Naturalistic Diet

[PetNcs]

That may be enough to push it into a wet/dry season hybrid. Your right, alot of those rain days are at night, or evening.

I mist the same, I do, do an afternoon mist. However I turn off the basking light, and the LEDs 30 mins before the mist, and do not turn them back on till 30 mins after. To simulate cloud cover and reduce temps, and give warning.

ansolutely correct

 

[skoram]

I think you are missing what I'm getting at a bit. Anyone here that knows me, knows I've been keeping chameleons as naturally as possible for a while now. My enclosures were even bioactive when there was only like 1 or 2 other active members doing that. Point being, I'm no way against natural methods. What I was calling out was the nonsense that he was and is still saying. He wants respect, but then talks like some holistic healer.

Look at the original post of his that sparked this. He talks about human lifespans(contradicting his own point of natural is always good, artificial always bad!). He says that feeding spirulina and different gutload mixes are unnatural and are knocking years off chameleons. Total nonsense backed by nothing. I appreciate what he's done, but the way he speaks to people on here is a joke. I've tried to be friendly and he starts off on people immediately. He has serious ego issues that get in the way of him actually getting his message across. Anyone on his side in the moment he kisses up to(as you just saw), but ask him one question that he disagrees with and you'll be on his hit list.

So to be clear, for sun exposure, temperatures, diet requirements, among others, yes mimicking nature would probably be ideal. Even then it's tricky because they do die during their droughts which has been brought up, showing that there is a good chance their natural conditions aren't optimal. I don't know for certain though, just stating the possibility. For diet, it's crazy to say anything, but their natural foods would be detrimental. I'm sure our ancestors didn't have a wide range of fruits and vegetables. If they did, they would have lived longer. To me, it makes sense that this applies to other animals as well, within reason.

My post wasn't aimed at you at all. Your comments didn't occupy any space in my head for even a fraction of a second while typing this. I certainly wasn't trying to take any "sides." I was just trying to say, as diplomatically as possible, that Petr has very valuable knowledge to share about natural conditions in the wild and that this information has vital importance for how we raise our chameleons in captivity. It doesn't necessarily mean that we should try to replicate those conditions. It's up to us as surrogate "parents" to determine what may be good to copy, what is a suitable alternative and what can be done better, but that those decisions should, to the greatest extent possible, be based on hard evidence and scientific data, especially data on wild conditions. I made clear through a lengthy post in another thread my stance on "natural" vs. "artificial."

Ultimately I think both "sides" in this thread have valid points about diet. I don't typically agree with someone who says this is the "best, right and only" way to do something but I think there needs to be a level of understanding and forgiveness on these forums given the limitations of online communication and language barriers. Petr's information obviously should not be ignored because it is based on science and direct observation. It's for us to use and interpret that information within the scope of other factors - additional research, anecdotal evidence and experience, practical limitations, etc.

Personally, I feed my chameleons 99% crickets. This is not by choice. I live in Korea so no other feeders are available aside from super/mealworms, silkworms and fruit flies (my panthers showed absolutely NO interest in silkworms and it is illegal to import any species of roach to Korea). They are fine and "healthy" but my guess is they would be happier and healthier if they were fed a more varied diet similar to what they consume in the wild. In the summer I occasionally catch some grasshoppers, locusts and cicadas for feeders, which they love.

 

[cyberlocc]

So I think I mentioned here my "Gutload" idea, of Pollen and Agar, of which we thought Agar best to not use.

Anyway, I know I talked about using Apple Sauce. So my Beetles that I plan to feed this pretty much exclusively, have yet to emerge, thought I would mix a test batch and give it a shot with roaches.

So my current attempted mix.

1 little cup of my kids organic unsweetened applesauce (I used 2 little cups, 4oz each cup)

2 Hefty Tsps (rounded tops) of Pollen (per Cup, so I used 4)

1/2 Tsp Stevia (so I used 1 tsp. For the beetles, they like sweet stuff. Most beetle foods have brown sugar, I felt stevia as close to nectar as I can get ATM, will sweeten and Naturally)

I added a small dash of Calcium Plus LoD, just to fill in any gaps. Likely not nesscary but I felt a small dash couldn't hurt.

The result is a thick, creamy substance, like a thicker apple sauce I guess with a golden honey like color. I tasted it, it's very sweet and very strange, not something I would eat lol.



So gave the roaches a milk cap full, with their normal Dry food, usually I add a veggie or fruit and the dry food. The result is they usually eat my dry stuff first. This time, well here my OHs after putting the Viv away to feed the Hissers.

Blue cap is their dry food. The little gold area, is the mix. Both of these pics are after scaring some away, by messing around the Viv.

So the mix is a hit with the roaches at least. Hopefully will be with the Beetles too.

 

[cyberlocc]

Lol update.

They have already ate all of it. In under 10 mins...

