Gutload has made a huge difference

Up until a couple weeks ago when I bought my first chameleon, I was using Flukers for my crested's crickets. They love that stuff. But since being on this forum, I bought the bug burger which was highly suggested. Both the dubia's and crickets don't seem to like it at all? But then, maybe it's because every other day I put fresh kale, green leaf, apples, carrots, potatoes and now pumpkin pieces in their enclosures too. I did puree a batch of kale, apples, pears and carrots with some water and they worked that over kind of good too. I think I'm just going to give up the pre packaged stuff and make my own. Should probably throw in some sun flower seeds and/or other seeds or gains though - huh?
 
I'm thinking of putting some into milk bottle lids. I tried putting it into cricket containers and yes it was messy. Turned dry gutload mouldy.:D
 
Cmoore said:
Should probably throw in some sun flower seeds
and/or other seeds or gains though - huh?
Click to expand...

yes, from time to time you need the B vitamins and such that seeds/nuts offer, and which are harder to get from fruit and veg alone.
Spirulina and yeast are also a good addition

https://www.chameleonforums.com/blo...-nuts-seeds-healthy-part-perfect-gutload.html
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/722-sources-b-vitamins.html
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/697-dry-gutload-mix-august-2012.html
 
I've just done this & I'm pretty pleased :D orange, apple, carrot, kale & rocket all blended up, put in ice cube trays & into the freezer. I've been needing to improve my gutloading & this is a great solution
 
Thanks Matt, for this great information! I ran to the store at 9pm last night and picked up some fresh vegetables and fruit just to try it out. I made mine with mustard greens, Kale, apple, oranges, carrots, sweet potato, Cricket crack, Superload and DinoFuel. I took the cubes out of the ice trays this morning and put them in to a sandwich bag and it worked out perfect. I also offer bug burger so I know the bugs should be getting plenty of nutrition and I probably almost don't even need to hardly give the chams to many supplements with this good of a gutload. This will make things a lot easier and it always seems the mustard greens go bad pretty quickly so this is a great option to go with. ;)
 
I know this sounds really terrible but what if I added a few mealworms to this veggie blend? could I also add a multivitamin? Would be kinda funny if my crickets turned into monster crickets larger than my chameleon overnight from this blend LOL
 
SarahcoadunatioZac said:
Thats actually a really good question, should we add a small amount of multivitamin? Maybe replace the need to dust twice a month?
Click to expand...

I'm not really sure how the vitamins would do with being frozen so I can't say. But since I don't know that answer it's better for me to just keep the gutloading and supplementing seperate so that I know exactly what I'm supplementing with and how much.

And as for adding a few worms in the mix, I don't know how much nutrition that would actually add to the gutload, and don't you think your cham would get more joy out of eating them naturally? Lol
 
Ive been trying this for a few days now!! And i think its great :)i added some blueberry and grapes aswell and its alot easier to feed my insects now thanks:D
 
This is a great idea. Been debating on if this was worth the time. I have been offering mixed greens (some romaine, collards, kale, and baby lettuces), shredded carrot, shredded zucchini, and sweet potato. I also offer some basic dry flukers cricket feed simply to try and aid the offset in the P:C ratio.

Time and economic considerations are something I have to consider. Sometimes, I think we make things more complicated than need be.

The biggest thing that comes to my mind, is what can we do to most closely mimic the nutrient load that wild chameleons are intaking.. this goes without saying, to consider what is thrown off by our comparably reduced prey variability in captivity (assuming wild [panther and veiled] chameleons are more or less random opportunists). .

Some of the best results I have yet to see directly is from a group of people that were using NOTHING but the green cricket cubes made by NatureZone..

I am willing to bet, some of the 'tried-and-true' like Kammerflauge and Jim Flaherity put little time and debate into their gut loading. Not saying those as such give little merit to such a topic, but they have something simple that works...
 
When weighing factors such as economic, time, and function (nutrition to the chameleon) it'll be personal on what outcome you have.

When you consider trying to mimic wild Chameleons diet you must remember that the average life span in the wild is much smaller in range then to captivity. Perhaps nutrition is the cause for this?
 
This is so convenient and so easy I think I'll stop past the grocers tmw and pick up a few things, thanks every one
 
Ive also been making one of these for my bearded dragon not for feeding her crickets but to put a blob on her crickets just before i feed it to her in these cubes i use only strawberry butternut squash and carrot and a small ammount of leaf they will be a reddy pinky colour with little green bits through them :) shes a orange coral hypo translucent so i figure this will be benificial for her to bring out her colours:D just thought ide share for anyone who might have something similar.
 
This is so great! I froze 2 dozen cubes and put them in a freezer bag so I can make them in bulk, the crickets were so surprised by it, today I caught them all jumping like crazy! Thanks for the tip!:)
 
SarahcoadunatioZac said:
When you consider trying to mimic wild Chameleons diet you must remember that the average life span in the wild is much smaller in range then to captivity. Perhaps nutrition is the cause for this?
Click to expand...


Although I might begin to dispute this off of a presumed intuition, this makes a good point. It it not at all uncommon to find in-situ photos of wild panthers, that depict animals of slim or poor weight.

A number of reasons why field photos would depict such animals comes to mind.. food for thought, and another thread.. lol

Thanks for the input
 
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