A cricket only diet is acceptable

[jpowell86]

During the winter I actually start giving my chams shrimp, fish and chicken to help supplement their diet. People think I'm crazy for doing this but it keeps my chams super healthy

Really!! That is incredibly interesting. How do you offer it to the chameleons??

I actually disagree with the ideology that gutloads can't come close to encompassing the nutrition available to wild insects and therefore the chameleons that eat them.

I can agree with this to a point. The issue for me is that this could only be accomplished if you raised the insect their entire life feeding them nothing but the best gutloads, then feeding them off. That is not a statement that describes 99% of keepers. Most buy the insects, gutload a couple of feedings and then feed to their animals. To me that does nothing but push out the crap that the insects were eating prior to the purchase. That doesn't make a drastic change in the nutritional value of that feeder. That is why wild insects are much different. Their entire lives are spent eating nutritional food that benefits the chameleons that eat them.

I will say this...Andrew - @Extensionofgreen, is the king of gutload. If anyone else presented this argument, I would probably laugh. I have personally seen his itemized list for his homemade gutload. It is ridiculous and awesome. His feeders eat better than I do. So, I have no doubt that his insects provide a wonderful balance of nutrition for his chameleons because he raises his own feeders.

 

[Virgil1972]

The information is hard to find but it is available online.
Nutrition value if Black Soldier Fly Larvae http://www.co-prot.com/nutritional-value.html
Crickets and other insects https://edibug.wordpress.com/nutritional-info/
http://bigcricketfarms.com/images/Big_Cricket_Farms_Frozen_Crickets_Bulk.pdf

That really doesn't say much of anything about the vitamin content of feeders, except black soldier fly larvae. In the last one it doesn't say what kind of crickets they are and do you think that live crickets have different values then frozen ones?

 

[JaxyGirl]

Really!! That is incredibly interesting. How do you offer it to the chameleons??



I can agree with this to a point. The issue for me is that this could only be accomplished if you raised the insect their entire life feeding them nothing but the best gutloads, then feeding them off. That is not a statement that describes 99% of keepers. Most buy the insects, gutload a couple of feedings and then feed to their animals. To me that does nothing but push out the crap that the insects were eating prior to the purchase. That doesn't make a drastic change in the nutritional value of that feeder. That is why wild insects are much different. Their entire lives are spent eating nutritional food that benefits the chameleons that eat them.

I will say this...Andrew - @Extensionofgreen, is the king of gutload. If anyone else presented this argument, I would probably laugh. I have personally seen his itemized list for his homemade gutload. It is ridiculous and awesome. His feeders eat better than I do. So, I have no doubt that his insects provide a wonderful balance of nutrition for his chameleons because he raises his own feeders.

I have various ways of getting a little meat into them. This isn't something I do every day but I do add small pieces of raw fish chicken and shrimp to their diet at least once a week and rarely a piece of lean steak.
My chams hand feed so I think it makes it easy to add it to their diet. I use defrosted frozen shrimp. My male panther loves shrimp and will just eat pieces of it by hand and he's actually at the point where I can put a piece of shrimp on a branch and he will just walk up and eat it. With my female I have to be sneaky so I will offer a dusted cricket with a little piece of shrimp hidden with it via tweezers so that she takes them both at the same time. Today my chams had a tiny bit of lean raw steak. My male will eat it by hand no problem. For my female I offered her a super worm and when she grabbed it I also stuffed a little piece of meat in her mouth and she was non the wiser. You can hide bits of fish inside a hornworm or combine it with a roach. Any favorite feeder works great as a disguise with a little imagination

 

[JaxyGirl]

That really doesn't say much of anything about the vitamin content of feeders, except black soldier fly larvae. In the last one it doesn't say what kind of crickets they are and do you think that live crickets have different values then frozen ones?

