Panther Chameleon diet - UK

[jack_wardayyyy]

Hi!

I currently feed my Cham roughly 8 locust every morning (medium size) he’s around 1 month old.

Im looking to expand his diet. I’ve found a site called silkwormstore who do subscriptions and they offer some good stuff - locusts (healthier than pets at home), silkworms and pachnoda grubs.

I don’t know much about pachnoda grubs so if anyone can provide a bit whether these are a treat or a normal day to day food that would be really appreciated!

For the silkworms to my knowledge these are awesome food and offer loads of good stuff for them

The final thing I would buy from another store would be dubia roaches

If anyone can let me know if this is a good selection that would be great!

For anyone from outside the Uk we can’t get horn worms

I have seen the big photo of all the good feeders and treats but would just like peoples experiences and tips with these and if this is a good enough selection of food for him day to day and how I should mix it up, a day of worms a day of locust etc or 2 silkworms, 2 locusts, 2 roaches and a grub?

 

[MissSkittles]

@Sonny13 Do you know anything about the pachnoda grubs?
That’s a nice variety of staple feeders. There really isn’t any hard and fast rule about the best way to feed types of bugs. Usually I try to give a couple of different feeders for each feeding, but I go by what types of feeders I have. Sometimes I end up with way too many silkworms and so all of my reptiles get fed only silkworms at each feeding until I get the numbers down a bit. If I forget to order crickets soon enough, I’ll have to give mostly roaches and whatever else I have. I feed my chameleons every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so on the weekend is when I give them their treats.

 

[jack_wardayyyy]

Awesome thank you so much for the info and I appreciate the insight into your routine! At what point should I reduce how much I am feeding him? He is currently fed 8 locusts every morning and he happily eats them, will I know when he doesn’t require that anymore like will he just stop eating as many over time?

Very excited to see him have a few different feeders as I believe he’s only ever had locusts and then the one morio worm he gets every Saturday which he absolutely loves

 

[MissSkittles]

How old is your guy? We usually go by age and growth. With male panthers, I believe when they start reaching around 10-12 months old is when they usually start cutting back on how much they eat on their own. My guy was fully mature when I got him and I feed him the same as I feed all of my mature chams - 3-4 decent sized feeders, 3 days a week. I do monitor weights at least monthly, which I suggest all keepers do. Sudden big changes are a good way to find that something is wrong with our cham, sometimes before symptoms even appear.

 

[Sonny13]

@Sonny13 Do you know anything about the pachnoda grubs?
That’s a nice variety of staple feeders. There really isn’t any hard and fast rule about the best way to feed types of bugs. Usually I try to give a couple of different feeders for each feeding, but I go by what types of feeders I have. Sometimes I end up with way too many silkworms and so all of my reptiles get fed only silkworms at each feeding until I get the numbers down a bit. If I forget to order crickets soon enough, I’ll have to give mostly roaches and whatever else I have. I feed my chameleons every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so on the weekend is when I give them their treats.

Yes, I do know and feed them once in awhile. But, contain lots of fat and can bite pretty hard. You can always lets them pop into beetles, that’s a nice treat for your Cham. Just keep them on top of your enclosure and within 2 months you’ll have some beetles. Personally, I got the feeling locusts aren’t that nutritious as crickets and Dubai’s, I do offer them to my chams. The staple of locusts, dubia, silkworms is really good. Is it possible to get BSFL? That would be great addition and when they pop into flies, the chams go wild.

 

[jack_wardayyyy]

How old is your guy? We usually go by age and growth. With male panthers, I believe when they start reaching around 10-12 months old is when they usually start cutting back on how much they eat on their own. My guy was fully mature when I got him and I feed him the same as I feed all of my mature chams - 3-4 decent sized feeders, 3 days a week. I do monitor weights at least monthly, which I suggest all keepers do. Sudden big changes are a good way to find that something is wrong with our cham, sometimes before symptoms even appear.

The centre said he’s around 10-12 months; I’m taking it as 11 months. Awesome so eventually he’s gonna eat less by his choice and then every other day he probably just won’t be too interested in the food? I’ll deffo keep up to date with his weight, once he finishes shedding I’ll give him a lil weigh thank you for the advice

 

[Sonny13]

With that age, you can go to suggested feeding of @MissSkittles to prevent obesity. 3 times a week 3-4 decent sized feeders. If I'm aloud to make another suggestion, take out the fake plants and put them on the outside of cage and them with real plants, your handsome will appreciate it. This will give a real positive feedback on behaviour.

