Jacksons Chameleon not eating much all of a sudden...

[jrath]

I don't understand why people would decrease the calcium dusting for a montage species...aren't the ratios of calcium to phosphorous still/always unbalanced in the insects? IMHO its the fat soluble vitamins that need to be watched...just my opinion.

This is straight from the jacksons care sheet, It's always been explained to me that because their metabolism is slower they don't require as much calcium or vitamins.

Supplementation:
Calcium and other vitamins are very important to your chameleon's health. Feeder insects should be lightly dusted with powdered supplement before being fed to your chameleon. As a montane species (native to higher altitudes) Jackson's have decreased supplementation requirements compared to tropical species due to metabolism differences. Use calcium (without D3 or phosphorus) twice a week, a multivitamin once a month, and calcium with D3 once a month.

 

[kinyonga]

From what I understand a slow metabolism means that the chameleon needs less calories to maintain life so it should digest less insects to attain that calorie requirement....so it should eat less insects and thus get less calcium as a result. The balance of the calcium and phosphorous is still the same in each insect so why wouldn't they all be dusted to maintain that balance? Also from what I understand, you have to overdoses calcium quite a bit before it causes a problem. Just my opinion and my experience. I kept dwarf Jacksons, fischers, and quite a few other montane species over the last 25 years and always dusted the insects like I do/did for veileds and it didn't seem to cause any problems.