The REAL part of the hobby...Bug keeping

[clarkrw3]

So, we all LOVE chameleons. We are always planning and begging to get our next cham. It's a true hobby and we love it, but are we all aware that our real hobby is keeping/breeding/raising bugs? I spend at least twice the amount of time on my bugs as I do on chameleons. Between finding ingredients and making gutloads. Starting and tending to ever growing colonies of insects are we really Chameleon keepers or bug keepers? All of this got me to thinking about all the things I do to make sure my chameleon is happy and health and it turn all the time I spend making sure that the food is well fed.

I thought it would be interesting to share how many different colonies we have and what have been the most successful over our time in the hobby.


I have a few colonies as of right now.
First is my Superworm colony that currently takes up the most room.
Second is my Dubia colony which seems to be doing well (amazing how little time I spend with keeping them)
Third is my Horseshoe Crab Roach colony (just started this and so far what could be easier you never see them LOL)
Forth is raising and keeping crickets...these take way too much time but I just started a laying bin today.
Fifth is my silkworm colony if you can call it that. I haven't figured this one out yet. I kill many more than I raise but I did just have some old eggs that had been in the fridge hatch which makes me hopeful.
Sixth is FF cultures which will soon lead to my seventh
Seventh my Mantis Ooths that are sitting in their hatching bin.
Eight isn't really a colony but I almost always have a hornworm cup going and since I was unsuccessful in finding someone on here that would take the ones that got too big I found a pet store that was happy to feed them to there animals.

I have also been kicking around the idea of starting a BSF compost colony.

So there you have it I have 8 types of bugs that I have to take care of each and everyday just for the Chameleon

How many do you keep (bugs that is ) and what has been the best and worst?

 

[VeiledChams]

Man I wish I could keep that many. My mom would FREAK though. I only keep my crickets, havent been able to start a colony, and I'm trying out with hornworms. The moths came out 3 days ago.. i'm keeping my fingers crossed for eggs.

 

[carol5208]

I don't breed anything, just buy and it is expensive. I do spend extra time cleaning out their containers though. I keep horns, supers, silks, and now crickets once again since my cham decided he will eat them!

 

[lslcronk]

I was just thinking this last night!! All I have are crickets (I dont have a mom to freak about the bugs but the BF would def NOT be happy about roaches in the house!!) and a cup of hornworms and silks (which my CLaude refuses to eat! Love the hornworms though!) I was cleaning the cricket bins and chasing the escapees around the floor and thought and I quote: "It is like having hundreds of little crickets pets!"

 

[suzi]

I am breeding crickets, silkies, horns and dubia. Just started dabbling in supers and looking to get started on mantids I find silkies to be a pain, they are so fragile but still worth it. Crickets once you get the hang of aren't too bad a bit more work cleaning up and it seems that it takes a long time to grow the little ones and you can lose a lot before they reach adulthood. Horns are easy but like silkie a a little fragile in the baby larvea stage and then the dubias which are by far the easiest ( too bad my chameleons won't eat them!) maybe the tarantula I am getting will

 

[Shrilly]

I was just thinking this last night!! All I have are crickets (I dont have a mom to freak about the bugs but the BF would def NOT be happy about roaches in the house!!) and a cup of hornworms and silks (which my CLaude refuses to eat! Love the hornworms though!) I was cleaning the cricket bins and chasing the escapees around the floor and thought and I quote: "It is like having hundreds of little crickets pets!"

HAHA if i was as knowlegable as you ppl and bugs i wouldnt have to buy them!!

 

[HouseofZoo]

I have a dubia colony started in my front closet, but they're not breeding all that great, so it will still be a long time before I can begin feeding them off.

I will be starting FF cultures soon. Any suggestions? How about a good recipe for media?

 

[clarkrw3]

Yes silks are a pain. Do you make your own chow or do you buy it? Right now no one seems to want to eat them so I keep wondering why I am doing it. The babies are pretty cute little fuzzy dashes. I have been reading on keeping them and raising them and everyone acts like they are so easy...I even use latex gloves whenever I handle them and their food and still they die off. I just wish I could find a mulberry tree around here I think that would really help my plight.