 

[jack_wardayyyy]

Yes, I do know and feed them once in awhile. But, contain lots of fat and can bite pretty hard. You can always lets them pop into beetles, that’s a nice treat for your Cham. Just keep them on top of your enclosure and within 2 months you’ll have some beetles. Personally, I got the feeling locusts aren’t that nutritious as crickets and Dubai’s, I do offer them to my chams. The staple of locusts, dubia, silkworms is really good. Is it possible to get BSFL? That would be great addition and when they pop into flies, the chams go wild.

Awesome, so maybe once he has eaten this batch of morioworms I’ll get him a small amount go the grubs and see if he likes them as his Saturday treat? Would you advise cutting the heads off or is it the same as morio worms where instinctively hell know where to get them from? Also, morioworms turn into beetles too don’t they? Would he eat these?

Thank you for the info on the locust, I didn’t realise crickets were more nutritious. I have held off crickets even when the boxes at my local store are teaming and all alive purely off the fact they bite.

I watched a video of BSFL yesterday weirdly enough! I can get a bag of them from swell but I’m unsure if they’re alive. If you suggest them I’ll definitely get onto them I know their calcium is roughy 20-63 times more than the average feeder or something along those lines?

 

[Sonny13]

Awesome, so maybe once he has eaten this batch of morioworms I’ll get him a small amount go the grubs and see if he likes them as his Saturday treat? Would you advise cutting the heads off or is it the same as morio worms where instinctively hell know where to get them from? Also, morioworms turn into beetles too don’t they? Would he eat these?

That will be difficult cutting their head off, just make sure he shoot them head first. As a treat they're perfect, as well as the beetles. The morioworms also turn to beetles, but they take, only got a them to turn into a few times.

Thank you for the info on the locust, I didn’t realise crickets were more nutritious. I have held off crickets even when the boxes at my local store are teaming and all alive purely off the fact they bite.

Just my own thoughts / feeling about it, especially when I see them getting eaten. Crickets are full of gut load and I never witness this with locusts. I hate crickets as well and I'm breeding them, always get them from the store, gut load them and feed em. Got three mouths to feed

I watched a video of BSFL yesterday weirdly enough! I can get a bag of them from swell but I’m unsure if they’re alive. If you suggest them I’ll definitely get onto them I know their calcium is roughy 20-63 times more than the average feeder or something along those lines?

They'll survive I'm not that afraid of it. Once they arrive just throw some leftovers veggies or fruit and they'll will eat it. You don't need to powder them, they're really high on calcium

 

[jack_wardayyyy]

Thank you so much for the help!

When his morioworms are out I’ll definitely give the pachnoda grub a go

I got a box of crickets with all his other feeders last night but sadly my grandma who I live with was really not happy about the crickets and said it’s the one thing she doesn’t want in the house because of how many there is and the process of getting them into his viv fortunately I have got locust, dubia roaches and silkworms now which I’m hoping is a good little rotation for his main dish!

I’ll buy some of the larvae for sure then I just didn’t want to buy them and them all be dead because he probably wouldn’t be too fussed!

Sorry to bring the topic back to this but with his eating habits he eats every morning around 8 feeders the occasional night I may give him one more when I’m home. He’s roughly 11 months old but I’m worried about switching his habits because the store said 4 locust a day will do him but then he started trying to eat his fake leaves because he was hungry so when I came on here a few people replied to me saying they feed their subadults around his age 8 - as many as they can eat within 5 minutes on a morning every day. I currently think this is the stage he’s at for sure but when do I know to start feeding him every other day and cutting his meals to 4? He’s also very active always climbing and always wanting to come out and explore the room. Will he gradually choose to not eat as much as he gets older or is this something I need to implement

 

[Sonny13]

I have got locust, dubia roaches and silkworms now which I’m hoping is a good little rotation for his main dish!

More then perfect.

