New Staple Feeders???

[ChameleonKing1911]

Any ideas on beetles as staple feeders? I knew that supers and mealies turned into beetles so I thought of using them as staple feeders. What do you guys think? Any ideas?

NOTE: My cham will eat ANYTHING dead or alive so livelyness wouldnt be a problem

 

[fluxlizard]

To me the word "staple" implies a feeder that could be used as a very significant part of a diet. I don't think beetles would be a good choice for this. They are mostly shell. The mealworms and superworms themselves probably have a higher nutritional value.

I think a superworm beetle would be a pretty big mouthful of tough to crack food for a chameleon, and they put out some sort of defensive liquid which has a strong odor- a few weeks ago I transferred a few hundred beetles into tub by hand for breeding and failed to wear plastic gloves. In addition to the powerful odor, there was actually some wierd damage to my hands that drew blood up into the lower layers of skin on my palms and fingers and made them appear "blotchy" for the remainder of the day. At first I thought my hands were stained from the beetles odorous defensive liquid, but on closer examination after washings, I looked similar to bruising or something- blood under the skin. I would probably not feed these to chameleons.

Mealworm beetles, I find my chameleons love. I only use them at educational presentations so that people can observe the chameleons feeding. The enthusiastic response from the chameleons may be simply because they are a very novel food item that I do not use outside of these presentations- I need the beetles for making more worms so I do not feed them normally to the lizards.

But for the reasons stated above- I don't think I would offer them as a "staple" dietary item.

 

[Mike Fisher]

and they put out some sort of defensive liquid which has a strong odor-

Yeah, that's nasty stuff. And it sticks with you even after you wash your hands. I once saw one of my chams go for one that had pupated inside the enclosure. He spit it out pronto.