How much are you feeding your chameleons?

[nick barta]

CRAP!! I think I need some help here. My baby veileds, I am talking newborn to a month, simply get all they want to eat. I feed them 1/16 crickets and friut fly larve. I keep 10 babies in each 10 gal aquriam. I mist them 4 times a day and feed them 3 times a day. There is always food available to them. I worry that someone won't get to eat. That means I am WAY over feeding. There is no way to count fruit fly's or crickets that size, and with that many babies per tank what should I do?

I would watch them feed, and pull the ones that don't feed aggressively into a separate bin, and give that bin plenty of feeders.

You might want to stop feeding for a day or so, and then when you put the food in, you will be able to see who is dominant and who needs to go into the separate bin.

Nick

 

[laurie]

I would watch them feed, and pull the ones that don't feed aggressively into a separate bin, and give that bin plenty of feeders.

You might want to stop feeding for a day or so, and then when you put the food in, you will be able to see who is dominant and who needs to go into the separate bin.

Nick

Thanks Nick, I will try that. Now I am going to post a thread about one of my other chams food and growing.

 

[hallenhe]

I wonder how much variation there is between individual animals. My experience with my chams has been that, unlike some beasties (i.e. goldfish and tiger salamander), they seem to know when they're full and walk away. I always have bugs available in the bug cup, but eating them necessitates the cham hiking to the cup. My current cham will occasionally partake of bug-cup bugs, but mostly eats when hand fed, and that isn't every day.
When younger, he was much more aware of the bug cup, and I could come down on a weekend morning and find him sitting next to an empty bug cup, waiting impatiently for his breakfast.

 

[CHAMaDdIcT]

No, that's fine. Baby chameleons should eat a little more than adults, to facilitiate growing. You still dont want to overfeed, grow to quickly.

Do you offer anything besides crickets? Variety, in my opinion, is important.

i offer him only cricket right now but i plan to incorporate superworms and roachs in his diet when he gets older

 

[jojackson]

This is a much talked about issue and its virtually impossible to write a diet sheet that people can follow, outside the basic size/variety/dusting parameters.
Especially given so many factors make a difference, for example, hatchlings/juveniles, adults, sick animals, gravid animals etc etc.

As I've said before, I cant understate the importance of daily observation of reptiles.
Its important to be aware of changing behaviours, and enviroment so that you can better understand on a daily basis, whats happening with your reptile. How are the ambient temps day/night, photoperiod? How often is your reptile inclined to eat? how often is it defecating? how often is it sloughing? how old is it? All these things can tell you if you should be feeding or not and how much/how often.

Presently, since im in the southern hemisphere, we're approaching the end of winter (this month). Its been quite cold at nights since may 55-60f inside, shorter days (lights on 10.5 hrs currently) Homer has been eating very little since mid june, popping only about once per week, less active. (hes also 7 months now). He eats a few large crickets every other day(every 2nd or third day), the occasional cockroach or superworm, thats it. (variety is limited here especially during winter).

This is normal and hes healthy, active and well hydrated and very slowly now but steadily gaining weight. I do feed Freestyle and as such also feed/gutload the feeders in the cage, most uneaten ones die overnight (cold) and are removed. So he has choice to eat more but chooses not to.

By contrast, when he was very small, (bought mid summer) he was growing fast, much more active, popping everyday, eating sporodically throughout the day everyday.
I found the natural growth rate of calyptratus was surprisingly fast comparable to other lizard species and as such was particularly mindful of supplimenting and allowing access to natural light/uv during the first 6 months.

His weight increased steadily and I increased his exposure to UV exponentially but not the rate of food. As he grew I slowed the rate of feeding in accordance with what I observed. For example, time spent basking (to digest), natural inclination to hunt/eat,
Defecating less often and how often and how much he drank. Likewise basking temp was increased from about 5 months from 80 to 94f over a period of weeks.

By the end of this month, his photoperiod (lights on) will reach 11 hrs, night time temps have increased a few degrees over the last month and will probly approach 70f by the end of this month. Ambient day temps are also increaseing slowly. As these seasonal changes occure, I will observe behaviours and alter husbandry feeding etc as required.

