Only worms need apply

[Murrdox]

So my male 11 month old Panther Rygel is off crickets... again.

I've tried everything I can think of with him. He'll pound away at Superworms and large-sized mealworms. He won't touch crickets.

Yesterday I tossed 5 or 6 crickets in his feeding container. He just sort of stared at me, as if to say "Haven't you gotten the message yet? I'm NOT eating those." Then 5 minutes later I tossed in 2 superworms. He was over at the feeding container before I got my hand out of his cage, already taking aim.

As he's gotten older, Rygel has steadily outgrown hand-feeding. He's also outgrown bowl-feeding. I built a milk container for him with screen in it for the worms/crickets to climb on, and he really loves that so far.

I don't like keeping him on a superworm staple diet. Supers are hard to supplement and gut-feed, so I don't want him to get under-supplemented or under-nourished. For now though, I just don't have anymore options I can think of.

I have tried:

- Hand, Cup, Milk Container, and Free-Range methods for feeding.
- NOT offering him worms for a couple of days, hoping he'd go for crickets.
- Not offering him ANYTHING for a couple of days, hoping new prey would dray his attention.
- Offering small, large, powdered, and unpowdered crickets.

His last success with crickets was last month, when he went for a free-ranging cricket. Since then nothing.

If anyone else has any bright ideas I'd be glad to hear them. At this point my strategy will be to just let him eat Superworms for a few weeks, then try crickets again at some point.

 

[lrg83caleb]

My male panther does the same thing. I took crickets completely out of his diet for a few weeks. I then only offered silks, horns, blue bottle flies, butters and roaches. When I brought crickets back in he grabbed up about 6 or so with out hesitation. Variety is key to having a healthy chameleon. It really keeps them interested.

 

[pr3mo15]

Same here, my panther got bored of crickets, so I fed silkworms / superworms and occasionally a wax worm here and there for about 2weeks straight, not offering crickets at all..


I just put some crickets in there about a week or 2 ago for the first time and sure enough he snagged atleast 7-8 crickets without hesitation, and will now do nothing with supers and just eat crickets!

Maybe you can try this method out
hope it helps!

goodluck
-Sean

 

[sandrachameleon]

Try not offering anything else but crickets (or anything other than larva). And stare right back at him with a message of "eat the crickets, or go hungry"
eventually HE should get the message that crickets are on the menu, and NOT superworms - he will eat when he is hungry.
Once you've broken his bad eating habits, try to avoid getting him hooked on just supers by not offering them very often. Offer a variety, a different bug eat meal. I have found switching up the meals means no boredom AND no expectation of a favourite food. If I gave in to the preferences of my chameleons, they'd each only eat certain things, not necessarily the things that are best for them either. One loves stick insects beyond anything else. If I allowed it, that's all he'd eat. Most love the isopods/woodsows more than anything else. One is a big fan of silkworms. BUT all of them eat what is put in front of them, or they dont eat. This is not cruel- but rather the best way I've found to ensure a good variety of diet which i think contributes to good health. They are offered food every day, usually twice a day. they eat well. they are healthy and long lived.