super worms....

vgaines

Member
OK so the 100 small super worms I ordered are growing faster than I anticipated. I'm afraid that they will grow to big to feed them all off. Is there a way to stunt/slow down their growth. Can I put them in the ice box? I am very leery of feeding big ones because I heard that they can bite the inside of the chameleons stomach if not chewed well. I know its probably not true but I am a paranoid chameleon mom. :D I heard that you can smash their heads but after the incident with cutting the mouth off of the horn worm I know that I can't bring myself to do that.:eek:

Any ideas would be appreciated.
 
Well just keep them until your chameleon grows big enough to eat them. They will only get so big and they will not pupate if you keep them altogether. They basically are impossible to kill. I would just keep them in whatever you have them in as far as substrate and don't feed them any additional food items until you are ready to feed them to your chameleon.
 
The superworm myth is not true. I don't know a way to stunt their growth, but I do know how to breed them! Here is the basic breeding of superworms.

1. Get the supers to a large size.
2. Separate the supers in there own space and without food to force them to pupate. (Picture 1) I use a bait container for fishing.
3. (Optional step) Place the pupa in the pupa container (Picture 2)
4. Once the pupa turns into a darkling beetle place it to the beetle container. The beetle container should have oatmeal or wheat bran for substrate. This is where the beetles lay the eggs. (Picture 3)
5. Rotate the substrate once to every two months. You should see the substrate move after the rotation, but the supers are "super" small.
6. Repeat starting from step 1 to get more beetles.

Good luck if you decide to breed them it is "super" easy.
I also feed the darkling beetles to my adult panthers as a treat they love them!
 

Attachments

  • 20130705_172033.jpg
    20130705_172033.jpg
    240 KB · Views: 98
  • 20130705_172100.jpg
    20130705_172100.jpg
    247.4 KB · Views: 86
  • 20130705_172110.jpg
    20130705_172110.jpg
    252.9 KB · Views: 99
keep the supers cool but NOT cold - do not put in fridge.

If they are less wide than the space between your chams eyes AND less than twice its head length, you can feed them to your cham

Don't offer too many of them, they are not particularly healthy choices.

they do not pose a risk to the insides of chameleons.
just drop a superworm in a few drops of water and you'll see they drown easily - imagine how fast they die in stomach acid after being chewed :)

as suggested, just hang onto the extras that are too big - your cham will grow big enough for full sized supers soon enough.
 
Thanks for all of the responses. sandrachameleon, how many and how often should I feed them? When I did my worm order everyone was out of silk worms and butter worms and I thought that supers were better than meal worms. I am trying to feed different things so I ordered the supers with the phoenix worms.

thanks again for y'all's help.:D
 
Back
Top Bottom