Gutload

[Chamillonaire]

What is some good Gutloading foods. And do I need to still give the insects water

 

[Crazy Pet Lady]

All sorts of goodies, apple, bananas, veggies. Yes they should still have a water source, but not an open container, they drown. Most people here use water crystals. You can buy them dry and hydrate them yourself or purchase them wet. Fluker's calls them cricket quencher. There are other brands as well. There are also pre-made gut loads available, I use Total Bites by Nature Zone. There are other brands of this also.

 

[sandrachameleon]

I dont give water to crickets or roaches or anything else - they get all they need from the fresh fruit and vegetables.

Gutloading info: https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/75-feeder-nutrition-gutloading.html

 

[warpdrive]

hi Chamillonaire,

personaly, I gutload with things like:
greens-
Kale, collardgreens, dandelion, and romaine.

fruit or water sorce-
carrots, sweetpotato, reg potato, orange slices...sometimes strawberries and blueberries.

there is no need for a water sorce or water dish if using a wet gutload like the above items.

I also use a dry gutload that is hand made from https://www.chameleonforums.com/members/ssimsswiss/ ....
the gutload is called "cricket crack"...I used to make my own dry gutload, but I feel this is far better.

I will say this about dry gutloads...you need to add a slice of orange or carrots to give some moisture to the crickets, and most of the dry gutloads you find in petstores are total crap for our chameleons.

maybe it's just me, but I realy hate dry gutloads (besides cricket crack), as they are good for the crickets, but realy bad for our chams.
besides, you can't beat fresh vegies and fruits for the well being of our chams.

Harry

 

[Chamillonaire]

Thank You

 

[nightcrawler]

If you are unsure about anything you can check this site (http://www.greenigsociety.org/foodchart.htm). Its for an iguanas diet, but the contents of the food is the same so it doesn't matter. You want to make sure you have food with good calcium to phos ratio. Collard is like 14:1 or so and that is bitchin when it comes to ratios. Phos causes problems with calcium absorption in chameleons, and they need a lot of calcium. I try to avoid food items with more phos then calcium.

 

[gwjones777]

If you are unsure about anything you can check this site (http://www.greenigsociety.org/foodchart.htm). Its for an iguanas diet, but the contents of the food is the same so it doesn't matter. You want to make sure you have food with good calcium to phos ratio. Collard is like 14:1 or so and that is bitchin when it comes to ratios. Phos causes problems with calcium absorption in chameleons, and they need a lot of calcium. I try to avoid food items with more phos then calcium.

That's a good site and so is this http://www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutrition.html

 

[jannb]

All the veggies above are good plus a meamber here sales the dry gutload:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/gutload-sale-30579/

 

[tkilgour]

All sorts of goodies, apple, bananas, veggies. Yes they should still have a water source, but not an open container, they drown. Most people here use water crystals. You can buy them dry and hydrate them yourself or purchase them wet. Fluker's calls them cricket quencher. There are other brands as well. There are also pre-made gut loads available, I use Total Bites by Nature Zone. There are other brands of this also.

The gutloads she mentioned will all work well. Just if using bananas, use a limited amount of them, to much is bad for chameleons. Apples, oranges, collard greens, melon, all work well.