Superworms: consensus?

susurrus

susurrus

New Member
So in all the threads I had read within the last week any mention of superworms also says they shouldn't be used as staple feeders. Most of what I had read on the forums and elsewhere had been that superworms would be fine as a staple feeder in so much as any one feeder should be.

Is there any sort of consensus on this? I thought the issue was locked down.
 
I have never heard that Supers would be bad as a staple feeder. They are higher in fat than crickets, but you would likely feed less of them. Variety is best, and personally I use Supers and Crickets equally as staples, with silks, horns, and roaches as secondaries. Here is Grubco's nutritional breakdown link:
http://www.grubco.com/Nutritional_Information.cfm
 
But all those worm species are fat and very unnatural. Would a chameleon in the wildlife ever catch a superworm ? No
Maybe all 1-2 weeks a few worms but not more. Except gravid females, they could get them faster
 
No. But they would never find any food in Jemen that's nearly fat as all this worm stuff. Worms are general not a normal food for Chameleons, the same with little mice. They will never find something like that in their natural habitat
 
If I was living out in the wild I'm sure I wouldn't be able to find a box of Cheez-Its, but I'm sure I could live off them just fine.

Dammit, now I want some Cheez-Its.
 
eisentrauti said:
No. But they would never find any food in Jemen that's nearly fat as all this worm stuff. Worms are general not a normal food for Chameleons, the same with little mice. They will never find something like that in their natural habitat
Click to expand...

Not all worms are high in fat content, some have very good nutritional value.
Here is a quote from one of the site sponsors webpage in regards to hornworms


" They are extremely healthy. They are high in calcium, low in fat, have no chitin or exoskeleton so your animal will not have trouble digesting them. All this provides more usable nutrition for your animals.

Calcium - 46.4mg/100g
Fat - 3.07% "

I think it's a much safer choice to offer variety to these animals we keep in captivity in attempts to provide the best quality of life. Of course, there are just some feeders we won't get which are found in the wild. So we must get as close to the nutritional side of what those feeders would have provided.
This just my opinion and how I choose to feed... Variety!
 
I agree that supers do not make a good staple feeder. Even though you can gutload them to make them more nutritious, They are VERY high in fat. That said, some people do have chameleons that eat these as their primary diet.

I advocate for not having a staple feeder at all, but rather a variety of feeder insects. I offer supers (aka kingworms aka zophobas) about once a week, sometimes twice a week. Other feeder options: crickets (gutload), roaches (gutload), silkworms, moths, isopods (wood sows), etc

Here's a list of feeder options
 
panthercrazy said:
" They are extremely healthy. They are high in calcium, low in fat, have no chitin or exoskeleton so your animal will not have trouble digesting them. All this provides more usable nutrition for your animals.

Calcium - 46.4mg/100g
Fat - 3.07% "
Click to expand...

Hi,

yes they seems to be an exeption, well I don't know them, over the ocean we don't have them. But as I said before, Chameleons, espacially Montane species don't need much food. So I don't know why to feed superworms. The only reason why to take them is in my opinion that they are cheaper and easier to handle with. But just because of those two reasons I would never give them to my Chameleons
 
I beleive it was SandraChameleon that said we could all remove the term "staple feeder" from our understandings and be better off. I agree. In captivity our Chams will not get what they eat in the wild, period. Our best recourse is then to offer VARIETY, feed the feeders healthy food, and the Cham will choose what suits them. Keep a variety of food avilable, and like us, sometimes one food will be taken exclusively, other times ignored. This is not a regimented science but a laboratory experiment for all of us.

Sometimes it seems we worry WAY too much on issues like, "how many 3/8 inch crickets a 17-3/4 week old panther weighing 2.77 grams should eat in 24 hours, I don't want to underfeed or overfeed him." Keep lots of various insects available, and don't worry about it.

There are no set answers to the particulars of raising Chams, just general needs to be met. The enjoyment of the hobby can be drained from the keeper who sweats the small stuff. If I am spending more time looking for the Holy Grail of Cham keeping than enjoying my Chams, perhaps it is time to log off! Stop and smell the Butter Worms (the only feeder i know that smells good)!!!


