Why do we feed horn worms?

[jacksonchamnew]

Would a cham in the wild ever find a hornworm? I hear horror stories of them holding so tight, they rip out cham tongue. I thought about my cham shooting out his tongue and impaling on that horn. I tried them again but my veil does not want them. They are just big sacks of water and goo. LOL

 

[jacksonchamnew]

You get container of 3 small hornworms and in a few days, they are giant horn worms. Gah.

 

[Beman]

The horn on the hornworm is harmless. When they are hand fed and the proper size they can not cause harm to a chameleon. It is when people cup feed, tong feed, or free feed them that the risk of tongue injury is higher. Risk of a bite from a hornworm is higher when the horn is larger then should really be fed. This is up to the keeper to decide what size is right for their chameleon.

I feed no larger then 1.5 inch long horns to my adult Veiled. I do this to lower risk of a bite to the mouth and the mouth rot that could come from it. I also only ever hand feed these.

We feed them because it adds diversity and they are high in moisture while being low in fat content. none of the bugs we feed would a chameleon actually eat in the wild so providing diversity becomes important. All of the boys get 2 a week size appropriate for their age/size.

 

[Gingero]

Pro tip: Always offer the hornworm head first