Sorry to bring the topic back to this but with his eating habits he eats every morning around 8 feeders the occasional night I may give him one more when I’m home. He’s roughly 11 months old but I’m worried about switching his habits because the store said 4 locust a day will do him but then he started trying to eat his fake leaves because he was hungry so when I came on here a few people replied to me saying they feed their subadults around his age 8 - as many as they can eat within 5 minutes on a morning every day. I currently think this is the stage he’s at for sure but when do I know to start feeding him every other day and cutting his meals to 4? He’s also very active always climbing and always wanting to come out and explore the room. Will he gradually choose to not eat as much as he gets older or is this something I need to implement

You really need to cut him back for his own good, to prevent obesity with all troubles that comes with it. Just slowly cut him back over the course of I.e. 4 weeks, so that he can get used to it. This is why we advise to only put live plants in their enclosure, eating fake plants is really dangerous. It can cause constipation because their digestion system can’t pass it through.

 

[jack_wardayyyy]

More then perfect.


You really need to cut him back for his own good, to prevent obesity with all troubles that comes with it. Just slowly cut him back over the course of I.e. 4 weeks, so that he can get used to it. This is why we advise to only put live plants in their enclosure, eating fake plants is really dangerous. It can cause constipation because their digestion system can’t pass it through.

Awesome, glad I have a good variety thank you

Okay I’ll start to cut back on it, how would you advise doing this? Keeping the days but reducing the amount? Or reducing the days but keeping the same amount? Don’t want to starve him while I’m not at home to make sure he isn’t nibbling on the leaves I want to make the change to real plants but financially and set up wise I’m not going to be in that position for around 2 months, I’m planning on ordering his big enclosure this week but then I need to order everything else and spend some time making it perfect in terms of planting the plants and getting the backgrounds stuck on over the little bits of glass window there is on the one I’m ordering (the back is glass window and a very small piece of sides is glass, the majority of the sides are mesh and so is the roof).

Also whilst you’re here sonny, I showed miss skittles his arm as he’s missing scales on it and the centre said it’s nothing to worry about but always keep an eye on it just incase, he also has the same sort of issue on one of his eyes, he’s has these little snags for a long time I believe (before I had him)

Do you think this will heal itself over time or will it stay like this? Currently it causes no issues, i see him blink where it stays shut for a few more seconds and looks like he’s blinking again a few times with his eye shut before he opens it again. Any advice?

 

[jack_wardayyyy]

Also he is not fuming in that pic he just has a dubia roach in his mouth but it was a really good time to get a pic of his eye

 

[elizaann2]

How old is your guy? We usually go by age and growth. With male panthers, I believe when they start reaching around 10-12 months old is when they usually start cutting back on how much they eat on their own. My guy was fully mature when I got him and I feed him the same as I feed all of my mature chams - 3-4 decent sized feeders, 3 days a week. I do monitor weights at least monthly, which I suggest all keepers do. Sudden big changes are a good way to find that something is wrong with our cham, sometimes before symptoms even appear.

how do you weigh your chameleons? I’ve been toying with the idea of weighing mine but worry about stressing out my panther.

 

[Flick boy]

Hi as mentioned black soldier fly larve are good , and good when some turn into flies for hunting, also red runner roaches. Pachnoda are for treat only . There is also buzzard reptiles ,and dubia Paul, both live food .

 

[MissSkittles]

Awesome, glad I have a good variety thank you

Okay I’ll start to cut back on it, how would you advise doing this? Keeping the days but reducing the amount? Or reducing the days but keeping the same amount? Don’t want to starve him while I’m not at home to make sure he isn’t nibbling on the leaves I want to make the change to real plants but financially and set up wise I’m not going to be in that position for around 2 months, I’m planning on ordering his big enclosure this week but then I need to order everything else and spend some time making it perfect in terms of planting the plants and getting the backgrounds stuck on over the little bits of glass window there is on the one I’m ordering (the back is glass window and a very small piece of sides is glass, the majority of the sides are mesh and so is the roof).

Also whilst you’re here sonny, I showed miss skittles his arm as he’s missing scales on it and the centre said it’s nothing to worry about but always keep an eye on it just incase, he also has the same sort of issue on one of his eyes, he’s has these little snags for a long time I believe (before I had him)

View attachment 337584
Do you think this will heal itself over time or will it stay like this? Currently it causes no issues, i see him blink where it stays shut for a few more seconds and looks like he’s blinking again a few times with his eye shut before he opens it again. Any advice?

