Hornworm bite?

Suzapalooza

New Member
Hi all -
We recently started feeding our male veiled Neil (10-months) hornworms and silkworms, in addition to crickets and butterworms.

He's not particularly fond of the silkworms, and will eat crickets if there is nothing else, but LOVES hornworms. We've been feeding him only the smaller worms - didn't realize how fast they grow! Holy cow!

I've heard various stories about how they can bite, and how some cham owners even remove their jaw before feeding, but didn't think too much about it until this morning.

Neil nabbed a worm by the tail-end and it swung around and latched onto his lower jaw! He put up a foot in what appeared to be a swipe attempt to get it off his face. A couple more chomps and it fell to the floor of the cage, still alive.

I scooped up the worm and mashed it's head flat. The worm was still moving, so I draped it over a branch to see if Neil would go for it again. Worm was still there six hours later (and sort of alive - ugh) so I trashed it.

How do you remove the hornworm jaw so they won't bite? Or do you just crush that end?

We're only feeding the smaller ones (I have a friend with a beardie who's taking the big dudes off our hands. Way too big for Neil!). Crazy how fast those things grow.
 
Too much messy, unecesary work IMO. place the head toward the chameleon, no worries!

CHEERS!

Nick:D
 
Too much messy, unecesary work IMO. place the head toward the chameleon, no worries!

CHEERS!

Nick:D

For my wimpier chams, I feed head first with tweezers, also. For my more manlier chams, should say voracious, I let them have at it. I did have a female veil get tagged just as yours, who refused them from then on. Just think, in the wild they are fending off even more defensive prey. Up to you on how to proceed. I tend to leave my chams alone as much as possible.
 
Thanks, all! I'll try some of those tactics. I could swear Neil gave me a dirty look after the bite, as in "how dare you feed me food that wants to fight back!" - lol.

Appreciate the feedback :)
 
Ugh! I HATE it when the super worms bite! And not just then when you really try to hold them between your fingers, they start secreting that gross smelly fluid!:mad: my Cham may love them, but I think there gross!
 
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