list of staple diet without crickets, roaches, or other potential infestation risk

Franquixote

Franquixote

Established Member
Is it possible to keep a panther chameleon without using any bugs that can potentially escape and cause issues?
Does anyone have luck training panther chameleons taking freeze dried after they associate keeper with food?
Any devices out there that cause frozen (and defrosted) or freezedried foods to mimic live food? (patent pending!) through mechanical means?
 
Freeze dried food can't be gutloaded and is probably filled with preservatives we wouldn't want our Chams to eat. Silkworms are very nutritious, but more of a pain than crx or roaches imo. I think crickets or roaches would have to be used at least occasionally even if you had a wide variety of other insects and mainly silks.

Roaches are super easy and problem free ime. Orangeheads and dubia can't climb and/or infest
 
Freeze-dried is not recommended for chameleons. I've never heard of anyone using frozen insects as food for chameleons either. If you use silkworms or hornworms for a part of the diet even if one were to escape it wouldn't cause an issue. All I can say is if you have a chameleon you pretty much have to deal with insects.
 
Dubia roaches only reproduce at 28C and up. I believe crickets need these kind of temperatures to reproduce as well.
Assuming your house isn't that warm year round I think it will not become an issue.

Feeding only silks and hornworms is expencive and you'd probably need another feeder next to it anyways since worms are very moist. You could try grasshoppers but they arent cheap like crickets either and not all animals like em.
 
My wife trained me to eat veggie burgers so anything is possible.
I understand what an insectivore is.
Has anyone ever tried this before just assuming it wouldn't work? I had a veiled 25 years ago that would take anything he saw in my hand, and there doesn't seem to be any logical reason why a frozen gut loaded cricket that's been thoroughly defrosted would present an issue.
But I'm certainly listening!
 
The thing with chameleons is they rely entirely off sight. It's how they have evolved, they don't have good hearing at all, they don't have sensitive touch, they don't smell things well or taste well... so it's kind of just... sight. But they have evolved so beautifully to need only that.... The thing is, a frozen gutloaded cricket won't work.... they will expel their bowels (at least most of it) when they are dying. But the real question is, why? Why would you try to change something that is so important (such as a very complex nutrition system) that the reptiles rely on?
 
The only reason would to be sure no crickets escape. I thank you for the info about crickets expelling innards when they die, definitely interested in learning more about that.
I also am considering the best way to provide a multitude of loaded insects and if feeding defrosted food items was possible, it allows for exponentially more variety with ease. This is the way we accomplish this task with fish and reef systems.
I'm not looking for shortcuts, I'm looking for ways to provide optimal care.
Thanks again
 
I can't say that this is good or not.... 20 years ago my veildes would eat scrambled eggs. I ran out of crickets so I'd take a leg from the cricket cage and a piece if scrambled egg hand feed them with no problem. I did this a few times a month but tried it without the leg and it was a no go.

I am not recommending this. Just putting it out that it's possible. I was young and there wasn't much info out there back then. I also did not use a uvb bulb, kept them outside in the summer, watered them with city water, fed lots if super worms, fed wild insects and my chams lived JUST 3 YEARS. I would not do any of this today.
 
It was a much different hobby then. Going back to the mid 80's, I recall the introduction of "Reptomin" mineral/vitamin supplements (cool frilled dragon on the bottle!) as ground-breaking. Almost every iguana ended up with rickets and we had very few options for feeders- crickets, mealworms, and waxworms.
I too had a veiled back then but he did fine- after 3 or 4 years I opted to give him to a breeder because he became aggressive and I was living with my parents without the option to get a larger enclosure. We used "Vitalite" fluorescent bulbs (full spectrum was the only claim it made, UVA/B ratings were unheard of though I suspect it did provide enough to ward off metabolic disorders) and I never took him outside but he did well.
I'm all for over-thinking things and going overboard rather than trying to get by on the bare minimum!
But I do have to be considerate not only of the reptile but my wife and kids that shouldn't have to put up with an insect infestation in our home.
I'm trying to put together a few colonies of feeders before I purchase an animal and just weighing our options.
I don't necessarily need to breed feeders, but I do feel that I should have at least 3 types of staple insects that I can gut load so when I do obtain an animal I have a ready supply of healthy food and have all the kinks worked out in the routine I will use to offer a continuous supply of healthy food,
Right now my only definite is silk worms. So I need at least a few more staples.
Ideally, I'd like to avoid crickets altogether as a staple food and think that locusts would be an adequate replacement for crickets- from what I have read so far they can be gut loaded and seem less likely to create a problem if they escape.
Does anyone have suggestions for other staple insects that :
1. are unlikely to create an infestation when they escape
2. do not create unpleasant odors if properly cared for (regular cleaning, food that doesn't immediately stink or rot in less than a day,etc.)
3. live for at least a month before developing into a mature form (flying, turning into unpalatable beetles, etc.)
4. can be gut-loaded
5. are safe for children- don't bite, sting, etc.

