Went to sleep with 3 crickets

[jtesagain625]

I shut his lights and left 3 crickets in there with him. Woke up to Zero crickets. Did they escape, or do chams eat at night, with no light ?

 

[xcrystalx]

they maybe hidden, escaped or he may have eaten them.have you looked for them?
i have read of chams eating crickets at night that has crawled out of hiding but its not good for them.the crickets will not be fully digested.
in future tho its best to remove all uneaten food before lights out.also the crickets could nip him.

 

[jtesagain625]

I've looked. Had my wife look. LOL. don't see em.

 

[Kate]

Not a good idea to leave crickets in there at night. If they are adult they can do a lot of damage to your Cham.

 

[jtesagain625]

Not a good idea to leave crickets in there at night. If they are adult they can do a lot of damage to your Cham.

They're tiny. Also, might have to figure out a way to keep em contained. If there in there, i can't get em all out when they're running free.

What damage can they do ?

 

[MelissaB]

I have so many plants in my cage, that there would be no way I could grab every escapee cricket. It would stress my guys out in a major way. I don't use full grown crickets, because I can't stand the chirping. I usually just put a milk cap full of my gutload mix on the bottom of the cage in the corner. That way the crickets can come down and chew on that instead of my chameleon. So far, it's working, but I do understand that the crickets could decide to go after my chameleons. There aren't too many that get out of the cup, so I think the risk is low.

 

[IAmCarl]

I have gotten my Chams used to either feeding from a container or my hand. IMO the benefits are monitoring food intake and no loose crickets at lights out.

 

[yobro]

I use a 500 mealworm container to hold My crickets in or a solo cup with a loose zip tie and to my plant so it wont fall over and i feed in the am so he has all day to eat i also place mealworms in the cup too about 15 of them i allow just in case hes hungry you can cut off the back legs of the crickets so they dont jump out of the cup

 

[Kate]

Little ones will annoy rather than bite. Big ones will bite. With crickets it's a good idea to cup feed.

 

[Olimpia]

My chameleons are always up at dawn, before their lights come on. It's possible he ate them before you were awake but when he was.

I don't always bother removing any stragglers in my screen cages either, to be honest. I find the risk to be low, and (knock on wood) 5 years of cham keeping later I haven't had a single nibble.

Now with the Meller's since they all free-range I do have to either cup or hand feed for obvious reasons though.

 

[Carlton]

I leave a small plastic prescription bottle on its side with some fresh gutload in the cage just in case there are hungry loose feeders. I put it somewhere near the upper part of the cage as the crix tend to stay closer to the heat.