Female after laying eggs - do you increase diet?

[Jingi]

Hi!
It has been around two months since my female laid eggs and I am wondering, do you guys raise your female´s diet after they lay eggs? If so, how much? I have noticed that my female is quite thin. I am keeping her diet six dusted crickets a day. Ofc with some vegetables/fruit to help.
What´s your opinion?

 

[LanceLee]

chameleons will only eat as much as they want to. if you increase the amount of feeders, will she eat more?

the challenge would be to give her more nutrients, especially calcium, for the same amount that she is eating.

apart from dusting your crickets, are you gutloading your crickets well? she will also appreciate different kind of live feeders, such as roaches, silkworms, dubias (if she likes them... most don't) etc. variety provides balance of nutrients

 

[Jingi]

Yes, whe probably will. She is always hungry as it seems. Yes, I am gutloading, asnd I am giving her grasshopers when I can. Also some strawberries, cucumbers. But I should probably find even more feeders. Unlucky for me, I don´t have safe way to get more feeders.

 

[kinyonga]

LanceLee said..."chameleons will only eat as much as they want to"....unfortunately this is not true...and especially not true of female veiled chameleons. Over feeding g a veiled female can lead to huge clutches, MBD, prolapses and eggbinding and ultimately death.

 

[Jingi]

LanceLee said..."chameleons will only eat as much as they want to"....unfortunately this is not true...and especially not true of female veiled chameleons. Over feeding g a veiled female can lead to huge clutches, MBD, prolapses and eggbinding and ultimately death.

So should I keep it the same? Or increase it for something like week after clutch and then go back?

 

[kinyonga]

What I have done for years when I'm not intending to breed a veiled chameleon...
After she lays the eggs, I feed her well for a couple of days and then cut back to feeding enough to keep her from being thin/starving but not enough to make her fat/overfeed her...so about 6 to 8 crickets every other day or equivalent in other insects.
The idea of this is to keep the clutch size small or nonexistent. I also lower the temperature a degree or two in the basking area to slow her metabolism just a bit so she won't be as hungry. If the female has been bred then this has to change.

 

[Jingi]

kinyonga: Ou, I see. Okay, I´ll look into it. Female I am talking about has been once with male and that´s it. But I am fearing she might be getting ready for new clutch.

 

[kinyonga]

If she only laid mo e clutch since the mating there will. Very likely be another clutch so you want to make sure she gets enough nutrients/food to ensure that they can be produced properly.