Picky eater!

[dodolah]

Are they? I was under the impression waxworms had a higher fat content and less real nutrition than supers.

you are right!
Wax worm is the junk food
Supers are more nutritious than wax worm but both contain high fat.
Supers have slightly whack ratio pf Ca. so, you need to balance the ratio by gutloading them and dust them be4 feeding.
Have you tried hornworms and butter worms?
Those are the feeders I used when I need to make them gain weight a little bit.

 

[GooglezNvincent]

you are right!
Wax worm is the junk food
Supers are more nutritious than wax worm but both contain high fat.
Supers have slightly whack ratio pf Ca. so, you need to balance the ratio by gutloading them and dust them be4 feeding.
Have you tried hornworms and butter worms?
Those are the feeders I used when I need to make them gain weight a little bit.

Nice i just got some hornworms on order so i will be getting them in a couple days, should i also dust them?

 

[dodolah]

Nice i just got some hornworms on order so i will be getting them in a couple days, should i also dust them?

you may dust them.
just not too much (they breathe thru little holes on the side of their body. you do not want to fill that hole with calcium dust).
All my cham go crazy for hornworms.
They are excellent for medicating and hydrating chameleon.

Hornworms contains higher protein and lots of water.
Plus, you can inject them with medicine. So, you won't have to force med your chams.

 

[Murrdox]

I'm waiting for some hornworms to arrive on order. I've never used them before, so it should be fun.

I haven't offered him any crickets for two days. Offered him one this morning... he gave me this look with his eyes that just seriously said "You really think I'm going to eat that?".

Then I presented him with a waxworm and I had his undivided attention. I'll just keep him on worms for awhile (not going to exclusively feed him waxworms) and then I'll try reintroducing crickets next week. As long as he doesn't look horribly underweight which is what I was worried about, especially after his burn.

In your picture of your enclosure to me it looks like a regular light bulb and that is the only concern i have with the pictures you took.

I noticed because of the angle of the picture I took it completely obscures the linear hood I have on the back-side of the cage. I do have a linear 5.0 UVB bulb in there.

 

[dodolah]

Since you never introduce him hornworms before, he might get a bit wary.
Just be patient, i am sure as soon as he goobles one, he probably will like it a lot.

 

[GooglezNvincent]

you may dust them.
just not too much (they breathe thru little holes on the side of their body. you do not want to fill that hole with calcium dust).
All my cham go crazy for hornworms.
They are excellent for medicating and hydrating chameleon.

Hornworms contains higher protein and lots of water.
Plus, you can inject them with medicine. So, you won't have to force med your chams.

No way!!! thats tight, what kind of medicine do you inject them with?!

 

[Murrdox]

Thanks everyone for the feedback in ensuring Rygel isn't underweight. He's still off crickets, but he's pounding away at superworms and waxworms right now. Waiting on hornworms to introduce him to them.

On a slightly gross note... he gets a little carried away with superworms. He grabs them, and tends to... crunch them in half. So sometimes he only gets half a superworm, leaving the severed tail on the bottom of the cage.

Interestingly, once he did this... and the tail of the superworm fell on a leaf right in front of him. I fully expected him to ignore it... but he just scooped it back up in his mouth and finished it off.

However,

I have an additional question.

I recently read a thread on here where someone mentioned a panther "throwing black bars" as a mark of stress, and normally they shouldn't do this.

My panther regularly displays colors like this while he is basking. He'll have some black bars on his skin, and sometimes he'll be more light brown than bright green/blue. See the pictures on the first page of this thread to get an idea.

Now, I thought he was just being a darker color to absorb more light. However, now I'm a little concerned that he's stressed out regularly, even though he's pretty healthy overall.

My initial thinking right now, is that perhaps the hibiscus plant in his cage has lost a few too many leaves (it was pruned recently) and he's stressed out because he feels exposed. I was thinking about replacing his plant, maybe adding a second one if I can make enough room in his cage for more. Unfortunately I can't clearly remember if he was regularly brown with black bars BEFORE the pruning. I think he may still have been sometimes, but not as often.

I'm just sort of curious if there are any other Nosy Be owners out there who had issues with their chameleon "throwing black bars" and what worked to help the problem.

 

[leid]

Chameleons will become darker if they're basking, as in the wild dark attracts more light. When they become warmer their color turns lighter, as no more sun needs to be attracted.

 

[dodolah]

No way!!! thats tight, what kind of medicine do you inject them with?!

You can inject them with any kind of medicine.
Panacur, Ponazuril, Reptaid, Baytril, etc etc.
Just make sure your chameleon is hungry and will eat the worms quick.
Because after that injection, the worm won't survive for long.

 

[Murrdox]

Soooo....

Rygel is back on worms. He ignored crickets for 3 days in a row, he's nowhere near a shed, and he's been doing a good job gaining a little weight and I didn't want to lose that progress. Unfortunately the petstore near me was out of superworms and all I could get him were some giant mealworms. Of course, he went for them right away.

I'm going to get some superworms for him, and I think I'll just let him stay on those for awhile. Hopefully he'll get tired of them and go back on crickets.

I wish I could get some silkworms... finances are just a little tough right now and shipping those things out is a bit expensive. I'll probably order him some before the end of the month though, assuming he stays on worms.