Vacation feeding ideas

[Mansfield]

Hi All! I am prepping for a week long vacation away from my dude Percival. His enclosure is fully automated, with a water reservoir that can last a week easily. I also have a camera that monitors his enclosure that I can look in on anytime, so I can see if anything goes wrong and all aspects of his enclosure can be operated remotely from my phone. My only concern that I haven’t addressed fully is his food. Right now he is eating ~10-15 bsfl, 1-3 silkworms each day, both cup fed with a few black soldier flies free range added in each day (I recently removed crickets from his diet, thank god, they stink). I have looked into a few options in lots of categories:
- Automatic fish feeders (WiFi enabled)
- automatic pill dispensers
- dog/cat auto feeders
- ran across an automatic reptile feeder that I preordered to come sometime during the holidays, but that’ll be too late.

So far nothing has felt like a slam dunk solution. At this point I am leaning towards just filling the cups with a bunch of each feeders and pray he self regulates/they survive the week. Before I do that, I just want to see if there are any ingenious solutions out there that I might not have thought of? I have about 10 days to come up with the plan. Thanks for any brainstorming help!

 

[Beman]

You need a person to come in and feed. The feeders need to be dusted each day. He won't self regulate.

But please be careful feeding that many BSFL... These really should not be the bulk of the diet.

 

[Mansfield]

Uh oh, that’s the first time I’ve heard bsfl could be overused, now I feel like I’ve opened a whole new can of worms! *wink*
Otherwise, I hate to admit that I don’t really have anyone I’d trust to do the job. Not many reptile lovers in my friend circle!

 

[Beman]

Uh oh, that’s the first time I’ve heard bsfl could be overused, now I feel like I’ve opened a whole new can of worms! *wink*
Otherwise, I hate to admit that I don’t really have anyone I’d trust to do the job. Not many reptile lovers in my friend circle!

My Vet has 2 vet techs that will take care of reptiles and birds for people when they are out of town. You might check into that type of option. Then at least they have experience. But if he is still eating everyday its going to be very hard on him to go without food for a week.

And I am not diving into the BSFL being overused but... They are not well gutloaded. you really need a roaches or crickets added in to balance that out. lol

 

[bbyoda]

It might help to make things really turn key for a pet sitter. A local teen or one of your neighbors might be willing to help. Here's a thread about vacation planning that has some good strategies, like putting feeder bugs in separate cups per day to keep things easy on a pet sitter.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/vacation-prepping.170604/

 

[Mansfield]

Oh and I watched your vacation video as well, it sounded like you weren’t that worried if the dusting washed off or wasn’t exactly ideal for only a week. Great video btw!

 

[Mansfield]

My Vet has 2 vet techs that will take care of reptiles and birds for people when they are out of town. You might check into that type of option. Then at least they have experience. But if he is still eating everyday its going to be very hard on him to go without food for a week.

And I am not diving into the BSFL being overused but... They are not well gutloaded. you really need a roaches or crickets added in to balance that out. lol

The lack of gut loading is a good point.

 

[Mansfield]

It might help to make things really turn key for a pet sitter. A local teen or one of your neighbors might be willing to help. Here's a thread about vacation planning that has some good strategies, like putting feeder bugs in separate cups per day to keep things easy on a pet sitter.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/vacation-prepping.170604/

Thanks, I was reading this as well. It might be an option.

 

[frabjousday]

Hi All! I am prepping for a week long vacation away from my dude Percival. His enclosure is fully automated, with a water reservoir that can last a week easily. I also have a camera that monitors his enclosure that I can look in on anytime, so I can see if anything goes wrong and all aspects of his enclosure can be operated remotely from my phone. My only concern that I haven’t addressed fully is his food. Right now he is eating ~10-15 bsfl, 1-3 silkworms each day, both cup fed with a few black soldier flies free range added in each day (I recently removed crickets from his diet, thank god, they stink). I have looked into a few options in lots of categories:
- Automatic fish feeders (WiFi enabled)
- automatic pill dispensers
- dog/cat auto feeders
- ran across an automatic reptile feeder that I preordered to come sometime during the holidays, but that’ll be too late.

So far nothing has felt like a slam dunk solution. At this point I am leaning towards just filling the cups with a bunch of each feeders and pray he self regulates/they survive the week. Before I do that, I just want to see if there are any ingenious solutions out there that I might not have thought of? I have about 10 days to come up with the plan. Thanks for any brainstorming help!

What camera do you use to watch?

 

[MissSkittles]

Check with several pet sitters. Some will take care of reptiles. They may have reservations about some feeders (mostly roaches) so ask what kind of bugs they would be comfortable feeding.