Mantids & Butterworms

[GlennFrog]

So I'm trying to start to diversify my girl's feeding. She's a veiled chameleon, a few months old. Right now I have her eating mainly crickets, with mealworms and a few waxworms here and there. She's a little food guzzler right now, so I'm hoping that she'll readily take to whatever I give her. I have phoenix worms on the way, and I've looked into getting mantids and butterworms. My question is: are these two feeders worth the investment? Mantids require a substantial space and money requirement to start them up, though I think that a one time investment of the money for cups will be worth it to hold many generations of mantids, so I'm likely to get these going soon. The butterworms, however, seem to be significantly more expensive per head. Do they provide superior nutrition, such that they are worth their price, or are they just harder to come by, such that they are more expensive to acquire than other feeders? Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

 

[CashMoney]

I have seen nutrition breakdowns saying butterworms have really high calcium. My panther is very wishy washy with them though. He will never eat more than one or two in a feeding and only will do that once a week tops. He gets lots of variety, he picks around the butterworms. All chams have different food loves though, just like personalities.

 

[GlennFrog]

Thanks for the help. I think I'm going to skip on the butterworms for now and focus on less expensive feeders. Most care resources state that the mantids are able to be kept together until two molts. At two molts, are they big enough to be fed to a juvenile veiled? I know that Rinoa will grow a bit before the mantises are ready to be fed to her; I guess what I'm most concerned with is when they will be an optimal size to be fed off. I have a couple hundred insect cups on the way, so storage isn't much of an issue. I just don't want them fed off so early that they don't fill her up, or wait too long so that they're too big for her to eat. Is there any rule of thumb for mantis:cham size ratios?