You just have to get on the internet and do your reasearch. It's available. That's only what I found in 5 mins.
Regarding live crickets and frozen crickets it still depends on what they are gutloaded with before they are frozen. I feed my chams both live and frozen crickets. I order crickets 1,000 at a time. I gut load them really well and freeze half lof them. Then I defrost them and feed them to my chams as needed. My chams hand feed so when I wiggle the defrosted cricket in front of them they don't seem to notice if its alive or not. As far as I'm concerned the nutritional of a gutloaded frozen cricket stays pretty much the same as a live gutloaded cricket. think of frozen peas

 

[Extensionofgreen]

I would like to know about other vitamins like A, B, and C though Z. Also what kind of other minerals do they contain? I think that stuff is important to know. It would make it a lot easier to give the chams a healthy diet.

These levels will be influenced by what the insect/feeder is eating, where what the feeder was eating was growing ( different soils have different mineral compositions and plants take in different amounts of minerals based on availability and needs ), and other factors. It isn't just what the feeder is made up of, it matters a great deal what the feeder is carrying in its gut, as far as what nutrients are being delivered to the chameleon. You can take a not so perfect feeder ( crickets ) and feed a nutrient dense diet, dust it with calcium, and make a pretty acceptable food item out of it.
I think a lot is said about this feeder being too fatty and this feeder being too high in chitin, and so forth, but as in humans, all things in moderation is a better approach then swearing off feeders for these reasons. Do we know that chameleons don't utilize fat as an energy source? Lots of predators rely on high fat prey for their metabolism, so anthropomorphizing their dietary needs will get you into trouble, as will drawing finite conclusions based on given information, when that information is based on what keepers know at the time and don't account for what we still need to learn.
I think feeding a single feeder insect would be better approached with roaches. If you utilize a number of different roach species, you are diversifying the chameleons' access to differing amounts of fat, calcium, vitamins, and other minerals. Crickets will always offer the same parameters, save for variations in the various life stages, and that may be adequate, but isn't ideal.
Feeding only crickets also misses the boat in regards to the psychological benefits of a diverse diet. So much of keeping chameleons has to do with their psychology and how they interpret their environment and perceive stress. Feeding a single feeder diet, even if nutritionally adequate is denying the chameleon the psychological stimulation of hunting other types of prey. Those of us that offer flying insects can attest to the obvious enjoyment a chameleon gets from eating a favored feeder, that is not a staple.

 

[Virgil1972]

These levels will be influenced by what the insect/feeder is eating, where what the feeder was eating was growing ( different soils have different mineral compositions and plants take in different amounts of minerals based on availability and needs ), and other factors. It isn't just what the feeder is made up of, it matters a great deal what the feeder is carrying in its gut, as far as what nutrients are being delivered to the chameleon. You can take a not so perfect feeder ( crickets ) and feed a nutrient dense diet, dust it with calcium, and make a pretty acceptable food item out of it.
I think a lot is said about this feeder being too fatty and this feeder being too high in chitin, and so forth, but as in humans, all things in moderation is a better approach then swearing off feeders for these reasons. Do we know that chameleons don't utilize fat as an energy source? Lots of predators rely on high fat prey for their metabolism, so anthropomorphizing their dietary needs will get you into trouble, as will drawing finite conclusions based on given information, when that information is based on what keepers know at the time and don't account for what we still need to learn.
I think feeding a single feeder insect would be better approached with roaches. If you utilize a number of different roach species, you are diversifying the chameleons' access to differing amounts of fat, calcium, vitamins, and other minerals. Crickets will always offer the same parameters, save for variations in the various life stages, and that may be adequate, but isn't ideal.
Feeding only crickets also misses the boat in regards to the psychological benefits of a diverse diet. So much of keeping chameleons has to do with their psychology and how they interpret their environment and perceive stress. Feeding a single feeder diet, even if nutritionally adequate is denying the chameleon the psychological stimulation of hunting other types of prey. Those of us that offer flying insects can attest to the obvious enjoyment a chameleon gets from eating a favored feeder, that is not a staple.

That is very true that nutritional values will vary according to what they eat. I think more research should be done on what the nutritional content of feeders are. I don't expect exact amounts because they will vary from bug to bug but a good average would be nice.

 

[DanSB]

You guys are giving me a headache. A detailed nutritional breakdown by feeder (the kind that would actually be useful) is essentially impossible. The results would be very different depending on how the insect was raised, food sources etc...

The listings that currently exist make for useful guideline to ensure a feeder is in the ballpark but are far from a detailed analysis.

