Forced to raise feeders?

[arkist]

Greetings!

I am considering becoming a chameleon owner, and am currently undergoing a massive amount of research to prepare myself. I feel fairly well educated on the matter, despite the abundence of conflicting information that exists out there. But I am getting caught up on one thing, and that is need to maintain an abundance of feeders.

Cham's under the age of six months apparenly eat way more then I had assumed they would. It seems that many cham owners handle the large demands by simply raising their own roachs/crickets/worms. Now hand feeding my Cham worms is something I could handle. But the thought of having them breeding in my house is not. Are their Cham owners who don't raise feeders? How do you deal with the high food demands?

I have also considered purchasing a smaller chameleon in the hopes that it would decrease it's initiall food intake. But I am unable to find a relevant information on the feeding habbits of chams outside of veiled, jackson, or panther. Are there any suggests on a good smaller breed of chameleon?

Thanks for your time

 

[THEO555HUGHES]

You don't have raise feeders, you can just order them over the net and have them delivered to you. www.lllreptile.com is a good place to order from. You can set it up were they send you out an order every two weeks or every month and just bill you credit card and you don't have to worry about it.

 

[arkist]

But even if you recieve an order every two weeks, thats still up to 13 days where you would have to be maintaining the crickets/worms life because the young cham has to be eating every day.

If you have to provide shelter, food (outside of gutloading), and heat to keep them alive, then whats the difference?

 

[Nicodemayo]

Most people that breed their own feeders do that to cut down costs, especially for hatchings. Feeders for grown chams people usually order cause its really not worth the trouble unless you have a breeding colony in which i see alot of breeders order bulk silkworms eggs or they feed off roaches.

 

[THEO555HUGHES]

Well if you have a pet store close you can just stop by there and pick up some to last 1 or 2 days. But you will pay a lot more for them.

 

[arkist]

How long can you keep crickets or worms without having to give them their own shelter, lighting, and food(outside of gutloading of course)?

 

[Justin Carl]

If you plan on having one chameleon I wouldnt worry about the crickets or roaches.
When you get your baby chameleon, most likely 3 months old, it will eat like a pig.
If you are worried about feeders getting loose in the house then buy good cages.
Most commercial cages are insect proof.
Buy a cricket keeper for your crix, and I did use one at one time.
I was pleased at how easy it was to get your feeders out without having to touch them.
Roaches are just plain awesome, and I'm sure you have already done some reading on them.
When you are talking about worms I really wouldnt worry to much until they can eat supers.
Maybe around 6 months old.
Phoneix worms can be hard to digest, mealworms are crappy feeders, butterworms dont wiggle enough, wax worms are to fatty.
You can buy crickets at a local pet store, 10 cents a piece or buy lots of 500 for around 10-15$.
That should last you a month or more. Depending on how many die.
You can establish a roach colony of 200+ and never buy another feeder again.
500 supers will run you 14$ and have a shelf life of 6 months.
So, you could spend about 50$ and not buy feeders for a very long time.

Good luck

 

[royden]

Keep in mind that if you buy say 500 crickets every two months or so, they won't be breeding but you'll be keeping them in your home sustaining them. If you buy a veiled, chances are in a 6 to 9 months, he may decide he doesn't like crickets anymore as mine did and many others, and he will refuse to eat them. In that situation you'll be forced to order other feeders that could be twice as expensive in some cases.

Breeding feeders in your house is not as big a deal as you think. There some incredible ways to keep them contained, seperate from your household, and it is so much cheaper.

I have a deal with my wife - If she finds a single escaped roach in our house, I'm dead meat, and we go back to ordering 500 crickets every two and a half months.

I'd encourage you to look into blaptica dubia's. They're clean, non pest, non flying, non climbing, easy breeding, easy gutloading and easy feeding. I'd also encourage you to cup feed your chameleon.

 

[royden]

How long can you keep crickets or worms without having to give them their own shelter, lighting, and food(outside of gutloading of course)?

Daily, if you're talking no food.

If you seriously don't want crickets in your house any longer then it takes for the chameleon to notice them and eat them - I'd say your not going to be able to do this hobby unless you don't have a job. Going to get 12-15 crickets every morning for your cham to eat throughout the day doesn't sound like fun. And then you need to actually feed them for a day or so to be sure they're all gutloaded.

In general - if you have a fear or aversion to insects -chameleon keeping is probably as much of a hobby for you as keeping pet insects is. Not to be negative or discourage you, that's just the truth of the matter. I sense your asking how to keep chameleons without having too many insects around, and it's not really possible.

