Keeping them hungry

[nick barta]

I have been doing an "experiment" with my 2 panther chams, they are 15 months and 19 months old.

When my chams were younger, I tended to keep a lot of food available in the feeding cup (I built my cups similar to the Sunny D feeder, but used PVC pipe with screen). My measure of keeping a lot of food available was that the crickets that did escape would go to the basking light, and if the chams were not hungry, the crickets enjoyed sunbathing.

I might add my enclosures have nothing on the floor for the bugs to hide in; each enclosure has 1 Pathos plant that covers the top 1/2 of the cage. This means I don't have feeders that can elude the tongue for long!

I have always hand fed roaches and butters, as they seem to go untouched in the bottom of the food cup, and hung feeders on the screen like supers, horn worms, and silk worms.

Sometimes when I hand fed, or hung food, I would get no response. I began to notice my escaped crickets were sunbathing in the same time frame.

For the last 5 months, I have been feeding 1-3 times a week, based on my chams behavior. If I hang a worm, and response is immediate, i will put feeders in the food cup; if not, no other food is left for later.

An interesting behavior I have noticed is that both chams now come out of the jungle and wait in front of the food cup when hungry, and stay hidden when not hungry.

The weights of each cham are still increasing, fat deposits are good, general health, hydration (mist king), movement, and grip are good.

I would assume in the wild that chams may gorge when food is plentiful, and have time frames with no food.

How long do you go between feedings with your older chams, and what species and age are they?

Nick

 

[Progrmor]

I have been doing an "experiment" with my 2 panther chams, they are 15 months and 19 months old.

When my chams were younger, I tended to keep a lot of food available in the feeding cup (I built my cups similar to the Sunny D feeder, but used PVC pipe with screen). My measure of keeping a lot of food available was that the crickets that did escape would go to the basking light, and if the chams were not hungry, the crickets enjoyed sunbathing.

I might add my enclosures have nothing on the floor for the bugs to hide in; each enclosure has 1 Pathos plant that covers the top 1/2 of the cage. This means I don't have feeders that can elude the tongue for long!

I have always hand fed roaches and butters, as they seem to go untouched in the bottom of the food cup, and hung feeders on the screen like supers, horn worms, and silk worms.

Sometimes when I hand fed, or hung food, I would get no response. I began to notice my escaped crickets were sunbathing in the same time frame.

For the last 5 months, I have been feeding 1-3 times a week, based on my chams behavior. If I hang a worm, and response is immediate, i will put feeders in the food cup; if not, no other food is left for later.

An interesting behavior I have noticed is that both chams now come out of the jungle and wait in front of the food cup when hungry, and stay hidden when not hungry.

The weights of each cham are still increasing, fat deposits are good, general health, hydration (mist king), movement, and grip are good.

I would assume in the wild that chams may gorge when food is plentiful, and have time frames with no food.

How long do you go between feedings with your older chams, and what species and age are they?

Nick

I think this is a good way to feed your chams. They are not suppose to be able to eat everyday. And with the way you do it, your chams will starting to love you! Since they get food from you. Im to weak of a person to do this... I cant see my little cham not eat for a single day though I still know that they dont need that much. lol

 

[melble68]

Nick do you have any pics of your PVC feeder? Right now I'm using a small feeder cup but need to come up with something better for this spring when we go outside.

 

[coldbloodedAL]

I do things similar around here... No one over a year of age gets fed daily, it's either every other day or two.

One, I think way too many keepers over feed their chameleons.

Two, keeping them a bit hungry, and knowing how they react when food is around is important imo. If you continue to get no feeding response when you normally would, could be a sign something is wrong.

That's for my jacksonii, johnstoni, and pardalis. Most are well above a year of age with one just at a year.

The only exception I have for this principle is the youngins. Most are fed daily to twice daily depending on age/size.

Alex

 

[sandrachameleon]

babies are fed several times daily, every day.

but once they reach a decent near adult size, my panthers and veiled are fed 5 or 6 days a week. The quantity varies though (might be one bug, might be 6+)
If they aren't keenly interested, I know they don't need much.

 

[shaunaroxanne]

I only feed my adults every 2-3 days as well, and they are still chubby! Feeding them this way has ended all feeder strikes, and they never let feeders roam around their enclosures. They see me coming with food dish and they get excited.

 

[ridgebax1]

Both of my guys are under a year old, so the baby gets plenty of food available every day. The older cham also gets offered food daily, some days he eats it all and others maybe only a few bugs. So he clearly has his own schedule but since he is not a year yet, I feel I still need to give him the opportunity to eat daily as who knows when a growth spurt may attack! Once he is over a year, I will back off on the daily food and feed every other day. Clouseau is only a few months old so he will get daily for quite a while. Since I work nights I give them both their daily alottment when I get home and when I get up around 5pm or so all food is gone.

 

[nick barta]

Nick do you have any pics of your PVC feeder? Right now I'm using a small feeder cup but need to come up with something better for this spring when we go outside.

You need access to a band saw, or the cutting is hard by hand, and too dangerous using other power tools.

I got 4 inch black plastic pip from Lowes, cut it 12 inches high, trimmed the bottom with a 1/4 inch cut, sandwiched screen between the main pipe and the 1/4 inch piece, and super glued it for my screened floor.

I then cut the pipe 1/2 way through, 3 inches up from the bottom. Then I cut from the top down to my 3 inch cut, this gave me a half round piece 9 inches long I threw away.

I hot-glued screen to the curved inside, with a 1 inch boarder of plastic pipe, which I covered with 2 inch clear tape.

Nick

 

[Psychobunny]

Nick, I learned too how to tell if my guyz are hungry.
I am used to their behaviour, and they are not little ones anymore, so dont
want food every day.
It only takes a few times of loading their feeder with a dozen or so cricks,
only to have the chams sit there and stair, disinterested at them to learn

They will all gleefully hand feed, so I just offer them one in my hand to see if
they are interested. If not, I just go to the next cham.

I know that if they really are hungry, they will not hesitate to snap up the
food.
Also, age, my oldest, Smeagol, eats and poops about 3 times a week.
But even when not particularly hungry, he will still snap up a stray crick
if he sees one lurking about.
Maybe it's just for 'sport', like cats will do, because if I hand him a crick, he
doesnt want it!!

 

[werecat]

I feed my 2 year old panther every 2-3 days. Since I've had him (7 months) he's never been a big eater but definitely eats and drinks when he needs/desires. I think your method is a good one and realistic to their natural behavior.

I have a forum friend who took this one step further and would weigh his chams regularly. When they reached a point where their weight didn't fluctuate he made that his baseline and would feed them enough to maintain it but would back off when they started going much over.

 

[GrimsbyPatchwork]

I think this is a good way to feed your chams. They are not suppose to be able to eat everyday. And with the way you do it, your chams will starting to love you! Since they get food from you. Im to weak of a person to do this... I cant see my little cham not eat for a single day though I still know that they dont need that much. lol

Great Post!

I had been thinking about this too ...to me it makes perfect sense as to me the perfect chameleon habitat is a habitat that is as close to their natural environment as possible .

Having said that i am sure that they do not mange to eat 15 crickets a day in the wild ...so with gaps in the feeding routines, and variety.. there is not much of a spoilt chameleon which will go on a hunger strike