Success comes from attention to detail and not JUST feeder variety. Sure wild prey can be great. For an inexperienced keeper it could also be deadly if you get bad insects and don't keep up on fecals. Same is true with a cricket only diet or mixed diet.

I suspect that if one gives the attention to detail, misting, gutload, supplements, etc appropriate to the species they are keeping they will be equally successful to someone who adds a few other commercially available feeders.

I get it, people want to feel like they are the best keepers and really want to believe all the variety is paying off in terms of chameleon health and happiness. Heck I would go so far as to say it very well might. But my only real point is you can't say a cricket only diet is bad.

I think extentionofgreen makes the absolute best points above. The psychological benefits may very well outweigh physical. This understanding alone could significantly improve not only advise given but our own keeping. While I don't know if it is true it definitely merits further thought.

 

[bobcochran]

Jim at the Chameleon Company, one of the largest producers of panther chameleons in the U.S. fed only crickets to all his chams when I talked with him a couple of years ago, and had been doing it for many years. The only reason I'm using the past tense is because I haven't discussed his feeding lately. He does, however, produce all his own crickets, which I believe is critical to his success. Let's face it: commercial crickets are raised primarily for fish bait. Their nutritional content concerns the cricket rancher only as far as what makes them grow the fastest and limits die off before they sell them. Yes, gut loading is extremely important when feeding commercially raised crickets- it's the only way to get the additional necessary supplements into your lizard. But, you'll have a hard time convincing me that aside from what's in the cricket's gut, the rest of the body doesn't contain s a lot of whatever the cricket producer fed the crickets to raise them. That would be: the cheapest most easily obtainable foods he can find at any given time of the year, which would change seasonally. His feed does have to be nutritious enough to keep the CRICKETS healthy enough to grow fast and reproduce, but he has no concern for your chameleons dietary needs!

 

[JaxyGirl]

You guys are giving me a headache.

Hey, you asked and we just gave you our opinions on the subject!

 

[DanSB]

I was joking sometimes I forget my sense of humor isn't translating well. To be clear I really appreciate the discussion, it is thought provoking.

 

[DanSB]

Jim at the Chameleon Company, one of the largest producers of panther chameleons in the U.S. fed only crickets to all his chams when I talked with him a couple of years ago, and had been doing it for many years. The only reason I'm using the past tense is because I haven't discussed his feeding lately. He does, however, produce all his own crickets, which I believe is critical to his success. Let's face it: commercial crickets are raised primarily for fish bait. Their nutritional content concerns the cricket rancher only as far as what makes them grow the fastest and limits die off before they sell them. Yes, gut loading is extremely important when feeding commercially raised crickets- it's the only way to get the additional necessary supplements into your lizard. But, you'll have a hard time convincing me that aside from what's in the cricket's gut, the rest of the body doesn't contain s a lot of whatever the cricket producer fed the crickets to raise them. That would be: the cheapest most easily obtainable foods he can find at any given time of the year, which would change seasonally. His feed does have to be nutritious enough to keep the CRICKETS healthy enough to grow fast and reproduce, but he has no concern for your chameleons dietary needs!

I fully agree about the quality of the crickets making a big difference.

I know I heard Jim mention somewhere about feeding only crickets but couldn't find it written down anywhere. If he isn't banned right now I bet he would have some great insight.

 

[Vwcorradoturbodad]

All mine are cricket fed only well except for the babies like once a month I'll break out some worms but that's it crickets are super loaded and dusted everytime they get 15-18 crickets every other day no issues yet with them or the babies

 

[chamsarecool]

Crickets are one of the best studied of the commonly available feeder insects and much have been proven about how to gutload them in literature not just some guy on the Internets opinion. I've been feeding crickets and mealworms to my herps since for a very long time. Part of the anti-cricket stuff really has to do with people wanting to sell roaches, I thin, and perhaps playing up the negative possibilities with crickets. Personally, I don't use crickets only unless that's all something will eat but I have found crickets are amongst the most widely accepted insects for most species of insect eating herps and the variety of sizes and rapid life cycle ensure they will continue to have their place for as long as herp keeping remains legal.