Is this Normal
- Thread starter turbohb
- Start date
ChromaChameleons
New Member
The only concerns are pesticide and herbicide poisining or impaction. Some smooth river stones that are larger than your cham can swallow should take care of the issue. As to WHY it is eating soil... its not uncommon, but might suggest something missing in its supplementation??
ChromaChameleons
New Member
I also recall some animals ingesting small stones or dirt to assist in dislodging parasites in the digestive tract. Maybe a fecal to the vet is in order???
Marc10edora
Avid Member
My cham does this when there is are minerals missing from his diet that I am not providing. Make sure your insects are gut loaded with plenty of veggies and dust your feeders on a routine scheduale.
turbohb
New Member
I was at the petstore and saw this cricket food Fluker's Orange Cube Complete Cricket Diet and wanted to know if it was any good.I was going to get some from cricketfood.com but if im not home when it comes and they take it to the appartment office they might not like the fact that i have crickets so i was going to see if that would work instead of choppng up veggies and fruits.I also wanted to know how much to dust the crickets I have the rep-cal and miner-all.
Lunatic913
New Member
my cham has been sleeping in the dirt for short periods of time...then i catch him and then put him back on his branch lol
This is one of those issues that makes you wish some vet school would develop a niche in the systematic study of chameleons. My personal hunch is that its got something to do with humic acid in the soil. I cover the dirt in the pots with big riverstones just to be sure the chams won't get into anything I don't know is in there, but now I also leave a couple tablespoons of humus (leaf compost mostly) in a tupperware lid on the bottom of the cage (out of the drip stream!). Once a week or so, the chams will decend and, with gusto, take a few large mouthfuls. Perhaps in nature they get bits of decaying leaf litter from the bugs they zap off the forest floor, and maybe that provides trace elements/minerals that don't work as well in powdered form. Or, maybe they need the fiber -- we worry about chitin but my guess is that their natural diet includes a lot more bettles/shells than I am able to provide. In any event, I wouldn't worry about it as long as, as others have said, you've got safe soil in there and no little stones/twiglets/debris that could get stuck in their digestive systems.
Marc10edora
Avid Member
I usually have 300-500 crickets at a time. In order to keep them alive, I feed them the commercial stuff like that fluker's orange cube product. Every night, before I go to bed, I throw 20 crickets into another tank that has some kind of veggies. (ex. collard greens, romaine lettuce, carrots, sweet potato) I make sure it is fresh and clean. The crickets will eat it up like crazy. Then by morning time, they will be ready to feed. When I dust crickets I don't use alot of powder. A little can go a long way. The main thing is offering all your feeders fresh clean gutload before you send them into their doom.
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ChromaChameleons
New Member
You mentioned RepCAl and Minerall. You are missing a lot of vitamins. I'd suggest RepCal w/D3 once or twice a week. Rep Cal without D3 3 or 4 times a week and Retivite ( vitamins) and Minerall (minerals) twice a month.
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