitor his eating well. The hornworms are lose in his cage, I usually put a couple in and he eats them as he pleases - he really seems to like them. He also eats the occasional wild house fly or fruit fly that gets into his enclosure. Everything (except the hornworms) are dusted (calcium without d3 each feeding, calcium with d3 once a month, reptile multivitamin once a month) and gutloaded. At the store he was only being fed crickets.

Does this sound ok? Too much or to little food? He eats it all but won't eat while I'm watching. I'm trying to rig up an old cellphone as a camera so I can check in and monitor him but no luck with that so far.

I'm hesitant to order any feeders online because I won't go through them fast enough to make the purchase worthwhile (in terms of cost) and don't have anyone to split the extras with at this time. A friend has tarantulas and a boa, we split on crickets sometimes. I'll be going to the breeder expo in Toronto in September and am hoping to be able to stock up on some things then or at least find out where I can get some feeders that I can't get here. I am not allowed to have a colony of anything right now, the SO already flips if he finds a loose cricket (he hates bugs).

I can adjust the ratio of feeders and I'll check to see if I can get other things when I go to the store tomorrow to do my feeder shopping (I like to go once a week). Hornworms can be really pricey here - $1.50-$2/ea unless you're buying a lot, then you can get them for about $1/ea. They also seem to vary greatly in size - sometmes they're really tiny, other times I can't get them because they're way too big.

I'm more than willing to travel out of town to get feeders if I can get more of a variety and keep them alive for a couple of weeks - I don't want to have to drive out of town more than 1-2 times a month if I don't have to, I only get one day off work and work long shifts the other days.

 

[xephyr17]

I swear every time I read something it's different than what I've read before. I'm in Canada so my access to feeders is a bit limited compared to those in the US - I can't get any type of roaches.

Here's what I can get locally - crickets (pretty much any size), mealworms, superworms, hornworms, butterworms, waxworms and silkworms.

I've been giving him (Boy George, a ~1 year old ambilobe) about 5-10 crickets (however many I can catch), 1 superworm, 2 butterworms, 1-2 silkworms and a hornworm every other day. Once a week I give him 1-2 waxworms as a treat (I get them for my geckos for treats, he gets the "extras"). All of the feeders, except the hornworms, are in a feeding cup - otherwise I have too many escapees and can't monitor his eating well. The hornworms are lose in his cage, I usually put a couple in and he eats them as he pleases - he really seems to like them. He also eats the occasional wild house fly or fruit fly that gets into his enclosure. Everything (except the hornworms) are dusted (calcium without d3 each feeding, calcium with d3 once a month, reptile multivitamin once a month) and gutloaded. At the store he was only being fed crickets.

Does this sound ok? Too much or to little food? He eats it all but won't eat while I'm watching. I'm trying to rig up an old cellphone as a camera so I can check in and monitor him but no luck with that so far.

I'm hesitant to order any feeders online because I won't go through them fast enough to make the purchase worthwhile (in terms of cost) and don't have anyone to split the extras with at this time. A friend has tarantulas and a boa, we split on crickets sometimes. I'll be going to the breeder expo in Toronto in September and am hoping to be able to stock up on some things then or at least find out where I can get some feeders that I can't get here. I am not allowed to have a colony of anything right now, the SO already flips if he finds a loose cricket (he hates bugs).

I can adjust the ratio of feeders and I'll check to see if I can get other things when I go to the store tomorrow to do my feeder shopping (I like to go once a week). Hornworms can be really pricey here - $1.50-$2/ea unless you're buying a lot, then you can get them for about $1/ea. They also seem to vary greatly in size - sometmes they're really tiny, other times I can't get them because they're way too big.

I'm more than willing to travel out of town to get feeders if I can get more of a variety and keep them alive for a couple of weeks - I don't want to have to drive out of town more than 1-2 times a month if I don't have to, I only get one day off work and work long shifts the other days.

The feeding schedule seems pretty good to me. I wouldn't use as many waxworms as you're using as they're extremely fatty, but I honestly don't know that it makes THAT huge of a difference (don't tell anyone I said that ).

I don't live in Canada so I'm not sure where you could go to get feeders for cheaper prices... hornworms are definitely way more expensive there... I can get 20 for like 8 bucks. Definitely go to that expo and find out where to get cheeper stuff.

Are you really catching crickets there? They aren't grasshoppers or locusts? That's kinda cool.

If you can continuously catch crickets throughout the year that's impressive, but I think it'd be easier to buy them up to you

 

[LLLReptile]

I'm also in the US, so I can't help ya on the pricing, but I wanted to chime in that what you're feeding sounds good.

Let the cham's body weight and willingness to eat also help you determine if he is getting too much/too little food. Try skipping an extra day to stimulate his appetite, and see if he's a bit more willing to eat while you can see him. Feeding him a little less over time also should make him hungry enough to come up and eat even with you there, it just might take a couple weeks.

Sounds like you have a pretty healthy, happy chameleon

-Jen

 

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We do have wild crickets here that I could try to catch but I buy mine. I meant catch as in catch in the little container that I keep them in They're fast little buggers and I don't have a proper cricket keeper, I just use one of those small plastic containers.

I've been thinking about catching grasshoppers to see if he'd like those but haven't yet... I live right downtown and I'm sure they're full of other not so good stuff, especially considering that my neighbours (behind me) are major hoarders - who knows what the bugs could be getting into. I don't particularly like him eating the flies for the same reason but not much that I can do about that - they get into his enclosure and he eats them.

The prices here really seem to vary depending on where you go - Petsmart is the most expensive and I generally don't go there, I normally go to a smaller privately owned store that seems to know what they're talking about. At PS, small crickets are 11 cents each and large ones are 22 cent each, at the other store I can get 100 for around $5. I'm not sure on their what their other feeders cost but my "usual" order of 100 crickets, 25 superworms, 100 mealworms, 10 silkworms, 6 hornworms, 5 waxworms and 10 butterworms is less than $20 at the store I normally go to. I've had to go to PS the past two times just due to the area of the city I was in and timing and it was over $40 and they don't carry silkworms. I find the PS crickets also die VERY quickly.

Just another question - we have a compost container inside that we use before we take things outside, it's usually just fruit/vegetable skins or pieces that we didn't eat. In the summer we get a lot of fruit flies around it and if we forgot to take it out for a day or so we quickly get fruit fly maggots. Is it ok to feed him those if it's just fruits/veggies that are in the bin? The fruit flies around here are NUTS and very plentiful.

Thanks for confirming that his food is alright