Safe for feeding?

[voxxom]

i know this would rather belong in the food's discussion forums, but i feel i would get a faster response here. so anyway:

I got some mealworms about 7-8 weeks ago, fed a little more than half of them, and then somehow misplaced the container.

just earlier today i came across it again, opened it expecting to find disgusting things (then why did i open it? i do not know) but instead, i found about 1 1/2 dozen beetles running around in there.

are they still safe to feed to my chams?

i know they originated from the mealworms, but still, i dont want to find out after i feed them, that they develop some sort of toxicity that could be harmful to my chameleons.

and they seem like they have rather hard shells.. would it be ok for a 3 1/2 month veiled to eat something that hard?

thanks in advance

 

[Jordan]

I had a superworm get loose in my cage without me knowing about it. She and I must have noticed the beetle about the same time because he was gone before I could even get up. She had no ill effects from eating the one. There are some beetles that are toxic those should not be. All beetles do bite and bite hard. If they look small enough maybe one or two could be feed. I would be slightly concerned because beetles have some extremely hard exoskeletons and may be pretty hard to digest for such a small chameleon. It is their hard exoskeletons that give them several world records in the animal kingdom; the most G-forces an animal can produce goes to the click beetle at 200 G's (the chameleon is third with 55 G's) and the strongest animal goes to the rhino beetle who is capable of lifting 800,000 times its own body weight. People throughout Asia actually bet on the rhino beetles at an event where the see who's beetle will throw the other ones off. Sorry for the beetle trivia my head is filled with otherwise useless information.

 

[Zerah Morris]

Here is an article on raising mealworms and mealworm beetles. They are great feeders. High in chiton so do not overfeed them. If your veiled can chew them they are safe.

Mealworms

 

[voxxom]

Ah well thanks a bunch

interesting info :0

and nice beetle trivia. i enjoy reading useless info like that actually.

so just because of the exoskeleton, ive decided not to feed the beetles to my chams

 

[Jordan]

It is not completely useless if you are ever in Thailand you know one obscure sport you can bet on. I read that stuff Zerah posted a link for I think I may try that with my adult just because they are so cheap and it does not seem to hard.