Picky Eater

Karch51

New Member
My cham is almost a year old. About 2 months ago I started putting a variety in his diet. Before that he strictly ate crickets. I introduced super worms, mealworms, and silk worms. Now when I feed him crickets he doesn't eat them. Instead he goes near the bottom of his cage looking for worms. I leave the crickets in his cage for a couple of days and he doesn't touch them. The moment I put some kind of worm in his cage he attacks it like he hasn't eaten for days. Has anybody else encountered this problem? How do I make crickets tasty again?
 
He'll go back...

He was probably bored out of his mind with the same food for a whole year :eek: It would be like eating brussle sprouts every day and then someone offers you cakes, cookies and candy - would YOU want to eat those sprouts again? lol!!:D

OK, seriously...I would hold back all the crickets for a while and let him eat a variety of the others. You can gutload superworms, silkies are naturally high in calcium and you could add waxworms as an occasional treat (fatty so not too often). In about a month offer him some crickets again and he will likely be interested, but keep the variety going. It is better for him all the way arund. Have you considered adding roaches? yum! My goal is to get my gand off crix altogether and have roaches as ther staple food.

Here is an article with some insect nutrition A Bug's Nutrition
 
Not unusual...

My Chameleon does that all the time. I also have a panther that's just over a year old, and one day all he'll eat is crickets, the next day he won't even touch 'em. Chameleons sure are funny little creatures. I'm assuming it's just a phase, and now that you've introduced him to a new feeder insect, he'll probably be more interested in worms rather than crickets for a while. Chameleons tend to get bored of some feeder insects, and crickets are not crucial to his diet...actually, they're not even needed.

I'm guessing that within a few weeks he'll be eating crickets again.

Michele
 
My cham would eat crickets almost to the exclusion of all other insects when he was younger. I tried superworms, horn worms, silkworms, waxworms. He wouldn't touch the superworms, hornworms or waxworms, but he did eat the occasional superworm. He just ate a ton of crickets. Then, he got sick. After almost 2 months of refusing everything, (he was force fed) he got better and started eating on his own again. Now, he refuses everything except for superworms and the occasional roach. And, he will eat waxworm moths now and again, but not wax worms. I think they are just.. finicky.

Following that illness, Spencer is smaller than other panther chams his age, I think. At 11 months, he weighs 124 grams. Hopefully, he will pick up weight and growth here soon.

Heika
 
Thanks for your thoughts everyone. lele, I've been trying for about six months to start a Madagascar hissing roach colony, but they won't reproduce. I have about ten adults. How do you get roaches to get busy?;)
 
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