finally getting warmer, wild harvest ideas ?

jalli

jalli

Member
alright sooo I've always been pretty paranoid about catching wild insects, but I've read enuff articles seeing ppl here do it commonly. Any recommendations on how far away from farms or anything I should get ? I'm quite rural in pennsylvania and surrounded by farm after farm, pesticides abound. my basic idea is to travel to a few local, 30 mins to hour drive, state parks and see what I can grab around there. Mulan loves fliers lol she cant get enuff of BSF's or blue flies when I get them lol. any specific insects to look for ?
 
Ever see how black soldier flies and blue bottle flies are raised? It's not a closed system. Don't worry too much about it. I use wild insects just to add variety. It's easier to raise roaches than it is to collect bugs.

Mantis ooths are an easy source. Time is running out on them.

Chams love termites. Look online to build a termite trap out of pvc with cardboard as bait. Dont worry, the queen wont be in the trap. Even Parsons are said to love the tiny bugs.

Consider your own BSFL bin. Something as simple as the link below would give you all you need. Let some pupate so you have flies. I have a $62 amazon wine chiller coming so I can keep them for months after the season ends. Your own bin would let you know what they are atleast.

To be extra cautious you can keep any insects for 12-24 hours to let them poop out the majority of anything bad they may have eaten and watch for die offs.
 
My panther loves butterflies and moths, just make sure you are 100% certain they are not toxic! I also collect grasshoppers from my in-laws organic garden. Those are definitely popular with my panther as well.
 
thanx guys i think I'll wait with the stuff I catch. yeah now that I warmed up my bsfl to 80 ish they are hatching like crazy n ive never seen her move so fast lol. I will prolly look into a bin for more. and I'll do an Internet search of toxic bugs to know what to look for
 
BSF's are great.. and pretty cheap if you order larger larger lots. gotta get a wine chiller or modify a mini fridge but worth it I think.
 
have a cellar pantry I keep em there for a while, yeah I ordered like 500 and then mulan just stopped eating the larvae, sooo I was like welp... guess I'll hatch em, a month later not 1 fly, 20 amp bulb in old aquarium where I keep my larvae, and clean up crew cultures 2 days later boom 10-15 flies a day... n2m the bunches I dumped in the enclosure I think are hatching too... thank god was getting like ytf aren't I getting flies lol
 
This is probably a stupid question but are stink bugs safe for chameleons? Our house seems to get them like crazy
 
lol I was literally looking that up Friday, but there's 2 reasons most dont. 1 being all the different chemicals you use in/arounr your house. 2 being they have a really hard exoskeleton that might cause impaction. soo I was like that's enuff reason for me to not try them
 
if your looking for other feeders try BSFL, and silkworms. silkies are expensive tho. hornworms are excellent treats as well. atm I think the real option I got for wild caught are the stoneflys that land all over me while fishing.
 
Idk if I'd willingly feed stinkbugs, but they're all over the place here. When my chams are outside I don't stop then from eating the stinkbugs.
 
My guy is still tiny. only about 5 months old, the hornworms might be a bit big for him atm. What about spotted roaches? Anyone have luck with their chameleons eatting those? Argo doesn't seem intrested with the worm shapped bugs right now unless I give him those before his crickets. And place them on a leaf right in front of him. So far he's only eatten 2 of the superworms in the week I've had him.
 
yeah I ordered my horns extra small like 1/2 inch, and ended up hatching my bsf and blue bottle flies out. which btw if u wanna see ur cham running all over the enclosure lol just let sum flies loose in there.
 
Chameleons can handle worms that are as wide as between the length of their eyes. So basically they can get down some pretty large worms. I remember being confused and thinking I was supposed to go by the length of the worm.
 
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