Trying to get my male used to Dubias

[Trailgem]

My girl lives them, but my male does not touch them. I came home for lunch today to check if he ate any. Nothing... so I added the crickets back. How can I get him used to them? Just stop feeding crickets all together?

He’s only 3 month old, so I am worried about him not getting enough food.

 

[AnamCara]

3 months is young -- I would say let him eat whatever he will eat so he can grow healthy and sup with BSFL if they'll take it. When he is older you can go a few days with no feeder and see if he will acclimate to the roaches.

 

[Beman]

Yeah so I would wait until he is at least 7 months old before you try tough love approach with Dubia. It does work but at his age he needs to be eating every day. In the mean time just feed him both and he will start to get used to them or leave them. Then when he is older you only offer dubia for a week. He will cave in and start eating them Beman gave up by day 4 or 5 and has eaten them ever since as a main staple. I have not fed crickets since March. I do also feed silks, bsfl, bsf, and blue bottle flies. Along with 2 hornworms a week.

 

[Trailgem]

Ok... that’s what I do. Thank you.
I’m already working on my BSFL. I caught him eating one of those once.

 

[nightanole]

Mine wouldnt touch them till he was an adult. He went from a cricket vacuum to refusing crickets and only eating adult dubias, in about 1 month. I think he just liked the idea of a few big feeders vs all the work of catching and chewing a bunch of small feeders.

You could always just load up a feeder cup with a trail mix, and hope for some misses

 

[BCostello]

I have read other posts saying try placing Dubia on their backs resting on a plastic spoon. The Dubia usually move legs a lot in this position and will attract you chameleon. Hope it helps.

 

[JoshD49]

I have tried everything and my chams won't touch them. Also tried orange heads. I tried not feeding them anything else for a few days and nothing. My veiled took them as a juvenile but now nothing. Good luck.

 

[RyanBRZ]

Fighting the same battle.

When I first got mine (3 months old or so) he would eat 15-20 a day. I eventually introduced him to superworms and that was the end of dubia's. I offer them once a month or so but he will not acknowledge them. He ate crickets for a while but will not touch them anymore either. It seems like he doesn't like anything with legs, only worms -- supers, hornworms, silkworms, butterworms, BSFL's. I now use BSFL as a staple and give the others as a treat.

 

[Graves923]

Chameleons can be picky lol. I tried putting both dubias and crickets in the same feeding container. With the crickets constantly moving and annoying the roaches, the roaches would move around and my veiled would aim for them. If he doesn't see them move, he won't bother eating them.

 

[Thatwizard420]

Mine wouldnt touch them till he was an adult. He went from a cricket vacuum to refusing crickets and only eating adult dubias, in about 1 month. I think he just liked the idea of a few big feeders vs all the work of catching and chewing a bunch of small feeders.

You could always just load up a feeder cup with a trail mix, and hope for some misses

They don't miss tho

 

[Graves923]

They don't miss tho

But they do get the occasional 2 for 1 shot.

 

[Rst_Cham]

So my male panther wouldn’t take them as a baby either. I tried from 3-5 months old, he didn’t eat a single one. So then I stopped offering them for 3 months, and tried again at about 8 months old. I intended to do the Tough Love thing, where you only offer the roaches and nothing else until they start eating them regularly. So first day, I gave him some dubia and told him sternly “This is all you get! Eat them!” And much to my surprise he went right for them, ate them all, has been eating them no problem for past month, along with all his other feeders (I feed silks, crickets, bsfl and flies, blue bottle flies, supers, horns, and now dubia as well. Trying to breed snails, no luck yet.) I’m pretty happy he just took them and I didn’t have to do tough love since I’m a softy. So maybe stop offering them altogether until he’s 7-8 months old, maybe you’ll get lucky too!