I have dismounted my soapbox, and have returned to the ground. I surely subverted this thread, and it has nothing to do with the original poster. I need some Cheez-Its (or Madagascan Pork Rinds).:rolleyes:

Nick:D
 
nick barta said:
sometimes one food will be taken exclusively, other times ignored. This is not a regimented science but a laboratory experiment for all of us.
Click to expand...

But the chameleon doesn't know what it's the best for it. Why do you think why so much reptils in captivity die because of adiposias ?

In the nature they are programmed to eat as much as they can - because it could be that this will be their last meal for the next week/weeks. But in captivity that would never happen.

When a chameleon doesn't want to eat dubias for example, give him a week nothing and it will eat them with no problems.
 
Im kind of tired of typing the same stuff ever so often, so I'll just quote myself:

albacheck said:
We have to stop humanizing these animals, reptiles have a completly different metabolism then we have.

You need to consider that the density of food in their natural habitats fluctates seasonaly, meaning that there are times, where they can stuff themselves and times where they will hardly find anything to nibble on.
Thus in their natural habitats those individuals, who eat as much as possible during the season rich of food, will have better chances surviving the season with little food, because they can live of their fat depot -> thus have a higher fitness(can bear more offspring).
No we take the chameleon from it's habitat and stick it into an enclosure.
The genes of the chameleon still "say" <<eat as much as possible>>.
And if offered food, it will eat and eat and eat and eat... (since this has worked in the wild)
If offered larvae often (that contain a lot of fat, that they need in order to go through their metamorphosis) which chameleons will most seldomly find in nature, but turn out to be good way of getting some extra calories, they start to get picky.
In order to find prey chameleons often have to activly go hunting, in captivity they can comfortably shoot their prey out of a bowl, hardly having to move an inch, thus saving energy.

Consequences of a diet to rich in protein and fat?
The concentration of uric acid (emerges during the processing of proteins)
in the blood rises and if the saturation point in the kidney is reached, the uric acid crystals are stored in the joints or the guts -> the limbs appear swollen and it hurts, so the animal appears to be lying on the branch.

Reptiles are survivalists, it is very difficult to feed chameleons too little, the animals will just lower their metabolism and move less.

An example from a keeper I know, who took over over a male panther chameleon length head2tail 43cm weight 210g, that iho was formed like a football. He let him starve for 4 weeks (only gave him 5 crickets and a few fruitflies). In the first days he could observe the chameleon activly searching for food after a week or so, he just sat there and waited. The result was, that he hab only lost about 5grams ^^
Click to expand...
 
Well for my understanding with MY chams.... The juvi loves the variety of worms and crickets... My adults if I feed them crickets they will just look at it and once I place a superworm in the cage they go right after it! Still there are some crickets running around/or in a cup but they would not bother going after them. Then again I put a silkworm in the cage and bam... all eyes on the silkworms and superworms!! They will eat the crickets again eventually...
 
eisentrauti said:
No. But they would never find any food in Jemen that's nearly fat as all this worm stuff. Worms are general not a normal food for Chameleons, the same with little mice. They will never find something like that in their natural habitat
Click to expand...

not a super perhaps not, but worms are indigenous to every part of the world you just have to look, but they eat worms in the wild IE grub ect. not all of yeman is a desert. mountain dwelling species have plenty of shrubby, and land insects to eat. they do find crickets since most of the crickets we buy are from yemen. i had forgot what normal crickets looked like, and once scared me because i thought it was a spider here in the house LOL
 
All I know is people don't put half of the thought into what they eat as they do their chameleons. I'm sure no one on this board knows what the protein/calcium/phosphorus/fat %'s of their dinner was last night. Point being, you don't have to feed your chameleon as if it were preparing for a marathon. Sure you don't want to stuff 20 wax worms down its throat everyday, but sometimes people really over think this. Supre worms are a fine feeder in my opinion :cool:
 
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