eating habits of panthers

[ScreamingIncognito]

so my panther chameleon has been eating quite well since ive got him though i never see him drink and when he does its only ever off his plastic circle thermometer(in my dp) not the plants or anything. but his eyes are not sunken or anything and sometimes i only give my crickets moist guy load to try to compensate a bit. but i recently upgraded to the full 5 week old crickets as my guy was eating through 50 3week ones in just days the first day i gave him the big ones he ate some. like 10 or so i think.. now today he did not want any. so i went to the pet store and bought a horn worm and a silk worm (just one of each lol) just to see and he ate up the horn worm. do you think my cham at only 7 month now would already be resisting certain types of food.. i try to throw in a wax worm or super worm or now horn wormand silk worm when i can get them from the one store in town that sells them to keep it different but i can only give him like 1 ever other day and im not sure if thats too much already can anyone shed any light on this? so 1 thing how often should i feed worms and such and second do you think he would be tiered of adult crickets after one day? and lastly if he is how can i get him to eat them again? cause worms are to fatty and you cant get roach feeders here.

 

[bechsgaard]

Your chameleon is on a hunger strike, im guessing you use the same gut load on your crickets, heres what you should do

First of all make sure you mist 4 times a day for about 1 minute, this will make sure your chameleon is getting enough water

Second: 3 week old crickets are better to feed than adults, as they are alittle lower in fat and have higher protein, adult crickets have a nutrition free shell, and the legs are sharp and on some occasions will cut the chameleons mouth

Third: Change gut loads, chameleons like variety as we do, the crickets will taste different if you change the food. Have one staple gut load thats not super nutritious, just for them to eat, then have a main gut load which you change ever 2 days and feed 4-5 hours to the crickets before you feed to the chameleon.
i use repashy bug burger as a staple, then i do a constant switch of these things every 3 days.
Dont gut load with avocado or rhubarb

Orange
romaine Lettuce
commercial gut load
apple

Sprinkling some caclium powder (no D3) on the veggies befor you give them to the crickets is good.

Fourth: Variety, give him variety, i find giving chameleons crickets as a staple, then silk worms, butterworms (great because they are high in calcium), hornworms, and waxworms (only occasionally as they are high in fat) I will even give my cham an anole once or twice a month, it gives him great exersize when he trys to catch it, they arent good as a thing to give often as they are high in animal protein though.

I hope this helped, if you have more questions message me

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Second: 3 week old crickets are better to feed than adults, as they are alittle lower in fat and have higher protein, adult crickets have a nutrition free shell, and the legs are sharp and on some occasions will cut the chameleons mouth

Brown crickets' legs will not cut a chameleon.

Orange - Minimal nutritional value, only good for hydration and vitamin C
Romaine - wrong calcium to phosphorus ratio, no other nutritional benefit
commercial gut load - minimal benefit as most of it is filler
apple - not much value at all, use for hydration

Sprinkling some caclium powder (no D3) on the veggies befor you give them to the crickets is good.

There is no proof that is effective as no one knows how crickets metabolize minerals/vitamins or even how much they will eat if you put it in there. In fact too much calcium eaten by crickets seems to Increase mortality.

 

[Olimpia]

I doubt, like you, that it’s a hunger strike after just a single day. Since the crickets are bigger he won’t be eating as much every time you offer them, and he may even be slowing down his feeding a little. Try to order in containers of hornworms, butter worms, silkworms, and anything else you can get your hands on and give him at minimum 2-3 feeders a week to mix it up. Maybe X crickets and X butter worms one day, the next no crickets but X hornworms. If you keep mixing up what he gets every day then he’s very unlikely to ever hunger strike for you.

You can feed more than one worm a day, that’s not a problem. They’re not too fatty, only waxworms are like tiny blobs of lard, the others are actually very nutritious if mixed into a varied diet.

Also, gut loading will be important. Check out Sandrachameleon’s blogs on here, they are excellent in regards to great ingredients to use and how to mix them to get the most bang out of what your insects are eating.