The Hissers like it too. They tend to eat less, and are not as crazzy as the OHs with Eating, they tend to eat their Leaf litter more than the Foods. But they are taking this.

 

[jamest0o0]

Very cool. I have so many hissers I can put a whole cluster of bananas in(with the peel still on) and in about a day there are no traces left lol. Something fun about watching them swarm.

 

[cyberlocc]

Very cool. I have so many hissers I can put a whole cluster of bananas in(with the peel still on) and in about a day there are no traces left lol. Something fun about watching them swarm.

My colony is smaller than my OHs, for sure. However they dont really swarm like that for me, I am not sure why. I feed both colonies twice a week usually and soak their cages (with light misting when feeding from them)

The hissers I only have to feed 1 time per week, with the dry food, and wet I pull out on the next feed and dont replace. They just dont eat?? I give them a bunch of oak leaf litter though, and they do eat that, they eat a lot of it, I have to replace the leaf litter once every couple weeks, with a few handfuls of crushed dried leaves. Do you give your Halloweens leaf litter? I have been told, that is the majority of their wild diet.

Now that I know the wings thing with the OHs, I have about 12 adult OHs, and about 50 adult hissers. I have a metric ton of baby OHs though, and while I have a lot of baby hissers, they grow very slowly.

The tanks are heated on the back sides (pics are the front) front is open to light ATM, might put a cupboard door though been debating it (More so to protect the floor level glass, already had one get broken ) In the back, there is a large cork flat, that sits on the back wall, 2-3 inches from the wall on the bottom, and touching the glass on top. Its the hottest spot, and most humid as I have moss and a large pile of litter back there. Thats where the adults pretty much always stay, with the exception of a couple being out and about all day.

 

[jamest0o0]

My colony is smaller than my OHs, for sure. However they dont really swarm like that for me, I am not sure why. I feed both colonies twice a week usually and soak their cages (with light misting when feeding from them)

The hissers I only have to feed 1 time per week, with the dry food, and wet I pull out on the next feed and dont replace. They just dont eat?? I give them a bunch of oak leaf litter though, and they do eat that, they eat a lot of it, I have to replace the leaf litter once every couple weeks, with a few handfuls of crushed dried leaves. Do you give your Halloweens leaf litter? I have been told, that is the majority of their wild diet.

Now that I know the wings thing with the OHs, I have about 12 adult OHs, and about 50 adult hissers. I have a metric ton of baby OHs though, and while I have a lot of baby hissers, they grow very slowly.

The tanks are heated on the back sides (pics are the front) front is open to light ATM, might put a cupboard door though been debating it (More so to protect the floor level glass, already had one get broken ) In the back, there is a large cork flat, that sits on the back wall, 2-3 inches from the wall on the bottom, and touching the glass on top. Its the hottest spot, and most humid as I have moss and a large pile of litter back there. Thats where the adults pretty much always stay, with the exception of a couple being out and about all day.

For a while I was in the same spot, seemed like my halloweens ate nothing. Sounds like your set up is good, they took me a couple years to get established. Always provided them leaf litter, but honestly at this point they eat it so fast I'd need garbage bags of leaves to keep up.

 

[cyberlocc]

For a while I was in the same spot, seemed like my halloweens ate nothing. Sounds like your set up is good, they took me a couple years to get established. Always provided them leaf litter, but honestly at this point they eat it so fast I'd need garbage bags of leaves to keep up.

Ya I had seen your post about the same back in 17 lol.

I got a TON of little babies, but man they stay little for what seems like forever. Whenever I pick up the food bowl though, there is hundreds of little tiny 1/4 inch roaches scurrying. So in a few months, I will likely be in the same boat lol. I heard it takes them 6+ months to become adults, which is much slower than other roaches.


Sounds like a good side hustle! Throw up a Clist Ad, raking up Leaves . Then take the bags home and make a profit!

I got my Harlequinns recent leaves like that. We were at my wife's aunt house, and they were raking up all the oak leaves in the backyard, so I grabbed some Walmart bags and filled them up lolol.

 

[jamest0o0]

Ya I had seen your post about the same back in 17 lol.

I got a TON of little babies, but man they stay little for what seems like forever. Whenever I pick up the food bowl though, there is hundreds of little tiny 1/4 inch roaches scurrying. So in a few months, I will likely be in the same boat lol. I heard it takes them 6+ months to become adults, which is much slower than other roaches.


Sounds like a good side hustle! Throw up a Clist Ad, raking up Leaves . Then take the bags home and make a profit!

I got my Harlequinns recent leaves like that. We were at my wife's aunt house, and they were taking up all the oak leaves in the backyard, so I grabbed some Walmart bags and filled them up lolol.

Yeah man it seemed like forever. They also seemed very sensitive. Eventually they blew up and now I'm afraid to open the bin.

Haha sounds like me with the leaves, we just moved here and have tons of maples and some oaks. I've been stockpiling the dead leaves and other chunks of rotten wood in the corner of my yard near the woods.