There’s so many different ways to reduce his diet, so I’ll say to do it in a way that makes sense and works for you. I like to do it slowly - give one less feeder every several days until at the amount I desire. Then start skipping feedings until you’ve reached your goal. There’s no hard and fast rule - if your guy is still looking hungry then give another feeder.
The eye looks like scar tissue, which means it isn’t going to change. Are you positive he was captive bred? Usually wild caught have ’battle scars’. If he was captive bred, he must have gotten into something nasty. Poor guy. He’s very handsome btw.

 

[Flick boy]

how do you weigh your chameleons? I’ve been toying with the idea of weighing mine but worry about stressing out my panther.

 

[MissSkittles]

how do you weigh your chameleons? I’ve been toying with the idea of weighing mine but worry about stressing out my panther.

There’s no way to not stress them out to weigh them. I use a kitchen gram scale. I made this ridiculous little stand from a branch and plaster of Paris. I keep meaning to buy one of the stands from Dale Tamura designs, but - priorities.

 

[Sonny13]

Awesome, glad I have a good variety thank you

Okay I’ll start to cut back on it, how would you advise doing this? Keeping the days but reducing the amount? Or reducing the days but keeping the same amount? Don’t want to starve him while I’m not at home to make sure he isn’t nibbling on the leaves I want to make the change to real plants but financially and set up wise I’m not going to be in that position for around 2 months, I’m planning on ordering his big enclosure this week but then I need to order everything else and spend some time making it perfect in terms of planting the plants and getting the backgrounds stuck on over the little bits of glass window there is on the one I’m ordering (the back is glass window and a very small piece of sides is glass, the majority of the sides are mesh and so is the roof).

Also whilst you’re here sonny, I showed miss skittles his arm as he’s missing scales on it and the centre said it’s nothing to worry about but always keep an eye on it just incase, he also has the same sort of issue on one of his eyes, he’s has these little snags for a long time I believe (before I had him)

View attachment 337584
Do you think this will heal itself over time or will it stay like this? Currently it causes no issues, i see him blink where it stays shut for a few more seconds and looks like he’s blinking again a few times with his eye shut before he opens it again. Any advice?

There is no written way of doing it correctly, but an option is the way @MissSkittles described. You won't be starving him, don't worry about that because he gets more then needed.
My Jackson has the same and missed scales around his eye turret (due rubbing his eyes) when I bought him. In general they're scares and stay scaleless, but one eye recovered completely and the other for 70%.

Have you checked their products? https://chameleonworldmuji.co.uk/shop/ They deliver perfect enclosures ready build a bioactive enclosure.
https://chameleonworldmuji.co.uk/product/bio-flo-24-x-24-61-x-61-cm/

 

[jack_wardayyyy]

Hi as mentioned black soldier fly larve are good , and good when some turn into flies for hunting, also red runner roaches. Pachnoda are for treat only . There is also buzzard reptiles ,and dubia Paul, both live food .

Thank you!

There’s so many different ways to reduce his diet, so I’ll say to do it in a way that makes sense and works for you. I like to do it slowly - give one less feeder every several days until at the amount I desire. Then start skipping feedings until you’ve reached your goal. There’s no hard and fast rule - if your guy is still looking hungry then give another feeder.
The eye looks like scar tissue, which means it isn’t going to change. Are you positive he was captive bred? Usually wild caught have ’battle scars’. If he was captive bred, he must have gotten into something nasty. Poor guy. He’s very handsome btw.

Thank you for sharing how you do it I started implementing this this morning, he now has 7 feeders, 3 roaches 4 locust

I am pretty sure he was captive bred bless him I know they tried to have him breed with a female, maybe they had a fight? Thank you though he is beautiful!

There is no written way of doing it correctly, but an option is the way @MissSkittles described. You won't be starving him, don't worry about that because he gets more then needed.
My Jackson has the same and missed scales around his eye turret (due rubbing his eyes) when I bought him. In general they're scares and stay scaleless, but one eye recovered completely and the other for 70%.

Have you checked their products? https://chameleonworldmuji.co.uk/shop/ They deliver perfect enclosures ready build a bioactive enclosure.
https://chameleonworldmuji.co.uk/product/bio-flo-24-x-24-61-x-61-cm/

Awesome! awhhh sad to hear your cham has the same issue but I am glad those eyes recovered well!

I have just looked but they do not have a 90cm tall and wide enclosure which is what i am after But I appreciate the link as it is good to have another place to look and I may end up working something different and getting one.

Currently he is in a 90 x 60 x 45