Superworm staple diet (worm only)

[ggg111]

I posted this in general but maybe it belongs here: hello!! Can I give a 4 month and older panther cham a diet without crickets or roaches, such as superworm staple with occasional horn worm or silkie? I have searched and there are posts that say exclusively using superworms is OK, but these post are from 5+ years ago and I didn’t know if ideas had changed. I dont want crickets or roaches. I can get superworMs easily and will be able to get silkies and hornworm and mealworms on occasion? Thank you

 

[jamest0o0]

Superworms are fatty and don't gutload well(people, just because they eat everything doesn't mean they store a lot in the gut, as compared to roaches/crickets). I use roaches as a staple. No crickets.

 

[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

Variety! I am reall big on variety! I do it for myself, why would I not do it for my chameleons!

Asking if you can feed your chameleons just superworms is like saying: "I love bacon, so, I am cutting out everything else! All I am going to eat from now on is bacon!"

I would not do it to myself! Besides, I am allergic to bacon! Haha!

 

[jamest0o0]

Hahaha @Matt Vanilla Gorilla sadly, there are probably many people that stick to just bacon.

But I totally agree. Each insect offers different micro/macro nutrients along with foods that it stores in the gut. Variety is the best thing you can do, with gutload and with feeders. Just like eating a steak offers different nutrients than eating a chicken breast.

 

[ggg111]

Ok thank you. So when I rotate do I need to do something/multiple things each day, or can I do 2 weeks of crickets, 2 weeks of hornworms, 2 weeks of dubia, 2 weeks of silkworms? Or even 1 month of each?

 

[Remkon]

Ok thank you. So when I rotate do I need to do something/multiple things each day, or can I do 2 weeks of crickets, 2 weeks of hornworms, 2 weeks of dubia, 2 weeks of silkworms? Or even 1 month of each?

I usually just feed em like 5-8 crickets (depending in size), then feed him a couple of waxmoths/superworms/etc. seperate by hand.
I keep a colony of dubia too but he doesn't really take those, but I offer em instead of the crickets every now and then.
I always look to find an extra feeder for variety but it can be hard to find much other than what's offered by default in petstores.

 

[jamest0o0]

Think of it as roaches/crickets make up ~80% of feedings, the other ~20% fill with whatever you can get. I try to offer something different feeding. I really like bottleflies as a feeder. I gutload them with manuka honey and bee pollen and the chameleons can't resist going for them.

 

[NickTide]

Silk worms could be your staple, but supers worms... not so much. Another good one is black soldier fly larvae. Pretty cheap, and really cheap in bulk and they are loaded with calcium. If you get a wine fridge (paid $60 for a good one on Amazon) you can keep them long term. So far they have lived 6 weeks in there at 56 degrees.

No matter what you go with, If you feed crickets or roaches now and again to add variety, it really helps. Back in the day we had crickets and super worms as choices. I added wild insects (careful about insecticides and herbicides) to the diet and did better than most people. I believe variety is key. If you fed say 75% soldier flies (and larvae), 10 % super worms then mixed up the other 15% with things like crickets, roaches, silk worms, horn worms, etc. you would have a pretty good diet. This would cut down on the amount of crickets and roaches you need. You could just buy a dozen crickets once a week, gutload overnight, then feed them all off that day and not house them. Buy silk or horn worms maybe once a month (extra small horn worms, they grow fast) and feed them off over a few days. Roaches are a little harder to find without shipping and buying a dozen at a time would kill you in shipping costs. Maybe find someone local (ask beardy dragon keepers) who raises them.

Like Jamestoo said, Blue bottle flies are great but I get a horrible hatch rate for some reason. Out of 250 spikes I get like 10 - 20 to hatch so I ma doing something wrong.

 

[jamest0o0]

@NickTide good post! My one hang up with bsfl is picking through the dirt enough to feed that many. My chams take mouthfuls of 5+ of them at a time when I put them in a cup.

For the BBF, where are you keeping the spikes and where did you order from? I had this happen one time, but it was because the shipping got way too cold and the spikes died.

 

[NickTide]

I actually use the adults more than the larvae. With the door wide open they still don't escape while I'm adding the flies. It would get tedious feeding the larvae all the time but if one doesn't want to deal with roaches...

I get my bbf from rainbow mealworms. I use their media in a deli cup with lid. Didn't know if they were too dry or what.

 

[jamest0o0]

I've heard that the flies don't carry the same nutritional value, but no idea by how much. Is their calc ratio still higher than phos? The larvae also can be gutloaded easily, though I don't imagine they store much of it at all.

 

[jamest0o0]

Oh and try Josh's frogs BBFS, what I do is dump them all into a deli container(about the size youd use for soup). I take a plastic fork, twig, whatever, sit it vertical, and rub manuka honey on and coat with bee pollen. Then I just let it sit at room temp usually like a few days to a week or so, and all the flies pupae around the same time. Then just stick the flies in the fridge when you aren't using them and they last awhile. I usually give them a day at room temp to gutload on the honey/pollen and then keep them in the fridge from there. Easy to take out, put in another container to dust, and throw them in. They usually thaw and are flying within minutes so I try to be quick.

 

[ggg111]

Thanks for all of the replies!