Sometimes I’ll put hornworms on the smooth plastic bottom of a deli cup and hold that out to my Cham. Do make sure not to give a hornworm which is too large. They grow super fast, so only get enough for 1-2 days at a time, and get them much smaller than needed.
You’ve been a lifesaver through all of my posts, thank you so much first and foremost! The tongs I have do have rubber tip covers but honestly theyre kinda hard to hold the bugs with without crushing them, probably gonna stick to cup and hand feeding to be honest. The handling went decent today, he was less than thrilled when I was attempting to get him to come on my hand lol, but once we were out of the enclosure he seemed to chill out a lot! He lightened his colors up almost immediately once we were out of his home. Im gonna give him a few days before we do another attempt. Any tips for facilitating bonding? Ive tried hand feeding (before the handling) and he wasnt too into it. He also doesnt seem to care for the dubias, do chams not do great with deep food bowls? Ive been stressed trying to keep track of cricket consumption because they obviously jump out of the cup and free roam the enclosure and then its up to him to find them, which I dont love the idea of. He also has no interest in the occasional drippings I offer, i think thats a good thing right?I have to caution against tong feeding. Chameleons are much much quicker with their tongue shoot and grab than we are with our release, and this can result in a tongue injury. Some chameleons have even had such a bad injury, that they lost their tongues completely! Sadly, I’m not exaggerating or being overly dramatic. Since I’m not a big fan of holding most feeder insects with my bare fingers, I rely upon silkworms for hand feeding to build trust. I put one on the back of my hand and hold my hand out to my cham. Silkworms move slowly, don’t bite and are just soft and sweet little buggies. Hornworms are also good for hand feeding, and I recommend only hand feeding them since they have extra sticky and strong feet and don’t like letting go of most surfaces, which again, can cause a tongue injury. They can nibble a bit on you, but it doesn’t hurt…just feels strange.
For plants, you can use any type of plant outside of the enclosure that you use inside. Some have created free range areas, which are amazing! Try searching the forum for free range ideas. I had saved a pic of one but I’ll never find it. Someone had used a corner of the room and attached a lattice I think, and then all different plants. It was pretty and functional. You could scavenge a nice sized branch from outside and secure it to a window and have maybe a pothos with some nice strong vines hanging, or better yet, place the pothos down low and train the vines to grow up. The vine and leaves grow much larger when they grow upwards. Chams seem to enjoy looking out windows..just as nosy as the rest of us.
It’s not the tips of the tongs that are the problem, but it’s that we aren’t quick enough on the release of them. You see how fast those tongues shoot out and grab a bug. If the bug doesn’t let go in the millisecond it’s grabbed, the tongue muscle and shooting mechanism gets pulled wrong and is easily injured.
