Fruits and Veggies for Veiled Chameleon

[awioa]

How do you get your Chameleon to eat fruit/veggies? Mine is not that interested. I have tried hanging leafy greens but there is no interest. I have cut fruits and veggies into the same shape as the worms and he ate one or two, but left the rest. So I am curious how everyone gets their chameleon to eat it.




King Neptune
11/23/18 Purchased from Petsmart at 2” long from nose to vent, estimate 2-3 Months.

Breed: Veiled Chameleon
Sex: Male
Handling: 3-4 times a week about 10-15 min
Feeders: Crickets, Mealworms, Black Soldier Fly Larva, & Waxworms
Feedings: Crickets are free range, everything else bowl feed
Morning Feedings: 8-10 crickets
Evening Feedings: 1-2 Mealworms/Waxworms, 1-2 Fly Larva, 1-2 Crickets Supplements: Herptivite with Beta Carotene (1x every 2 weeks) & Repti Calcium with D3 (x2 a week)
Watering: Yes to drinking, Little Dripper, Small Automatic Mister (goes off every 5 min), Hand Misting (twice a day)

History: Has shed his skin twice

Cage Type: Glass Aquarium, screen top (30x13x18)
Lighting: 2, 5.5 Inch Deep Dome Lamp (50 watt halogen heat lamp & 13 watt UVB fluorescent lamp)
Temperature: Digital Thermometer/Hygrometer with History
Cage Bottom - 74F
Basking - 84F
Lowest Temp - 71F
Humidity: Left Side - 64
Right Side - 31
Plants: Plastic
Placement: In living room with ceiling fan, top of aquarium 4’
Location: Deming, New Mexico

 

[Rontti]

Most chameleons don't eat veggies. It's not bad if they don't want to eat them. Just make sure that your feeders have a diverse diet. Only vegetable my veiled has ever even tasted is cucumber.

 

[Thehippie]

they can eat a variety of live plants like pothos and ficus and can have collard greens spinach and fruit. check out the list that i linked for chameleon safe foods https://flchams.com/chameleon-safe-plant-list/

 

[salty dog]

I wander if chia plants or alf alfa is ok for veilds, they are easy to grow.

 

[DeremensisBlue]

Don't worry if your veiled chameleon does not eat greens. They are insectivores. The best explanation I have heard as to why they eat vegetation at all is to provide roughage to help eliminate the soft bodies insects they generally eat in the wild. Provide them with a varied insect diet and if they chomp a piece of your pothos, fine. If they don't, that is fine too. Here is a podcast episode you can listen to that talks specifically about feeding veiled chameleons if you'd like to hear details about how they live in the wild and how we can try to recreate that environment.
chameleon breeder podcast veiled chamele…

On a new note, you'll want to upgrade that aquarium to a large screen cage and get a solid UVB light for your guy. The supplements you are giving are providing the D3, but I'd suggest switching to a T5 High Output linear UVB bulb as soon as you can upgrade the cage (Don't put a T5 UVB over your aquarium due to heat build up and no place for the chameleon to escape the UVB) and then you can cut back on dietary D3 to weekly or bi-weekly.

You can check out a couple more of those podcast episodes around episode to learn more about veiled chameleons
Ep 86: Learning about veiled chameleons in Yemen
Ep 87: The history of veiled chameleons in captivity
Ep 88: Veiled Chameleons in Florida
Ep 89: Naturalistic hydration (which is 100% applicable to veiled chameleons)
Ep 90: Veiled Chameleon Husbandry
Ep 91: Lighting for Veiled Chameleons
and, of course, Ep 92: Feeding Veiled Chameleons
So there is a lot of information which will be helpful in starting out with veiled chameleons. If you do dive in and listen to all this make sure you come back on here and discuss what you learned so we can all be part of working through the efforts!

 

[JoshD49]

Mine didn't eat much veggies as a baby. He only started eating veggies when he got to around 6 months but didn't really get going in veggies till I put a pothos plant in his cage. Now the plant is destroyed haha. He will take a bit of the umbrella plant here and there but not as much as the pothos. I have tried giving him collard greens and stuff but he isn't very interested in that.