Thanks for any suggestions!
 
I read that even large chameleon like termites. You catch them with a pvc tube and cardboard and dad once you won't capture a female there is no chance of infesting the house. Of course this is not year round in most areas and can't be gutloaded.

I'm planning on stick insects. Never raised them but seem easy. Vegetarian, slow moving, won't bite, won't infest house. Eggs take months to hatch and illegal in some places.

I've seen land snails mentioned and I think I read somewhere some will except earthworms. Research that first, I don't know if they are ok or not.
 
Since you seem to live in the UK you have a lot open to you that can't possibly infest. Almost all species of regular feeder and tropical roaches that most people use in the states are available where you are I think? And none would likely to be able to infest unless you got one of the annoying varieties that are stupidly Harry that I never recommend because they can also climb glass and plastic.
 
Few if any of the most common feeders could or would infest. And in the UK you even have access to locusts which we would kill for here in the states. Crickets smell but for one chameleon you only have to buy so many at a time.

Dubia, discoid, orange head, etc are all tropical roaches which can't reproduce or usually even survive in household conditions. Once you get past the fact that they're kind of related to the pest species you'll see they're far cleaner and don't smell when compared to crickets, and they're silent.

The short answer is that if there were an easier alternative to live feed everyone would already be doing it. The popular feeders are popular because they pretty much already meet what you're looking for except for the being alive part.
 
You really get an appreciation for roaches in this hobby. They disgusted me when I received my first order. Now I find myself feeling bad for them. I cannot imagine them infesting. I also find that banded crickets don't smell at all. Their downside is they can be hard to catch if you drop them on the floor. Reef fish are more likely to eat dead things floating in the water column and the food is usually enriched with spirulina, vitamins, garlic, etc. Although you do have me thinking about gutloading fish food now lol.
 
I don't think silkworms are that hard to manage if you want to make that your primary feeder. They are just a bit more expensive if you have to buy the chow. I buy and hatch eggs at 10-14 day intervals so I always have the right size and then trade off the ones that are too large. I use those as my primary feeder, dubias as my secondary and superworms and snails as occasional feeders.
None of these are noisy or smelly and until global warming gets us I'm safe from infestation with the dubia.
 
There are certain species of roaches which could infest, even tropical species. but once again I don't recommend them as feeders though some people still use them.

As far as reef tanks a lot of actual REEF tanks grow healthy algae for a lot of symbiotic reef fish to eat. It often makes up for what frozen food lacks.
 
jamest0o0 said:
You really get an appreciation for roaches in this hobby. They disgusted me when I received my first order. Now I find myself feeling bad for them. I cannot imagine them infesting. I also find that banded crickets don't smell at all. Their downside is they can be hard to catch if you drop them on the floor. Reef fish are more likely to eat dead things floating in the water column and the food is usually enriched with spirulina, vitamins, garlic, etc. Although you do have me thinking about gutloading fish food now lol.
Click to expand...


A few times a year me and a friend would split and order of saltwater ghost shrimp and gut load them on high end fish food for the night before releasing them in our reef tanks. They'd mostly get eaten right away but being marine they'd last until their time came.

I also routinely raised brine shrimp from eggs on high quality live and dead marine phytoplanktons because I was breeding a few saltwater fish species at the time and needed brine of all life stages.
 
@jamest0o0 its crazy how the roach colony will weasel their way into becoming considered one of the pets. I hear people say it all the time and it's true at my house. I enjoy caring for the roaches more than I enjoy the crunch of a chameleon smashing one, and a really do enjoy the crunch lol
 
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