Dilemma

[leid]

Fred, my 6 month old veiled male will only eat things that are alive and moving. Well, its advised to cut the heads off of supers or they might eat through chams stomachs. But if I do that, it'll die, and therefore won't move.

So how am I to feed him supers then? He doesn't hand feed, and only eats from his food dish. He'll see crickets moving and grab them. Any advice?

 

[CHAMpion]

From my understanding thats more of a roomer. My 8 month old female veiled loves eating supers and I never cut their heads off. You can also always feed him gutloaded crickets or roaches as your staple feeder.

 

[NewOwner]

I highly doubt theres much of a risk. i wouldnt wory about the 'Eating thru stomaches' too much, otherwise he could starve, then you Made a differant problem :

Dont worry.

-Levi

 

[Chase]

They tend not to do it unless they are babies. Usually, they chomp on them and they die. But, it should be fine, no need to cut the head off.

 

[panthercham]

I feed supers all the time and dont cut off their heads and never have had a problem.

A super occassionally turning around a latching on to a cham is about the only real and small problem. To stop this I just let them crawl up the side of their cages and my chams just pick them off like that....they get a good aim at the top of the super and they usually go down head first that way and I have never had a problem.

 

[leid]

Okay. Thanks.

Well I already feed gutloaded crickets as the staple, but was wanting to give him something different. Y'know, spice up his life a little.

Someone told me this a while back, a girl who owns bearded dragons, and since I didn't know crap about herps at the time I believed her. But now I was thinking "well what do they do in the wild when they come across critters?" Apparently my intuition was correct.

I have another question. It is normal that Fred wouldn't eat too much while he sheds, right? He ate seven large crickets yesterday with some orange and apple slices, but only had two crix today. He started shedding his tail this morning.

As for roaches... no way. I am terrified by roaches. I wouldn't be able to touch one!

 

[panthercham]

Mine do go off their food when they shed

 

[leid]

Cool. Wanted to make sure. I'd be mad if he just decided to get sick on me again.

Sometimes I think Fred is just like "hey. I'm bored. ... Wait! I know! Let's not eat, or shut my eyes for half an hour to worry mommy half to death! Yeah, that's fun! "

 

[panthercham]

Cool. Wanted to make sure. I'd be mad if he just decided to get sick on me again.

Sometimes I think Fred is just like "hey. I'm bored. ... Wait! I know! Let's not eat, or shut my eyes for half an hour to worry mommy half to death! Yeah, that's fun! "

Very true...I have had a few sleepless nights trying to work them out especially if they are not acting normal but they do like to test us

 

[Brad Ramsey]

That is my favorite "old wives tale" about supers.
Cracks me up

-Brad

 

[leid]

Wonderful. Now I look stupid. lol

 

[Brad Ramsey]

Ha!
It's not your fault ... that's how the story gets around.

-Brad

 

[Syn]

I asked this same story a while back.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/superworm-myth-truth-20460/

Even if he doesn't chomp the head first, he will eventually learn to.

 

[blackbetty]

I said the same thing about Roaches hun..now I have a colony.

Supers do bite..I have been bitten when they pinwheel around.. I have witnessed them being chomped down on almost decapitated and still alive and kickin..I think they have the same nervous system as say, sea stars..which even if separated from the main body, will wiggle for awhile after..say 30 seconds tops... This is my observation..

 

[ChamNovice]

I had heard the same thing about cutting their heads off to feed them to my leopard geckos. I thought, "now what do they do with stuff they eat in the wild.... no one comes along cutting off heads of insects so they can eat them". Just started giving them without cutting heads off, didn't seem to bother the geckos any. They just close their eyes as soon as the get a good hold on it. I'm guessing the geckos know that superworms whip around and try to bite. The geckos do generally eat the worms head first though. I would think it would be similar with chameleons.

 

[leid]

Yeah those supers are ugly things. I hold them with tweezers because they creep me out. I'm pretty terrified of bugs period; ironic that I bought a live-bug eating reptile.

 

[blackbetty]

LOL!! I hate crickets more than anything..They smell and bite too and just freak me out!! Can't WAIT until I am done with them!!!

 

[leid]

My husband has to grab the crickets to pop their legs off. I won't touch anything squirming in my fingers. LOL. He's kind of pissed at me now because this was supposed to be my pet solely and every morning I'm whining that I can't grab the crickets. I ended up trying and freaking out and dropping it, so we ended up chasing it all over the house haha

 

[blackbetty]

LOL! Do you cup feed? If so, just put a small toilet paper roll in the container that you crickets are in and then shake out the amount you need into your cup.. no need to touch.

Tellin ya, baby roaches are much easier.. the adult, okay they are freaky and make my skin crawl..but babies are like rolypolys... Their hairy legs creep me out tho..You get within an inch of them and they cling to you..

I bet Im so making the case for getting roaches. Hahaha

 

[panthercham]

My husband has to grab the crickets to pop their legs off. I won't touch anything squirming in my fingers. LOL. He's kind of pissed at me now because this was supposed to be my pet solely and every morning I'm whining that I can't grab the crickets. I ended up trying and freaking out and dropping it, so we ended up chasing it all over the house haha

What are you keeping your crickets in? If you only have a small number of them you can keep them in a Kricket Keeper and they have the tubes that you can just shake them out and dont have to touch them.

If you have a lot like I do then try keeping a few cardboard tubes in the cricket tub. I just shake them straight into the cage or into a deli cup when I need to use supplements. I dislike crickets a lot but dubias I still cant come to terms with