 

[clarkrw3]

I have a dubia colony started in my front closet, but they're not breeding all that great, so it will still be a long time before I can begin feeding them off.

I will be starting FF cultures soon. Any suggestions? How about a good recipe for media?

I love Josh's fly media but there cultures seem to have mites. The guy that runs mistking posted up what seemed like a good one but haven't tried his. I will most likely use his when I make some more. https://www.chameleonforums.com/fruit-fly-culturing-12441/

 

[seanUTD]

Lol I feel the same way... Silks, Dubias, crickets, wood lice and I definitely count the gnats still left over from my hibiscus disaster =/

 

[icegecko]

I hear you, Clarkrw3. Most of the works is with the feeders. You get 4 or more different feeders and you'll be spending most of the time with them.

I've got silks, hornworms, hissers, P. nivea, Panchlora giants (these two Pachlora species can't be kept together or they hybridize..) and opportunity feeders/treats (painted ladies, feeders from the reptile expo, etc).

I've completed the whole silkworm lifecycle, (bought the egss, raised the cats, moths mated, hatched the eggs) but I find it's too much work for one chameleon. I get the pods for silks and horns and it's made my life so much easier. Feeders are a lot of work, but sometimes things can be streamlined. Set ups can be simpler, etc. In the past 8 months I've cut out a lot of unnecessary things I used to do with feeders and now I have more free time to spend on myself and my cham. I guess it's harder to do that with multiple chams though. It also helps when your cham is full sized, as they eat larger prey and so you need fewer of them.

Silkworms have no immune system, although zebra silks are a little hardier than regular or black silkworms. That's why it is so easy to kill them. I have a little horror story for you: At the time I had 200 medium sized silks (way too many for one cham, I know). One night I ran out of chow and was too busy to make more. So I washed organic romaine lettuce and gave it to them. Just for one night, it'll be ok. They started eating it no problem. I went to check on them the next day and what I saw was horrific. Black, putrefied silks. I'm guessing there was bacteria on the leaves. None survived-they had literally been liquified. Disgusting doesn't even come close. That turned me to the pods. I used to buy the chow, but pods kinda remove the need for that. I have a spare pack of chow powder just in case though.

My hisser colony is the one that takes up the most space and costs the most to feed. I must have at least 60 or so adults, not to mention countless nymphs. When I think that pet stores sell adult hissers from $3-$10 each...I must go through 5 lbs of chow in little over a month. I'd love to thin it down but who is going to buy that many hissers?



I'm glad you brought this up. We say we have chameleons as pets, but we also raise all the feeder insects as well.

 

[suzi]

Yes silks are a pain. Do you make your own chow or do you buy it? Right now no one seems to want to eat them so I keep wondering why I am doing it. The babies are pretty cute little fuzzy dashes. I have been reading on keeping them and raising them and everyone acts like they are so easy...I even use latex gloves whenever I handle them and their food and still they die off. I just wish I could find a mulberry tree around here I think that would really help my plight.

I actually buy it in bulk (10 pds) I agree that raising them on leaves would be much easier. There is a web sight www.wormspit.com/ that has a lot of silkie info. My first attempt I made the mistake of hatching out 1000 at one time! Imagine trying to transfer that many one by one with a paintbrush after like 20 I dumped them all in and said @&&@&$' that! At the first sign of a bit of mold on the food the package said to grate the chow on top ofthem and wait until they rise to the top, well my worms were so small in comparison to the heavy chow that was being bombed on top of them that it killed like 980!!! that was a lesson learned the hardway

 

[clarkrw3]

I actually buy it in bulk (10 pds) I agree that raising them on leaves would be much easier. There is a web sight www.wormspit.com/ that has a lot of silkie info. My first attempt I made the mistake of hatching out 1000 at one time! Imagine trying to transfer that many one by one with a paintbrush after like 20 I dumped them all in and said @&&@&$' that! At the first sign of a bit of mold on the food the package said to grate the chow on top ofthem and wait until they rise to the top, well my worms were so small in comparison to the heavy chow that was being bombed on top of them that it killed like 980!!! that was a lesson learned the hardway

