sure that is what most people use for a staple is cricks imo, improperly balanced/gutloaded/and usually over dusted.
montanes are metabolically sensitive, which means they dont deal well with severe or long term imbalances. imo, montanes are no different. generally speaking most of the same rules apply, montanes are just more sensitive to deviation from them.
imo far too many keepers base their diet on cricks?, which are 200% higher in phosphorus than the desired target ratio of Ca/p 2;1 and excessively exoskeletal
imo, whether montane or not, no single feeder should make up more than 40% of the overall diet and imo cricks a are poor choice for that due to their adverse ca/p ratio and exoskeletal structure.
also if you look at a significant # of floats from chams with suspected metabolic/digestive issues its not uncommon to see lots of of undigested cricket legs. cricks are just hard to digest. crick legs are highly exoskeletal have hard sharp spines and its not uncommon under a microscope to see balls of crick legs intertwined together resembling a ball of barbed wire. imo this is especially common in animals that are frequently over fed, and/or impacted.
dubia have similliar appearance but they are not as hard exoskelatally speaking the barbs on their legs are much softer, not as sharp, and microscopy usually reveals them to be much more digested, i have never seen dubia leg intertwined in the same manor. plus they are just better nutritionally.
imo the overwhelming majority of issues in the help forms are either diet or supp related, and basing their diet off of mostly cricks is just asking for an eventual metabolic breakdown. if you look at the metabolic issues commonly found in the help forms imo, you will find several common denominators;
1.a diet based mostly on cricks, most likely imo improperly prepared at that. imo a good way to exaggerate all metabolic problems, not to mention the eventual likelyhood of hyperphosphatemia. also its common to see frequent feeding of highly undesireable feeders like wax worms. imo, anyone who feeds wax worms has not done any nutritional cham study and likely does not have an understanding of proven basic cham nutritional requirements (just to clarify, waxworms are depending on source* a minimum of 800% too high in phosphorous and even higher in fat than protein).
you will also notice that many of the diets in the help clinics are based 80%+ on cricks? i mean really???? this strongly indicates a complete disregard/lack of study of established cham feeder nutritional values!!!!????.
2. imo, an indication of excessive or excessively imbalanced preformed vitamin supplementation
3. either a complete lack of knowledge of commonly accepted basic nutritional principles or just plain disregard thereof.
often when people write /pm me for help, one of the things they want to do is qualify their post about all they study on diet/supp/nutritional info they have done. yet upon reviewing their post it becomes obvious that many, even most, have not grasped their own research and either do not understand, or just plain disregard established nutritional/dietatary/supplemental guidelines imo the vast majority of the metabolic problems in the health clinic could be avoided by just some IN DEPTH study of both the beautiful dragons food chart and Sandrachameleons exceptionally awesome nutritional blog
xanths are no different, generally speaking most of the same rules apply, they are just more sensitive to variations from them..
http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutritionframeset.html
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/nutritional-information/
notice i say in depth study. i think the point that many keepers fail to grasp is that study is not the same as just casually one time reading something that is easily forgettable.
imo, study means read it, until you have a basic understanding and retention of it, and to return to it as long as their are still things to be gleaned or retained from it. if their is still things you dont understand from it, then take a few min to google (and study) outside sources.* note in the above statement i mentioned " depending on source", this is why i advocate studying form multiple sources, not just cf or the links provided from there.
multiple sources often have conflicting, but often both viable info, so imo having a broad study base certainly helps. after a while you just get a sense of which one applies best to the situation plus it helps to build up a substantial libray of reference links.
imo, just having casually one time read a few posts or one time casually visited bd nutritional charts or Sandrachameleons nutritional blog does not constitute study.
imo, a little actual effort, like actually taking it seriously, (as if your chams life or at least your wallet) depended on it, goes a long way. imo taking a few notes doesnt hurt understanding the issue either. jmo
