Should we be cooking our carrots and some other veggies?

[jamest0o0]

I can barely choke down liver with cartelized onions so the rest of the offal is out for me. There isn't enough Tapatio in the whole world.
Raw diets make a little bit of sense for cats who are obligate carnivores like most chameleons. There are two factors, one is taurine, an amino acid that can be lost during cooking. Cats can't make taurine like you and I can't make vitamin C. Without it they develop heart problems. However most commercial diets have it added back in. Canned food usually has more than dry. The other factor is that they need to eat the whole animal for complete nutrition and the modern chicken is a lot bigger than what they would tackle in the wild and so are its bones.
The biggest down side to raw diets is the possibility of diseases and parasites. Disease wise you know about toxoplasmosis and salmonella for the cats. Sure cats and dogs are easy to deworm compared to chameleons but some of the worms they could get from raw food are horrifying. I assisted in surgery where we had to remove a hydatid cyst (don't look it up I'm warning you-seriously) from a dog. It was supposed to be a tapeworm in a sheep or something and ended up in the dog from raw meat it ate. Liver flukes are the other awful raw food parasite that dogs can get. That's from raw fish, salmon or trout I think. It can be lethal if not treated in time.
So cat's I might feed raw but dogs I would never. I'm sure some people do it and it's worked out fine so far but me, for my dogs, no, never.
PS. Dogs are not obligated carnivores as they can make some use of plants on their own. They aren't omnivores by any means but are closer than cats.

Happy to see your response. I read into raw for a while with cats/dogs... after some time on facebook my !BS! Detector started going crazy on those cult-like groups. People claiming their cat poop no longer had a smell and that they never pooped because it was all going to energy. While there was small partial truths to this, these people were lunatics that had no understanding of how digestion works. To them, raw feeding cures literally any problem. I have no problem with it, but I have a problem with misinformation.

 

[JacksJill]

There are no miracle diets. Commonsense and variety are your best bets.

 

[nightanole]

There are no miracle diets. Commonsense and variety are your best bets.

There are at least 2 humans on earth that have lived for decades on a diet of 90-95% mac-n-cheese, and look pretty healthy.

 

[jamest0o0]

There are at least 2 humans on earth that have lived for decades on a diet of 90-95% mac-n-cheese, and look pretty healthy.

There's many. I heard recently that living exceptionally long is simply linked to genetics. There isn't really anything special 90+ year olds do, they are just lucky in most cases.

 

[Hashtag ChamLife]

Probably makes it hard in florida with how much the insects are regulated? Still, I was always jealous of the wildlife you Floridians have. PA is a plant/bug/amph/reptile's paradise in the summer and a cold mushy post apocalyptic nightmare in the winter lmao. It amazes me how temperate creatures survive.

The ornatus are a nice dry species and make good feeders too since they breed pretty fast.

I wasn't that interested in bugs, didn't mind, but didn't understand the fascination in inverts some had..... then I kept them for feeding, now I have like 50 colonies of roaches, isopods, katydids, snails, etc. Luckily I have a shed lol. It's become a hobby/small business of its own.

Yes... it's a blessing and a curse. I can cultivate most plants and animals, don't need an incubator for much, can *sometimes* skip a diapause. However it means Jack squat if I can't get a breeding pair of bugs to at least start with. Most things I have to catch.... then pray that I can find a mate for it before it dies. I've been running into a lot of issues where people won't even ship any bugs to Fl - I've actually had a few Ebay vendors cancel a sale because of this.[regardless of the ACTUAL legality].

I need to make a friend in southern Georgia...

Do you feed off your hoffs to anything? Or you just grow for show? I Know they get pretty massive, do they have crowding issues much?

 

[jamest0o0]

Yes... it's a blessing and a curse. I can cultivate most plants and animals, don't need an incubator for much, can *sometimes* skip a diapause. However it means Jack squat if I can't get a breeding pair of bugs to at least start with. Most things I have to catch.... then pray that I can find a mate for it before it dies. I've been running into a lot of issues where people won't even ship any bugs to Fl - I've actually had a few Ebay vendors cancel a sale because of this.[regardless of the ACTUAL legality].

I need to make a friend in southern Georgia...

Do you feed off your hoffs to anything? Or you just grow for show? I Know they get pretty massive, do they have crowding issues much?

I could see that being frustrating. Why wouldn't people ship if it's legal(craniifer, discoid, etc?)

I plan to eventually feed them off once I have a lot. I have babies now, but they're small, then just a few adults. The ornatus make a nice replacement for now. My cham(Parsons) is getting too big to accept even the giant canyons now.

 

[Hashtag ChamLife]

I could see that being frustrating. Why wouldn't people ship if it's legal(craniifer, discoid, etc?)

I plan to eventually feed them off once I have a lot. I have babies now, but they're small, then just a few adults. The ornatus make a nice replacement for now. My cham(Parsons) is getting too big to accept even the giant canyons now.

People just get sketchy when it comes to shipping anything to Fl... why, I'm not exactly sure. I drive about 3hrs or so to buy my roaches, but that's partially because it's such a deal. None of the local shops have a colony worthwhile - their "mediums" are literally babies. There are only a handful of discoid vendors and the shipping rates and $1/roach price tag are just nuts. [I end up paying like $.20/ea for any size without wings]. There is a HUGE business opportunity in my market... just wish I knew the right people. [And investment capital]

So I'm not only jealous of ornatus... but your Parsons. [I cast my vote for a parsons for the calendar... wonder who's it was!!]

I may look into the giant canyons... I've only avoided them because they're "blah", but I need something I can use as a feeder around that size - My silkworm eggs are giving me a hell of a time right now.

Thanks for the input ; )