meal word

[kelly261]

can you feed veiled mealworms?
i have a female who is about 4montsh old

 

[jannb]

Use superworms instead. Silkworms are excellent feeders and I sometimes use hornworms. Jann

 

[sandrachameleon]

can you feed veiled mealworms?
i have a female who is about 4montsh old

Yes, you can, but not as a staple.

• Low nutritional value, somewhat fatty, even though you can gutload somewhat, theyre still not suitable for frequent use. Mealworms have a negative calcium to phosphorus ratio (Ca : P). To increase the nutritional value of mealworms they should always be gutloaded and also dusted with vitamin/mineral combinations prior to feeding.
• Hard for chams to digest due to the amount of chintin (sp?) in their skin/exoskeleton, which can cause impaction - this factor can be lessened if you use very freshly molted ones which are white/colourless

You might find these sites interesting:
http://www.grubco.com/Nutritional_Information.cfm
http://www.chameleonnews.com/?page=article&id=92
http://www.chameleonsdish.com/insects/types.htm

That said, they ARE a good addition to a varied diet, they just should NOT be anything near a constant or staple. I offer them once a week, always gutloaded as much as possible, recently molted if possible, and calcium dusted. Mealworms are easy to breed, cheap to keep.

The key, as I see it, is to offer a variety of feeders (both for sake of cham interest, and to allow for -hopefully- a broader nutritional input).
Like jannb suggested, you can use silkworms, small hornworms, as well as a few butterworms (also high in fat, but better calcium content than mealworms, and besides your cham is still growing so a little fat is useful), Kingworms (aka superworms), small stick bugs, small roaches, and of course crickets... etc