Leave bugs in viv

[Tommy Bonnet]

To each there own! But for the safty of your cham just don't leave them in over night. Especially because I belive crickets are more active at night?

 

[jajeanpierre]

Dumping a hundred crickets at a time in should NOT be done, the crickets will eat and bite at the chameleon while sleeping and does happen. Didn't happen to my cham but has happened to a leopard gecko I rescued. You can leave the feeders in during the day but take them out when the lights go out.

I've never had a problem, even with babies. I think the problem happens if you have starving, malnourished crickets.

I am very careful to make sure my crickets are very well fed before they go in. Once cleaning out a cage full of babies, I found what must have been over a hundred baby crickets that had been hiding in the foliage. I did remove them all and was a little more careful to only put in what the babies were likely to eat.

I do give my crickets a food source especially in the baby cages. Crickets left in will also have lost most of their dust, so aren't as nutritious.

 

[Carlton]

Cricket bites aside, if you dump 100 crickets at a time in the cage after the first day the nutrition is worthless. Think about it, no gut load, dust is gone; you are leaving your chameleon to eat basically an empty shell.

To me this is the bigger issue with dumping a bunch of feeders into the cage loose. If there's nothing desirable for them to eat in the cage they are going to be eating dead plant material, fecal matter, dead feeders, shed skin and exoskeletons, and who knows what else. Also, they groom the supplement dusts off themselves pretty quickly so the cham isn't getting much of that very often either. I always keep a prescription bottle on its side in the cage where the bugs can find it with some fresh gutload in it.

Oh I really had to laugh at what the pet shop person said about the cham and its food being friends!!! Right up until the friend becomes LUNCH! Now that is one ignorant shop employee!