What if.....

[Robyrango]

WHAT IF WE GO ALL NATURAL?
Do you think will be possible to avoid all the chemical calcium/vitamin stuff and supplement a good variety of feeders very well gut loaded instead ?
In the long term what will cause not to dust your feeders and after how long you'll see the "damages", if any is caused?
Thank u

 

[chameleonkev]

It's much healthier if you able to do a natural gutload constant that it would be to use supliments, if your thinking about it I would still use a plain calcium once or twice a week perhaps. I gut load feeders and use my supliments

 

[Kate]

WHAT IF WE GO ALL NATURAL?
Do you think will be possible to avoid all the chemical calcium/vitamin stuff and supplement a good variety of feeders very well gut loaded instead ?
In the long term what will cause not to dust your feeders and after how long you'll see the "damages", if any is caused?
Thank u

I think the use of natural sunlight plays a good part in this. Living where you and I do there just isn't enough of it.

 

[Psychobunny]

If you live in a place that has the same weather and humidity as Madagascar, then you will never need suppliments or UV lights.
In fact, as long as he or she can always find enough to eat, your cham would
never wander far from a favorite little tree or bush (except to find a mate)

That would be so cool, to have chams in your back yard

 

[Olimpia]

There are plenty of feeders and gut-loading options that are full of calcium and other vitamins, so if you were really diligent about providing a well-rounded diet then yet, you could never supplement a day in your life. But you'd have to know what is in which feeders and in what gut loading food, so you know why and how to mix certain combinations. You can't do it unprepared, as it were. If you had access to lots of sunshine that would be very good as well.

 

[dlegare]

It would depend on what type of feeders you are considering. I know crickets have a very hard time with high calcium diets. I'm not sure about roaches, and I know meal-worms and the like are notoriously hard to increase the calcium levels of without dusting them.

Also the signs of metabolic bone disease don't really show up well until its in a pretty advanced stage.

I really doubt if we would be able to get 100% away from additional supplementation without adversely affecting the health of the Cham.

Additionally there are problems with using too much vitamins/calcium/D3

 

[Solid Snake]

There are plenty of feeders and gut-loading options that are full of calcium and other vitamins, so if you were really diligent about providing a well-rounded diet then yet, you could never supplement a day in your life. But you'd have to know what is in which feeders and in what gut loading food, so you know why and how to mix certain combinations. You can't do it unprepared, as it were. If you had access to lots of sunshine that would be very good as well.

You would need to know the exact nutrition requirements for the animal as well.

Maybe not exact, but we tend to use a shotgun method, and for a reason yes?

 

[Robyrango]

Thank you guys, kind of confirmed my thoughts and it is interesting to know other people opinion about it.. I really hope I can take my chameleon out more often this year, and I'm trying my best to give him the most varied diet possible (locusts, crickets, mealworms, silkworms, phenix worms butterworms and beatles) even if that means buying feeders online from other countries!
I haven't been dusting locusts and crickets regularly as I'm always worried he will eat too much of that artificial vitamins/calcium stuff! I'm changing his UV bulb after 6 months as well just to make sure he gets enough "sun". He seems pretty healthy.. Thanks again

 

[Olimpia]

Well, remember that a supplement is supposed to be just that - a supplement. It gets used every day because people tend to use crickets as the staple diet, and they have notoriously horrible nutritional properties. But if you were really capable of doing variety (all the commonly available insects and WC grasshoppers, beetles, dragonflies, etc.) plus a gut load that is rich in superfoods I think there wouldn't be any health risks for the animal. Remember that no one dusts anyone's food in the wild, they owe their health to a varied, well-rounded diet.

Not saying that you should go into it blind, but with some reading about nutrition and chameleons I think it is absolutely possible. There are a lot of respected keepers that supplement a lot less than what they recommend for new keepers, just because they have the know-how to do it less often.

 

[Psychobunny]

Well, remember that a supplement is supposed to be just that - a supplement. It gets used every day because people tend to use crickets as the staple diet, and they have notoriously horrible nutritional properties. But if you were really capable of doing variety (all the commonly available insects and WC grasshoppers, beetles, dragonflies, etc.) plus a gut load that is rich in superfoods I think there wouldn't be any health risks for the animal. Remember that no one dusts anyone's food in the wild, they owe their health to a varied, well-rounded diet.

Not saying that you should go into it blind, but with some reading about nutrition and chameleons I think it is absolutely possible. There are a lot of respected keepers that supplement a lot less than what they recommend for new keepers, just because they have the know-how to do it less often.

Yeah, just think of all the different species of bug they encounter in the wild!!

Hmm, what kind of cricks would they find in Madagascar??!!