Yes I am quickly earning that raising silks is a large learning process. I put my eggs on a paper towel in the bottom of a Pei Wei take home container and placed them on top of my fluorescent light fixture and within a week I ended up having a 90-95% hatch rate...which I was SUPER happy with because these were not packed cold in shipping and after I put them in the fridge I figured out that was the wrong thing to do. Well I left them there for a month or so and decided I would try to hatch 200 or so and see what happens. Now I just have to figure out how to keep them alive LOL I think I have figured out that my silkworm container has to much ventilation and that it is drying them and the chow out too much during the day...

I recommend the superworm colony they are pretty easy to raise and with some sterilite drawer system I just throw them a carrot every once in a while and they do there thing

 

[rocket89]

where do you guys keep these bugs at? i dont think ill be ok leaving them inside my room lol

 

[PrettyInInk87]

I was just thinking this last night!! All I have are crickets (I dont have a mom to freak about the bugs but the BF would def NOT be happy about roaches in the house!!) and a cup of hornworms and silks (which my CLaude refuses to eat! Love the hornworms though!) I was cleaning the cricket bins and chasing the escapees around the floor and thought and I quote: "It is like having hundreds of little crickets pets!"

I don't have a mom here to freak out either so currently I have a Lobster Roach colony, Dubia colony, Hissing Cockroach colony, and Mealworm colony. I am currently working on a Superworm colony and put 125 Supers in small individual cups to pupate them. I had a Mantis ooth but that thing never "hatched" so I just tossed it.

 

[PrettyInInk87]

where do you guys keep these bugs at? i dont think ill be ok leaving them inside my room lol

I keep mine in the closet... I use to have them out in the bedroom along with ALL of my critters but since I keep them in 10 gallon tanks I noticed they weren't eating as much or coming out because of the light so I stuck them in the closet and they are doing much better. Also, my 40 gallon tank with my new Ball Python took their spot. You walk into our bedroom and won't even know I have breeding cockroaches in there, lol!

 

[rocket89]

I keep mine in the closet... I use to have them out in the bedroom along with ALL of my critters but since I keep them in 10 gallon tanks I noticed they weren't eating as much or coming out because of the light so I stuck them in the closet and they are doing much better. Also, my 40 gallon tank with my new Ball Python took their spot. You walk into our bedroom and won't even know I have breeding cockroaches in there, lol!

siiiick, ill be scare that a roach or cricket might go inside my nose while i am sleeping xD

 

[pssh]

Let's see. I have:

-Dubia colony
-B. fusca colony
-B. lateralis colony
-Discoid colony
-P. surinamensis colony
-Hissing roach colony
-Mealworms
-Dark mealworms
-Superworms
-Giant silkworms
-A somewhat communal colony of praying mantids for food.
-P. brassicae
-Buckeye butterflies
-Phasmids
-Snails
-Springtails (3 different kinds)
-Isopods (5 different kinds)
-Night crawler bin for composting the waste of the other insects

All of them can be fed off as feeders. I will also have a few different species of roaches soon.

 

[clarkrw3]

Pssh I think you really do have a bug hobby and chameleons just to keep the bug populations in check LOL


I do think that I need more chams for all the bugs I currently keep....now to just convince the wife.

 

[PrettyInInk87]

Let's see. I have:

-Dubia colony
-B. fusca colony
-B. lateralis colony
-Discoid colony
-P. surinamensis colony
-Hissing roach colony
-Mealworms
-Dark mealworms
-Superworms
-Giant silkworms
-A somewhat communal colony of praying mantids for food.
-P. brassicae
-Buckeye butterflies
-Phasmids
-Snails
-Springtails (3 different kinds)
-Isopods (5 different kinds)
-Night crawler bin for composting the waste of the other insects

All of them can be fed off as feeders. I will also have a few different species of roaches soon.

I've been meaning to ask about ordering some Discoids from you