Suzapalooza
New Member
Hi all -
We recently started feeding our male veiled Neil (10-months) hornworms and silkworms, in addition to crickets and butterworms.
He's not particularly fond of the silkworms, and will eat crickets if there is nothing else, but LOVES hornworms. We've been feeding him only the smaller worms - didn't realize how fast they grow! Holy cow!
I've heard various stories about how they can bite, and how some cham owners even remove their jaw before feeding, but didn't think too much about it until this morning.
Neil nabbed a worm by the tail-end and it swung around and latched onto his lower jaw! He put up a foot in what appeared to be a swipe attempt to get it off his face. A couple more chomps and it fell to the floor of the cage, still alive.
I scooped up the worm and mashed it's head flat. The worm was still moving, so I draped it over a branch to see if Neil would go for it again. Worm was still there six hours later (and sort of alive - ugh) so I trashed it.
How do you remove the hornworm jaw so they won't bite? Or do you just crush that end?
We're only feeding the smaller ones (I have a friend with a beardie who's taking the big dudes off our hands. Way too big for Neil!). Crazy how fast those things grow.
We recently started feeding our male veiled Neil (10-months) hornworms and silkworms, in addition to crickets and butterworms.
He's not particularly fond of the silkworms, and will eat crickets if there is nothing else, but LOVES hornworms. We've been feeding him only the smaller worms - didn't realize how fast they grow! Holy cow!
I've heard various stories about how they can bite, and how some cham owners even remove their jaw before feeding, but didn't think too much about it until this morning.
Neil nabbed a worm by the tail-end and it swung around and latched onto his lower jaw! He put up a foot in what appeared to be a swipe attempt to get it off his face. A couple more chomps and it fell to the floor of the cage, still alive.
I scooped up the worm and mashed it's head flat. The worm was still moving, so I draped it over a branch to see if Neil would go for it again. Worm was still there six hours later (and sort of alive - ugh) so I trashed it.
How do you remove the hornworm jaw so they won't bite? Or do you just crush that end?
We're only feeding the smaller ones (I have a friend with a beardie who's taking the big dudes off our hands. Way too big for Neil!). Crazy how fast those things grow.
