Gutloading

[zzz]

Hi

I am getting concerned about the amount of really good nutrition my chameleon is getting. He is feeding well but mostly is partial to worms ( all types) It seems that the only feeder that can be well gutloaded is crickets. I give proprietary dry gutload and make fresh salad on a daily basis. However he will only eat them about once a week.
Therefore he is only getting a well gutloaded feeder once a week. Locusts and worms dont gut load well ( or at least im not managing to get them to do it. I do feed dry gut load and fresh veg to supers.

If health is all about the nutrition what can i do to improve this?

 

[Extensionofgreen]

Superworms will gutload of fresh butternut squash, sweet potatoes, chopped greens, and so forth. What have you tried for the locusts? Try sprouting trays of chia, wheat grass, millet, timothy hay, and similar grass/grains, in a sunny window and they should now them down.

 

[nightanole]

A super can be 10% gut load by weight. A cricket is 15-20% gut load by weight depending on size/species, but they have a much higher undigestable chitin content. If the difference between a healthy cham and a unhealthy cham is based off of the 10% bw of undigested veg matter of a feeder, you have bigger issues.

 

[Andee]

Sprouting seedlings is a huge way to get healthy vitamins and other nutrients into your grasshoppers/locusts. I have a native species here that will only eat sprouts. But they are also some of the most nutrient way to eat grains for captive animals that don't get a lot of sun and normal greens. It's recommended a lot of parrots and parakeets. It can in fact take the place of pellets for birds if you do it on a daily basis with various species of sprouts. The ones I have had most success with my grasshoppers (remember these aren't locusts so your guys may like something different) is wheat grass, chia, and clover seeds that haven't had added fertilizers or pesticides. I have not actually tried millet, but I don't know why I haven't other than I didn't think about it XD I have tons of the stuff. Sesame seeds should sprout easy too, rye berries. There should be some easy to get wheat berries too. You can buy either online, but if you have a bulk store nearby or a grocery store with a bulk item aisle you should be able to find it all. You just need to look for whole items and stuff that has not been hulled. There should be directions for actually sprouting stuff for birds, which should work just fine for this, or you can just do what I do for when I have a grasshopper colony going and have four to five trays going at once with organic soil or coconut fiber like EE that I add some sort of casting too that my insects make, and then I just sprout the seeds in those and have a continuous rotations going.