Superworm daily?

[d3s5]

I just put them in my open palm, I don't hold onto them at all. By the time they start to crawl away and off my hand - they're history.

 

[JonRich]

My Cham gets Supers a few times a week. Usually with 1-2 other feeders.

I would think B.Dubia would be an impaction risk also?. Thoes things are tanks!!

 

[byrnesr]

I find this discussion facinating...I feed my cham a variety of food throughout the day. Some days its a calciworm or two, 5 crickets and a small to medium dubia roach. Others it's waxworms, 3 roaches and a hornworm. At times he ignores the offering of a roach or other feeder but the next day or two days later he has a go at it. Some days he's only interested in crickets could be up to 8. That variety includes mealworms, some days he'd eat them non stop if I let him. But I offer 2 or 3 and that's it for a few days and then offer only 1 or 2 then, trying not to be heavy on the less staple items. Assuming too much of one thing would be bad for any animal. I may even leave a feeder off the list for a week then reintroduce.


I have wondered more about every other day feedings and every three day feedings. This seems counter inuitive to me. In nature they would eat daily and a variety of smaller/larger bugs we don't keep. Perhaps not amounting to the same volume but similar natural requirements. I free range my cham twice daily for 1 1/2 hours, during which he is very active. Are these feeding recommendations because most chams are kept in small cages without excercise? Or do chams become more sedentary with age? Or do they simply require less food because they are not growing as much?

 

[Marianna]

If he's a baby or juvenile i wouldn't feed him superworms daily cause they have lots of fat. I he's an adult maybe like 3 to 5 times a week.

 

[sandrachameleon]

As far as i know it´s the same with superworms, though only if fed like every day or so which shouldn´t be done anyway.
They have the same smooth and hard skin as mealworm which the chameleon´s gut simply can´t move as good as if it were a locust or cricket.

truthfully, supers dont pose the same issues because the meat to chinton ration is different from that with mealworms.
Remember, some chinton is actually desirable, much like fibre for us. Indeed, You'd actually have to feed ALOT of mealworms to cause an issue. Chameleons eat a lot of "crunchy" hard to digest food in the wild (beetles, for example).
Fear of impaction, while certainly possible, is a somewhat exaggerated concern on this forum.
Nevertheless, keep superworms to 20% of less of the intake, and mealworms to 10% and you wont have trouble with their fat or chinton content.

 

[morpheon]

Superworms have been a part of our chameleon diet for over 2 years now, and i have seen no problem whatsoever. At home, we feed 40% superworms, 40% crickets and 20% others (waxworms, silkworms, hornworms) to all our chameleons (2 pardalis + 1 verrucosus) and there is no problem.

I even know that a few breeders on this forum give almost only superworms to one or two very picky chameleons because they refuse to eat anything else. Of course, i don't recommend everyone to do that, but my point is if superworms were that bad, i don't believe these good breeders would keep on feeding only superworms to their chameleons!