Leaving chams alone for a few days??

[fluxlizard]

They have almost no nutritional value.

That is simply not true, though mealworm hating is popular here on the forums.

They may have little more chiton than most feeders, and may have a bit more fat than most, but they also have nutritional value and gutload calcium better than crickets according to at least one published source (ferguson- he was working out how to raise panther chameleons over multiple generations in his lab, feeding them only mealworms and crickets, and fed the inverts specially formulated diets).

Another unrelated source worth a looksee:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/97929278/Complete-Nutrient-Composition-of-Insects

In most of the tables mealworms are comparable to other inverts- either superworms on some, or crickets on others...

Also keep in mind that by feeding inverts different diets, you can effect all of their nutritional value significantly- even mealworms. Especially when the diet is fed over the life time of the invert and not merely gutloaded. One of the things I hate about nutritional analysis charts is that they never seem to take this fact into account, instead presenting the charts like they are written in stone, yet it is a published fact that the numbers can be changed by changing the diet of the animal- especially when it is fed over the lifespan of the animal and ends up being the stuff the insect builds itself out of, rather than simply what is found in it's gut.

A video I recently came across by a forum member on raising jacksons chameleons without loosing any mentioned that they were fed mealworms almost exclusively the first few months of life- yet had a zero mortality rate and good growth rate.

[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKTbUaOQ0aA[/URL]

The first lizards I ever bred (green anoles around the year 1981) on a mealworm only diet because that was I had in those days available to me.

Many leopard gecko breeders have gone many generations with many individuals living over 20 years only on mealworms.

Please don't misunderstand- I'm definately not saying feed only mealworms. But on the other other hand- they are far from useless and having no nutritional value as well...

Back to the OP- he already stated that he has no friends or relatives or anyone else to check in on the lizards...

 

[sibo]

hi all,

First post but my bit of a advice, when I had a veiled in the uk I would keep my old cricket pots and place in there a days worth of crickets in each for the amount of days away. I would then ask my neighbour (did not really know them but he had to be fed) so each day they would come round dump one box in the viv, fill up the dripper and leave. Everything else was automated.

I know you say no friends as such but when it comes to animals anyone will do.

 

[Todnedo]

You can throw some blue bottle fly pupae in a cup, they usually hatch in 2 days.

 

[redline]

Great post haha... But yes i wont leave mine for a few days unsupervised. Got lucky and my new inlaw is a snake breeder so guess ho would pass by.
If everything is automated like he daid, just have someone not scaref of the feeder pass and drop some in and refill the water dripper etc. Good luck