Feeding large chameleons warm blooded prey

[RescueHerp]

I couldn't agree more. But from my perspective and experience the hobbyists create the data. At least the overly competent ones do. If you keep a log book on your animals. when you got them, how you house them, log everything and I do mean everything, feedings, vet visits, bulb changes, substrate changes. You may be a statistic of one but that is one data point more than we had before without that. Thats how marine fish and coral keeping has advanced as far as it has through crazy bastards like myself and my friends logging everything and doing the impossible so it can be repeated or avoided.

Every single one of my animals has a daily log so I know what was done when, no guess work. all I have to do is look in the book to see if some one was medicated, when the last time a bulb was changes substrate cleaned etc. takes 2 seconds when doing stuff and saves countless hours in the long run.

 

[Extensionofgreen]

Be created a sheet for my parsonii, including everything, from type and number of feeders, supplements used, weight, length, UVB detected, and more. I didn't start documenting on their first day, because I just got time to create the sheet and I didn't want to weigh them, since they are getting that done at the vet, today. I figured stressing them out for a weight that was going to be done with 5 days of arrival wasn't worth the burden on the animals. I did document their meals, on camera, though.

 

[Virgil1972]

I couldn't agree more. But from my perspective and experience the hobbyists create the data. At least the overly competent ones do. If you keep a log book on your animals. when you got them, how you house them, log everything and I do mean everything, feedings, vet visits, bulb changes, substrate changes. You may be a statistic of one but that is one data point more than we had before without that. Thats how marine fish and coral keeping has advanced as far as it has through crazy bastards like myself and my friends logging everything and doing the impossible so it can be repeated or avoided.

Every single one of my animals has a daily log so I know what was done when, no guess work. all I have to do is look in the book to see if some one was medicated, when the last time a bulb was changes substrate cleaned etc. takes 2 seconds when doing stuff and saves countless hours in the long run.

Documenting all that is good and gives a lot of information. But a more controlled experiment would be nice. Maybe 50 chams of the same species, kept in the exact same conditions, same cage setup. Try to take out as many variables as possible. Have a control group, and maybe a few other groups fed some type of warm blooded prey, with the different groups being fed different amounts of warm prey. Maybe one group get it once a month, another group getting it once every two months. Then when animals die you would have necropsy see why the animal died. Of course in real life a study like this would be more complicated than this but you get the idea. It also would take a long time and be hard and expensive to do, but like I said in a post before if science were cheap and easy we would have warp drive and live on mars.

 

[SurfPanther]

So far the argument I've seen for feeding mammal or bird prey has been as a way to give a natural source of vitamin A, and then it was only fed once a month.

I can't see a pinky being any harder for a chameleon to eat than a large hornworm. I think I remember seeing a thread on this forum about a member's adult female Veiled catching and eating a hummingbird while outside with no ill effects.

Hopefully some more experienced members will have answers for you. I'm curious about the topic as well.

There is really no added benefit to mice, there is nothing positive about the entire process, it's extremely difficult for the animals to digest them and you run the risk of parasites. There is nothing you accomplish with feeding a mouse or a bird that you can't accomplish with supplementation and insects. All in all it is highly advised against doing it

 

[MissSkittles]

There is really no added benefit to mice, there is nothing positive about the entire process, it's extremely difficult for the animals to digest them and you run the risk of parasites. There is nothing you accomplish with feeding a mouse or a bird that you can't accomplish with supplementation and insects. All in all it is highly advised against doing it

This is an old thread, however your input is valuable for others who may come across it.

 

[Chino82]

I wouldn't feed the warm blood menu cause how often this occurs in the wild??
Plus you will have to gutload the FINE CHAMELEON NUTRITION needs for these prey which it will be VERY hard to feed the vegetables to a pinky mice or birds.

I agree. Here is a pie chart from a study done on the food eaten in the wild by chameleons, this one is specific to Panthers. They are definitely mainly insect eaters. Not to say it wouldn’t go after a small bird if saw the opportunity, but when would a pinky be running up a tree.