Calcium Advice

[GregJD]

Hey,

My wife adopted Gary, our veiled, for me as an early Christmas present in November. I have always loved chameleons, and a new PetCo opened up with them in our home town, next thing we know we're taking Gary home.
I thought I had done my homework about them until I found this site. I need some help.
My nagging question is this: Every time I give Gary calcium, his nose has crystals. I have read about lightly dusting or even dipping the tips of them in it, but, and for ease, I fully dip 1. Even if I dust every other day, and he still gets the crystals I only have calcium with D3, and I can't find any without.
I bought the best available gut-load for my crickets (I did my homework there). Is the gut-load sufficient?

Thanks for your help! I love this site.

Greg

 

[Nursemaia]

Don't worry about his nose. Buy calcium without D3 from Amazon. Use that every feeding. Calcium with D3 2x a month and a multivitamin 2x a month. Alternate weeks. I gutload with bug burger. You need more feeders besides crickets. I use dubia, hornworms, superworms, black soldier fly larvae and I catch bugs in the summer. I rarely use crickets.

 

[nightanole]

Several places sell D3 and non D3 calcium, i use stickytonguefarms since its low dose, but there are several high quality sources out there. Depending on how old it is it might only need calcium once a week or every 2 weeks. My adults i only powder 2x a month, once with d3 and once without.

 

[GregJD]

I think Gary's only 3-4 months.

I read super-worms are for 6 months and older. Is that correct? I already catch different bugs outside to give him some variety, but crickets are so easy to come by. Honestly, the roaches freak me out a little. I live in the bug neighborhood right beside a farm. I worry about an infestation. My wife also has a phobia of roaches. I know it's funny, but she flips out when she realizes she's standing by them in the store. . .it's hilarious. I'll try to film it for y'all.

I'm gonna look on Amazon, and we're gonna check at a PetSmart in the next town today, since we have business over there this afternoon.

Thank y'all so much!

 

[nightanole]

The problem with wild caught bugs is pesticides, fertilizers, and in some cases parasites. However several people swear by wild caught food, while others wouldnt be caught dead doing it.

Supers have less shell that crickets, however you need to find a site that sells small/medium/large. I know rainbow meal worms sells sizes and even samplier packs.

 

[Nursemaia]

I love wild caught bugs however I live in the woods and own a lot of land so I know I'm safe from pesticides

 

[Peachypink]

I think Gary's only 3-4 months.

I read super-worms are for 6 months and older. Is that correct? I already catch different bugs outside to give him some variety, but crickets are so easy to come by. Honestly, the roaches freak me out a little. I live in the bug neighborhood right beside a farm. I worry about an infestation. My wife also has a phobia of roaches. I know it's funny, but she flips out when she realizes she's standing by them in the store. . .it's hilarious. I'll try to film it for y'all.

I'm gonna look on Amazon, and we're gonna check at a PetSmart in the next town today, since we have business over there this afternoon.

Thank y'all so much!

Dubia won't infest. They need the right environment to reproduce including temps over 80 degrees and humidity. They can not climb slick sides so if you use a Tupperware tub you should be fine. I rarely get an escapee and if I do they don't live that long. They are really more like pill bugs then roaches. I'm a girl, I hate bugs but I can handle dubia better than I can crickets. I hate crickets. They stink and if they get out, they are noisy and you can never find them. Dubia are low odor too. I would take dubia over crickets any day!

You really need to get a plain Calcium with No D3 asap. D3 can be toxic if given too much. You should only give D3 2x a month at the very most. Especially while he is so young he needs plain Calcium at every feeding except for the day you do D3 or multivitamin.

Superworms might be too big for him right now, but that would be the only reason he couldn't have them. Check out the sponsors...mulberry farms have a great selection of feeders.

 

[Ilike4hornedchams]

Ya this hobby kinda forces you into two more hobbies gardening your live plants in there and raising insects lol. I started just doing crickets like so many but ya... nwt I got these dubia roaches, super worms, and hornworms in addition to the crickets.

 

[GregJD]

Awesome. Yeah, is there a good place to research raising crickets?

 

[GregJD]

I live in South Carolina, it was 80° yesterday and 100% humidity. Roaches are out.

 

[GregJD]

I appreciate y'all! I'm learning so much.

 

[Graves923]

If you haven't already, make sure you check out the resource page. Lots of great articles on care that helped me out when I was planning my first chameleon.

In regards to the build up around the nostril... What kind of water are you misting/dripping with?

I used tap water when I first started and noticed my cham would get the build up around his nostrils. After reading an article I switched to filtered water to eliminate the excess sodium in the tap water. After a week there was no more build up around his nostrils.

Its a long article written by a member here but worth the read: https://www.chameleonforums.com/thr...-cause-of-the-white-crusts-on-the-nose.75998/

"So what could be causing these crusts in our captive animals? Herbivorous reptiles in wild are getting these crusts purely from the vegetation they eat. Some chameleons eat vegetation directly and we feed lots of vegetation to our crickets during gutloading. All of the foods that we use for gutloading do have sodium and potassium in them. How often have we paid attention to that? We worry about the calcium content and whether there are oxalates, etc. but we often completely ignore the salt content of our gutloads. Many people also use tap water for their chameleons. The city sources of water have varying concentration of sodium, chloride and potassium that vary wildly depending on your location and water quality. Perhaps the salt content of the food is not enough to trigger secretion, but coupled with high salt concentration in drinking water is enough to manifest in these crusts. I cannot say for certainty what the perfect amount is, or what to do to make them go away. But as they are completely harmless to begin with and easily wiped away, I don’t really even see the need to make changes."