Too many worms?

[Meatball]

Lately I've been feeding my chameleons superworms since I'm out of crickets. I hand feed them one at a time until they wont take it anymore. They usually eat about 10-12 each. I've heard that worms have a lot more macronutrients in them and are very high in fat, so I'm wondering if it's unhealthy to let them fill up on them every day, or every other day. They eat a mixed diet of super worms, crickets, and wax worms.

 

[maddashash]

Filling your chams up on supers is not the best. While they do make good feeders they are alittle high in fat, and have more chitin than alot of your other feeders , but they are good in a varied diet. No one feeder should take up more than 20 % of the diet. Some good feeders that alot of us on here use (including me) are crickets, Dubai roaches, silk worms, horned worms, super worms, and pheonix worms. Some feeders that others like that i haven't got my hands on are walking sticks, preying mantis, terrestrial isopods, and moths, im sure there is more and others will chime in. I would get something to feed along side the supers soon or it is possible that your cham could get blocked. Make sure that you gutload your feeders as well. Sandrachamelion has some excellent recipes and explanations if you need them on her blog. Wax worms are generally not a favorite on the forums, i dont feed them to my cham, they are high in fat. I hope this helps

 

[Meatball]

Thanks maddashash that was helpful. I don't usually feed them so many supers it's just I happen to have a lot of superworms left. Thanks for the help!

 

[laurie]

What kind and size of chams are you feeding? i would think 12 superworms would be a lot for most chams, but it depends on how ofter you feed, what the cham is and how big it is and last the size of the superworms.

 

[pssh]

12 large supers sounds like a ton of food for a panther or veiled. If they are smaller, its probably okay. A large super can be 2x as large as a brown cricket.

Its best not to use them so much. Chameleons can become 'addicted' to them. They may refuse other feeders unless you starve them for a little while. You should ideally be using 5 different feeders for variety. Good regular feeders are crickets, supers, hoppers, silkworms, hornworms, dubia/discoids/other roaches, butterworms, mantids, stick bugs, etc. Other feeders to be used less frequently might include mealworms, isopods, termites, snails, non-toxic moths/butterflies, and waxworms infrequently. I'm sure there are others that I forgot.

 

[Meatball]

Thanks for the info. Honestly It was only a period of a week and a half or so that I was only feeding them superworms. I was just curious whether that was too many but I definitely give my chameleons a variety of different feeders.

As far as 12 being too much, I let them eat until they don't want to anymore, at least when I hand feed them. I'm sure the chameleon itself knows better than I when it's had enough.

 

[pssh]

Thanks for the info. Honestly It was only a period of a week and a half or so that I was only feeding them superworms. I was just curious whether that was too many but I definitely give my chameleons a variety of different feeders.

As far as 12 being too much, I let them eat until they don't want to anymore, at least when I hand feed them. I'm sure the chameleon itself knows better than I when it's had enough.

When babies its fine to feed a lot, but as adults, its best to limit their food intake. They are programed to each as much as they can because they dont know when their next meal will be. I know if I let my adults eat that much, i would end up with obese males and females with extremely large clutches.