Raise food vs. buying food or a little of both

[Tony_S]

My grocery list is getting pretty long on things I need to get ready for chameleon ownership.

How many people raise their own feeders vs those who only buy feeders.

For those that raise, do you just raise multiple species or just raise for example roaches and buy everything else like silks online.

For those who only buy online. What are you spending monthly on food for your chameleon.

I'm thinking I would want to find what my chams favorite food is and raise that on my own and buy the other/treat feeders online.

Thanks,

Tony

 

[jannb]

With only one chameleon buying, except for roaches would probably be best. Some chameleons don’t like roaches and the feeders they normally like the most are worms. I often recommend http://www.lindasgonebuggie.com/page/419991568
for her value pack. You get a variety of three or four feeders for like $20.00. If you get a young chameleon just email Linda and tell her you need a baby chameleon value pack. Linda also allowed you to mix and match feeders in the value pack.

 

[nightanole]

I buy super worms, they live forever and are what $20-30 for 1000 of them.
I buy silk worm eggs and feed them my local trees, they are what 10 buck for 1000 eggs
I raise dubia and feed them my left over salad and work's left over juicer pulp, 2-3 adult dubia cost as much as a mini cheese burger...

 

[JoshD49]

I buy crickets because I just don't feel they are worth me going through all the work. I am starting to breed superworms and have done plenty of silk worms. Silks are harder for me to find and cost a lot.

 

[Zevil]

Breed red runners and dubia, buy crickets, superworms and bsfl. Actually the bsf might be breeding in my cham bioactive enclosure.

 

[JoshD49]

Red runners scare me. I cannot get a solid answer if they can infest in southern California or not.

 

[jannb]

Red runners scare me. I cannot get a solid answer if they can infest in southern California or not.

I bet they could! I hate red runners. They are super fast and look like wild roaches.

 

[Zevil]

Red runners scare me. I cannot get a solid answer if they can infest in southern California or not.

Clean the bin in your toilet, all escapees are trapped in the toilet. Feed them off by putting in a small container in the bin, gently shake the egg crates on the container. Btw red runner egg cases need higher humidity to hatch and they dry out easily.

Oh and smash any escapees before they run into any inaccessible places.

 

[JoshD49]

Clean the bin in your toilet, all escapees are trapped in the toilet. Feed them off by putting in a small container in the bin, gently shake the egg crates on the container. Btw red runner egg cases need higher humidity to hatch and they dry out easily.

Oh and smash any escapees before they run into any inaccessible places.

Not gonna lie, this did not make me feel any more comfortable haha.

 

[jamest0o0]

Red runners scare me. I cannot get a solid answer if they can infest in southern California or not.

It is often hot and dry in SoCal, during this time you'd probably be fine. They need moisture as mentioned for the ootheca. I don't keep them because PA is very humid with a lot of moisture

 

[JacksJill]

This works for me.
I raise superworms. I don't get many but don't need many.
I raise snails. Same
I buy silkworm eggs and raise them in batches.
I buy crickets, BSFL and hornworms
I trade for Dubia nymphs.

 

[CamoChameleonsHuman]

I buy everything. Once I can figure out how to get my kids addicted to dubias I plan on raising those and just buying silkworm eggs and crickets as needed.

 

[Rlc1994]

Right now I’m raising Dubia and silkworms. Nothing crazy I’m still new at this. I’ll buy my super worms in bulk since they really aren’t hard to take care of. Crickets are too smelly to breed in your house unless you have a separate area like a garage or something so I’ll be ordering those. Black soldier fly larvae, blue bottle fly spikes and hornworms will be ordered also. You don’t necessarily have to breed your own insects but it’s nice to have a couple staples on hand at all times. It will save you some money and it’s pretty nice to know how to breed some of these insects the more you know in this hobby the better.

 

[cham_urchin]

i buy it all: cricks, doobies, worms of horn, silk, super and phoenix (bsfl)...from rainbowmealworms.com
I just can't do the colony thing - grosses me way out.
Lookin for get snails in my game.....

 

[Zevil]

Forgot to mention I have a very small species of snails. From what I read, they only grow up to half an inch at the maximum. Not sure if they are worth the trouble.

 

[cham_urchin]

Forgot to mention I have a very small species of snails. From what I read, they only grow up to half an inch at the maximum. Not sure if they are worth the trouble.

yeah, I'm wondering what kind of snails and where to find 'em? The ones I've found online are very big (*crrunch) ....wondering how that would work. Also, don't suppose I can feed the ones breeding in my aquariums?

 

[BECHARD4]

We buy crickets every three weeks. When we don’t have babies we can usually get away with 2000. When we have lots of babies usually buy 8000 every other week.
We buy Phoenix worms and horn worms monthly.
We breed super worms, silk worms and horn worms in the summer, always have fruit fly cultures going.

 

[RyanBRZ]

In my opinion, if your cham willingly eats dubia roaches then you should start a colony. They are on the more expensive side of the feeder spectrum and the cost of maintaining a colony is cheaper than buying them as feeders.

For superworms, they are cheap and last forever. I thought about starting a colony, but it's easier to buy a hundred or so once every 1-2 months.

Silkworms I'm torn with. They are cheap to buy as eggs but feeding them is a pain if you don't have easy access to mulberry leaves. The mulberry chow dries up overnight so it's a constant changing of food almost daily.

Crickets, they smell and wouldn't want to raise them. I buy them as occasional feeders.

 

[snitz427]

Its cheaper to raise your own, but it does come with a level of work. The amount of work depends on the bug - some are very easy to breed and others take a little more effort. You want a good variety for your chameleon so it won’t be a matter of breeding just one bug, but several.

We still buy crickets occassionally and bsfl but are working on those. We are working on breeding a variety of other feeders : silkworms, dubia, green banana roaches, hornworms, superworms, stick & leaf bugs, snails, and isopods. Of those, isopods and roaches are by far the easiest!

 

[dshuld]

In my opinion, if your cham willingly eats dubia roaches then you should start a colony. They are on the more expensive side of the feeder spectrum and the cost of maintaining a colony is cheaper than buying them as feeders.

For superworms, they are cheap and last forever. I thought about starting a colony, but it's easier to buy a hundred or so once every 1-2 months.

Silkworms I'm torn with. They are cheap to buy as eggs but feeding them is a pain if you don't have easy access to mulberry leaves. The mulberry chow dries up overnight so it's a constant changing of food almost daily.

Crickets, they smell and wouldn't want to raise them. I buy them as occasional feeders.

Sorry, that deserves a like but the first part made me laugh a little. I wish discoids were as "cheap" as dubia are .


As to the post, I breed my own discoids (thanks to the crazy prices of them), isopods and supers (though I did recently add fresh blood from @trinac ). I've tried breeding my own horns and bsfl but admittedly, first attempt on both failed. After seeing videos of commercial bsfl farms I'm not overly surprised by my results though. So instead I buy my bsfl from symton and horns locally. Crickets I either buy boxes locally (Armstrong's shipped to my local shop) or go through @trinac (my preferred option now that the 1/8 are contained better . Love the new system for that size ). Silks I do eggs in small batches