How much do you feed a juvenile veiled chameleon?

[alaskachick]

I'm not sure if I'm feeding my little girl the right amount. She is about 5 months old. I usually feed her 6-8 crickets + 2-3 worms in the morning, then about 1/2 that amount after work in the late afternoon. Is it possible to overfeed chameleons? Or do they stop when they are full?

 

[Alexl]

Of course you can overfeed a chameleon - and lots of chameleon in captivity are definitely overfed.

In nature you will have days, weeks and even months without any food. As soon as an chameleon sees an insect, he will try to catch it. There is no safety he will find tomorrow same amount of food, so this chameleon will eat as much as he can. Chameleons aren't domesticated pets, so they will show same behaviour in captivity.

People don't remember this at home. We don't imitate longer periods without food or shaded days without a really sunny place to warm up and fasten metabolism, lots of people even don't provide a lower temperatured winter rest. Our chameleons can't climb and walk a hundred feet to look after females or feeders, they sit in a small cage. And remember, reptiles do not use 70% of their energy to keep their temperature, they just walk to a sunny place and that's it. They need a lot less food than we as mammals or our dogs and cats do. And they take more time to digest food even in a warm place (humans need some hours to digest food, some reptiles need three or four days). Of cause, feeding is fun for us to watch and an employment for our bored animals at home. But the result of feeding too much will be fat livers, renal diseases, gout and females laying 80 eggs and decrasing life time (although they could lay only 20 restrictively fed, too). All those things aren't that seldom at the vet's.

Your feeding amount is a lot, I wouldn't feed worms as regular food. A chameleon with six month should get its first days without food, becoming more days without feeders on and on. A restrictive fed chameleon will become older (and healthier) than a really much fed one.

 

[schmidt1894]

What I have observed with my Cham... That she will eat till she's full. So, don't limit the amount of food to be offered. Give much as they are willing to take, they'll stop when they are full.

 

[Alexl]

What I have observed with my Cham... That she will eat till she's full. So, don't limit the amount of food to be offered. Give much as they are willing to take, they'll stop when they are full.

They stop when they're so full they'll get a fat liver and renal failure from the high fat and protein intake later on. That's a really dangerous advice. Even a young chameleon can be overfed easily, although lots of people teach keepers to let half a year old chameleons "eat as much as it wants". Of cause you can't see their increasing abdominal fat pads from the outside, but not seeing it doesn't mean they're not there.

 

[DavidBuchan]

I think you are overfeeding your girl a little bit, she is older now and doesn't need as many feeders as she did when she was a baby. It is definitely time to take Alexls advice and have some days with no food.
If you let her be as hot as she likes and have as much food as she likes it will shorten her life, by making her metabolism go faster. It's really that simple. Here is a great all-round caresheet for Veileds that gives recommended amounts of feeders at different ages - https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/chameleonsinmyhouse/395-veiled-chameleon-care-sheet.html

 

[MollyT]

Mine is a 12 week old male, and he eats about 9 in the morning, and 9 later in the afternoon. Sometimes a little less.

 

[PIP MAN]

So its ok for a female veiled chameleon to decrease its eating amount? I have a 4 & a half month old female veiled. She use to eat 5 to 8 of combined crickets/worms. Now she only eats 4 to 5 of them every other day (or 2 to 3 a day). But she looks healthy and very active.

 

[Alexl]

It's not only ok, it's necessary to keep them healthy and long living. If a healthy chameleon always stops eating before the cup's empty, you're still feeding too much. They should never be "full" (hand feeding is another thing, cause some chameleons don't like to take feeders from human hands).