feeding staples

[jamest0o0]

Do you need crickets and roaches as a regular staple? Crickets aren't so bad, but it is a battle to get my chams to touch roaches. Can I just regularly feed butterworms/silkworms and some hornworms as staples? I'd still offer roaches on the occasion along with some crickets for free roam feeding, but I didn't know if there was any reason to be feeding crickets and roaches every day rather than worms?

 

[JoeDigiorgio]

Variety obviously has numerous benefits over a single prey item but at the end of the day, I don't think your chameleon will suffer from a diet predominately of one bug as long as good gut loading and supplementation is utilized.

Keep in mind one of the biggest pluses to variety is they're less likely to go off feed out of boredom. I've got a few chameleons that hate roaches. They've all got their quirks and preferences.

I think feeding such moist items as hornworms and the like all the time makes them prone to diarrhea. Also those items aren't particularly spectacular for gut loading. Silks and hornworms pretty much just eat the same chow mix and maybe some kale and I don't think they dust particularly well. Crickets are a better staple.

 

[jamest0o0]

I have plenty of variety I usually offer at least 6 different feeders throughout the week and still plan to. The gutloading would probably be my main concern now that you bring it up, although the worms I mentioned (butters and silks) in particular are far more nutritious than crickets. BSFL(which i forgot to mention) are easy to gutload, butters eat squash, I really have no idea how nutritious the *chow* is for silks/horns, but I'd still offer crickets and roaches, I was just thinking of switching my go-to staple to the worms. As for supplements, I dust my crickets and roaches and do the whole multi/d3 2x a month. I'm not sure how important regular calcium is with these worms since they all have naturally high calcium?

thanks for replying, definitely considering what you mentioned

 

[JoeDigiorgio]

I just meant crickets were a better staple from the standpoint of being easier to gut load with a wider variety of different things. The worms do start out as naturally more nutritious though. I thought BSFL only ate meat based food and that was why the company recommended not to gut load them?

I think diarrhea would be my biggest concern though with such a moist primary feeder as butters or horns though.

 

[jamest0o0]

No BSFL eat pretty much anything soft. I feed mine left over silkworm chow, oranges, blended gutload cubes. They make it disappear completely within a day. I do notice the urates are runny at times from lots of hornworms, but that's just extra hydration. Wouldn't that be a good thing?