advice for feeder tongs

danTHAman152000

danTHAman152000

Member
I am going to try to get my chameleon to associate me with food by using Zoo Med feeder tongs.

Does anyone have and advice to get the job done? I guess I am curious if must let go of the bug in a timely manner so the cham can retract, or is it pretty much automatic? I'd hate for me to blink and have his tongue shoot out and have the bug "stuck" in the tongs and hurting his tongue.

Thanks for your help!
 
How big/old/aggressive is your cham? Aw, come on be a man and just use you fingers, it's easier :D
 
Haha, well the problem is he is afraid of my hands! I am hoping the extra 10" of tongs will let him feel comfortable enough to go after a bug. Then I will try and get him to come out more and more until he walks on my hands.

He is a 5 month old veiled he basically hates me. Even when he was 2 months old, he always puffed up and tried to bite me.

Ive been unsuccessful at having him eat any type of worm so I am also hoping I can entice him to eat a worm if it is wiggling around on the end of the tongs.

I guess I was right that the timing needs to be there in order to let the bug go.
 
I have two pair. One has white rubber over the tips and one just stainless steel. I prefer the ones without the rubber as I can't seem to feel the grip on my feeders as well. As far as how to feed, It's timing but I don't find it too difficult. When my Cham is getting ready to shoot his tongue I get ready and when he makes contact I let go. I've never held on to one too long but have prematurely dropped a few. I am also starting to use my fingers. I think using tongs helped him get used to me and my hand
 
Be really careful when feeding with tongs. I used to do this but had one of my females hurt her tongue on them. Fingers are much safer.
 
reptoman said:
Be really careful when feeding with tongs. I used to do this but had one of my females hurt her tongue on them. Fingers are much safer.
Click to expand...


I have had the same experience. One of my chameleons got over excited one day and hit the tongs with his tongue along with a worm pulling both into his mouth. Much safer to hand feed. This being said, I always had the best luck with stainless tongs (when i used tongs)and holding roaches/ worms down by the rump and holding as little of the feeder item as possible with the tongs. As soon as they would hit the head of the feeder item, I would release. Hope this makes sense. Good luck
 
Before I gave up on trying to make chameleon hand feed from me, for this one chameleon who was terrified of my hands, I used a cheap soft chopstick. I cut one end down the middle and used it to hold onto a cricket leg or the butt of a soft worm. The bug would slip out or detach from the leg and the chameleon was fine. The few occasions where the bug didn't slip out I moved the chopstick closer and let him bite it. It was soft so it didn't hurt his mouth when he bit it and he got used to my hand being close to the bug.

Now I don't bother to try hand feeding until the babies are big and confident, or the new adults are used to me. They usually start handfeeding without any prompting after they have been with me for a few months. A nice hornworm usually does the trick!
 
Thanks for the tips and cautionary warnings!

I guess I will have to scope it out when I actually get the tongs. I bought them off amazon for 7 bucks shipped.

My main goal is to be able to hold a worm and have it squirm to get his attention. He just ignores silkworms and superworms. And now he seems to be ignoring crickets and only going for blue bottle flies. Hopefully my 18 hisser roaches will hurry up and procreate!

Thanks again for your guys' help.
 
I do like the looks of those silicon tipped tongs. I might have jumped the gun when I purchased the ZooMed before posting a thread. I was surprised only two threads were started with "tongs" in the subject line.

ZooMed had a 5 star rating with 20 reviews so I thought it was a good buy. I'll just have to determine an effective way to use these or purchase an alternative pair in the future.
 
I refuse to use even the "safe" plastic feeding tongs. They can still hurt
their tongue.
I hold cricks by they back legs, between thumb and forefinger.
Just make sure you have a good hold on both legs, as they can loose one
leg to escape but will not sacrifice both :)
 
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