What is a good diet for a veiled chameleon?
- Thread starter Chameleonlove5
- Start date
It is best to give them a variety of foods, but crickets and/or dubia roaches are best as a primary food and worms (silkworms, hornworms, mealworms, superworms) as a secondary in smaller numbers.
How much they eat each day varies depending on the chameleon, but females should generally eat less to reduce the number of eggs produced.
Healthy vegetables and fruits (such as kale, collard greens, mustard greens, etc) can be good if your chameleon will eat them, but they are not a primary food source and not all veileds will like them. They don't require them and they won't survive on them alone. You should feed healthy fruits and vegetables to your feeder insects as an additional source of nutrition (gut-loading).
You should dust your feeder insects with plain calcium (NO D3) every feeding, calcium with D3 twice a month, and multivitamin twice a month.
In your picture it looks like you have a water dish. Most chameleons will not drink out of a dish, but if yours does and you want to use it, you will need to clean it daily to prevent bacteria buildup. Misting is the most common way to provide water.
It also looks like she may have eggs based on your picture. At 8 months she could lay eggs at any time and if she has no place to lay she could become egg-bound and die. For this reason you should have a bin in the cage at all times and if she won't lay in that you may have to fill a garbage can with play sand as an alternative. She will not be likely to want to lay in the bark you have in your enclosure.
How much they eat each day varies depending on the chameleon, but females should generally eat less to reduce the number of eggs produced.
Healthy vegetables and fruits (such as kale, collard greens, mustard greens, etc) can be good if your chameleon will eat them, but they are not a primary food source and not all veileds will like them. They don't require them and they won't survive on them alone. You should feed healthy fruits and vegetables to your feeder insects as an additional source of nutrition (gut-loading).
You should dust your feeder insects with plain calcium (NO D3) every feeding, calcium with D3 twice a month, and multivitamin twice a month.
In your picture it looks like you have a water dish. Most chameleons will not drink out of a dish, but if yours does and you want to use it, you will need to clean it daily to prevent bacteria buildup. Misting is the most common way to provide water.
It also looks like she may have eggs based on your picture. At 8 months she could lay eggs at any time and if she has no place to lay she could become egg-bound and die. For this reason you should have a bin in the cage at all times and if she won't lay in that you may have to fill a garbage can with play sand as an alternative. She will not be likely to want to lay in the bark you have in your enclosure.
Chameleonlove5
New Member
Thank you so much sharp working on lay bin tomorrow... What soils or sand should I use??
MardiMay07
New Member
That was really helpful information, thank you!
So it's okay to feed them mainly crickets or roaches and supplement other worms but what kind of schedule should they be on food-wise so they don't 'deteriorate?'
MichelleNFrankie
New Member
I made a water drip out of a plastic cup that drips onto plants then into another cup, it took him a couple days to figure it out but once he did he started drinking from little drips from the cup and sometimes he sticks his head down in the bottom cup and drinks from it but as the other person said definitely clean the cups or water dish daily. Also I'm not sure if I'm looking at the picture wrong but is that a glass cage? If so u need a screened cage, for air circulation, also I started out with a glass one because I was told wrong and my veiled would see crickets from reflection and would hit his tongue on the glass and it would stick for a second
which can mess there tongues up so I switched to screen quickly.
sandrachameleon
Chameleon Enthusiast
you might find these example and info useful:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs...on/food-diary/
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs...4-feeders.html
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs...pplements.html
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/index2.html
A sample rotation (with green leafy veg and small bits of veg/fruit offered additionally) might be:
day 1 - crickets (gutloaded and calcium dusted)
day 2 - larva day - a hornworm or a silkworm or two, plus a superworm or mealworm (gutoad all, dust the superworm with calcium and vitamins)
day 3 - roaches (gutloaded and calcium dusted)
day 4 - other larva day - butterworms or soldier fly maggots or whatever you didn't use on day 2 (gutloaded - dusted only if necessary)
day 5 - crickets (gutloaded and calcium dusted)
day 6 - roaches (gutloaded and calcium dusted)
day 7 - variety day - try to offer something not given previously in the week - termites, terrestrial isopods, snail, indian walking stick, blue bottle fly, moth, grasshopper, or whatever. (gutloaded - dusted only if necessary)