 

[Petmason]

Crickets are easy to care for. I use a fish tank with screen top (small mesh). I put dry plain oatmeal at the bottom with egg crates. I also have 3in of the box my tube light came in so I can use that to scoop out the crickets. I use Gut Load cricket drink and I feed a variety of greens and vegi. Worst part about them is the smell and noise. Is it you just dont want any insects in your home? You can buy the insects like THEO555HUGHES mentioned but you'll probably pay something like 9 for a dollar and that adds up over the life of the chameleon. Hope you figure everything out. Good Luck

 

[arkist]

Daily, if you're talking no food.

If you seriously don't want crickets in your house any longer then it takes for the chameleon to notice them and eat them - I'd say your not going to be able to do this hobby unless you don't have a job. Going to get 12-15 crickets every morning for your cham to eat throughout the day doesn't sound like fun. And then you need to actually feed them for a day or so to be sure they're all gutloaded.

In general - if you have a fear or aversion to insects -chameleon keeping is probably as much of a hobby for you as keeping pet insects is. Not to be negative or discourage you, that's just the truth of the matter. I sense your asking how to keep chameleons without having too many insects around, and it's not really possible.

Your not discouraging at all. I came here for honesty and I appreciate everyone who has posted

It is not keeping instects in the house that bothers me(clearly I worded this poorly because that seems to be what everyone is addressing), it is the idea of raising them that I can't stand.

As the first few posters indicated, it is possible to continue without raising feeders, but you will have to keep them alive between ordering new ones, which will cost more (which I don't have a problem with).

Knowing that I can just keep them on hand and not raise them, my question was more directed at finding out how to keep crickets or roaches, i.e. what to feed them, how many I should keep on hand, how often should I be replenishing them, what kind of lighting they require etc, not at how to keep my cham happy without having a staple feeder on hand.

I am conserned more with the complexity of keeping them then I am having them around.

Thanks again to all those who have posted! I really appreciate all the information.

 

[Justin Carl]

Try the search option at the top of the screen.
These threads contiune to pop up, but we have dozens of old ones with the same questions and answers.

 

[royden]

If you're not interested in the work it takes to raise feeders, I'd say that trying not to raise feeders is actually more difficult.

For instance if you're keeping dubia's at all...a male and female..whether you like it or not, they're breeding. Honestly the best thing I ever did for myself in this hobby was to start raising dubia's. It's like I have a magic food box in the basement that eternally gives me a cup of feeders every week. Every few days I water them like a plant, and toss them some gut load. I clean them every few weeks but it's honestly not that much to clean.

Crickets chirp, smell horrible, they die in high percentage, you have to order them and clean them more often, they cost more, they're more difficult to breed. Crickets suck.

It is really nothing to keep a rubbermaid full of bugs somewhere. And it's actually interesting. I get a lot of enjoyment from my dubia's. It's like being God over a small city.

I'd say it would be a shame to let the raising of feeders keep you from this great hobby, but if you really wanted to, you could just grab a few dozen at a time from your local petstore every other day or so, and keep them ina small cricket keeper. It's possible, but in my opinion it's more work and more money.

 

[AFH]

It is not keeping instects in the house that bothers me(clearly I worded this poorly because that seems to be what everyone is addressing), it is the idea of raising them that I can't stand.

As the first few posters indicated, it is possible to continue without raising feeders, but you will have to keep them alive between ordering new ones, which will cost more (which I don't have a problem with).

If you go with crickets (which are easily accessible and cheap, but stinky, as the previous posts have pointed out), you don't necessarily have to "raise" them. A good size plastic tote, gutload, water source (crystals or veggies), and a heating pad that won't turn itself off, are really all you need. Order 500 and put them in the tote on the heating pad, feed them out until you're low, then order some more.

You will need to offer a variety of feeders so your cham won't go on a hunger strike as mentioned above. Plus, who wants to eat the same thing every day? I rotate between crickets, silkworms, and superworms, and in fact I've never had any of my chams refuse to eat any of them that is offered. I'm also looking into a roach colony, because I can go though 1000 crickets in 3 weeks (40-60 a day less die off).

The reason you see most care sheets and info on veileds, panthers, and jacksons is because they are the most common chameleons to have. Veileds are the hardiest and can tolerate inexperience induced mistakes, and Jackson's are more complicated to raise. While there is conflicting information on this site, there's just about no question or problem that you can't get advice for on this site for these species.

Also, I'm very pleased that you are taking the time to do your research BEFORE aquiring your buddy. There's way too much "Hey I just got a chameleon, now what?" from new owners.

Good luck and keep up the research!