September to November , spring here, these things all increase and likewise Homer will know its getting warmer. His appetite should improve, he will become more active and as Ambient temps effect his metabolism, he will eat and poo more accordingly.
I will continue to montor his weight/behaviour, offer a greater variety of feeders (which will be avail and greater insect varience would occure in season in the wild anyway.

His access to natural Uv will also increase as we get more blue sky and sunny days.

by December to February , our Summer, all enviromental parameters will be optimal, longer, warmer days and nights, higher humidity, wide range of avail insect prey, lots and lots of natural UV. His metabolism will be at peak performance, but this does not mean I will be pumping him full of the insect version of crispy cremes!
He will now be approaching a year old, and accordingly, will eat less often since he will be extracting the max efficiency from every meal. He may be pooping a bit more, perhaps twice a week, but this dosent indicate he needs to eat more.

Monitoring his weight/sloughing ratio will tell me if im feeding too much or too little.
I have not yet worked out a 'thumb rule' for sloughing rate average to a healthy cham of given age, but have done so with other lizard species and snakes, over the years.
This is a good general guideline (like the stripe they paint in the middle of the road) that tells you if your on the right side (e.g) feeding too much, or too little.

Id be intrested to hear from long term cham keepers of different species (particularly calyptratus) if they have recorded sloughing/weigh gain/growth data.

cheers

 

[sandrachameleon]

i offer him only cricket right now but i plan to incorporate superworms and roachs in his diet when he gets older

Why wait? add small roaches, small supers, small butters, small silkies, etc now.

Nick, what you posted isnt far off from my thinking. so no hammers from me

 

[wheresstimpy]

Clyde only seems to want 1 or 2 superworms a day, maybe 3 if i skip feeding for a day or two. When he was a baby he would eat 10-15 crickets a day and when he hit his "adult" size he slowed way down. And he is by no means skinny, just about perfect cham weight, maybe a little fat when compared to wild caught panthers.

oh and i should mention he only eats superworms now, not by my choice, his. I always kind of thought if he was hungry he would eat roaches and crickets(again), but he has proved me wrong, that little booger would rather die, literally i have let him go a week only offering him roaches or crickets to try and get some diversity into his diet, he acted like i was crazy. and then when i gave in (thinking he would die from starvation soon) and offered superworms again he acted like "its about time".

 

[jojackson]

LOl,..."Yes Clyde".............."No clyde"............Right away Clyde Sir!"

*persnal convo between Clyde an another chameleon down the block*

Clyde: "So then I refused to eat and sulked a bit, He thought I was starving and Bingo! Out came the superworms, works everry time, give it a go!....Oh S#@%& gtg Hes coming Cya"

 

[jadeaudio]

I just started feeding mine large meal worms and some superworms. Since then he's not big about eating crickets. I can get him to eat a couple when he used to eat a lot more. I know my male ambiole panther is a year and a few months and he should be full grown. I probably should cut down how much I feed him. My Nosy Be female eats a lot and looks fat and was told she was about 7 to 8 months old, but her overall body is a lot smaller than the male. A huge difference so how do I know if she is full grown? Now most people on here talk about feeding their Panther or Veiled. I also have two WC carpets and 1 Senegel. Should be all adults, but how often should I feed them little guys? The Senegel always looks skinny no matter how much I feed him/her. The Carpets look pretty fat for small chameleons.

 

[wheresstimpy]

LOl,..."Yes Clyde".............."No clyde"............Right away Clyde Sir!"

*persnal convo between Clyde an another chameleon down the block*

Clyde: "So then I refused to eat and sulked a bit, He thought I was starving and Bingo! Out came the superworms, works everry time, give it a go!....Oh S#@%& gtg Hes coming Cya"

exactly, he has me trained...

 

[Clifford]

...oh and i should mention he only eats superworms now, not by my choice, his. I always kind of thought if he was hungry he would eat roaches and crickets(again), but he has proved me wrong, that little booger would rather die, literally i have let him go a week only offering him roaches or crickets to try and get some diversity into his diet, he acted like i was crazy. and then when i gave in (thinking he would die from starvation soon) and offered superworms again he acted like "its about time".

Try two weeks. You gave in too soon.