Worms

[joeandsoph]

When feeding worms, if you put the worms in a small dish on the ground will the chameleon come down to get them, and can they escape. Just wondering as we are trying to introduce more food variety.

 

[dodolah]

When feeding worms, if you put the worms in a small dish on the ground will the chameleon come down to get them, and can they escape. Just wondering as we are trying to introduce more food variety.

what worm?
Silkworm? superworm? phoenix worm?

 

[joeandsoph]

Well at the minute we only have access to meal worms (which some people advised not to feed a lot of) and wax worms.

Does the type of worm matter then?

 

[dodolah]

I do not feed the cham mealworms as their chitinous body when fed excessively to your cham can cause impaction.
Wax worm is very fattening; so, obviously feeding it to your cham regularly can be detrimental to his health.

But, to answer your Qs, no they won't escape.

May I suggest silkworms, super worms, phoenix worms, hornworms, and butter worms as alternative feeder than those two?

Silkworm, butterworm, and horn worm can be put on the branch. They are slow moving and won't escape. You have more escapee using crickets than worm in general.

 

[Miss Lily]

I use an empty margarine tub to feed everything to Amy/Amos. I try to feed worms by hand, although s/he is not big enough for supers yet. The superworms can actually get out of low sided dishes as I had a couple flip out when they touched each other and did that mad flip thing! Found a dead one under the gas fire the other day while searching for an escaped cricket, lol!

 

[joeandsoph]

Thanks! I'm struggling to get anything but meal worms and wax worms at the minute but I'll keep searching. Maybe I'll leave wax worms for a treat!

Also how many do you leave in one go?

 

[Miss Lily]

I do feed mealworms occasionally, but only the newly moulted white ones. Chams seem to love the white mealies and supers. You can get silkworms, phoenix worms, roaches and butterworms here in the UK. Here's a couple of links:

http://www.roachshop.co.uk/
http://www.butterworms.co.uk/index.html

I got phoenix worms from the RoachShop, but I bought small ones and they are tiny! Delivery was very fast though. I ordered silkworms last year for Lily from butterworms.co.uk and they were very good also. Lily didn't like the silkies much though! Phoenix worms are very high in calcium and silkies have a good water content.

Superworms can be very filling I believe, so a couple a day is probably enough for an adult cham.

 

[joeandsoph]

Cool thanks!

Our pet shop only offers Locusts and crickets at the moment. Is it ok to feed locusts? She loves them so I hope so.

She's started taking food from our hand now where before she used to run a mile =D

 

[dodolah]

Cool thanks!

Our pet shop only offers Locusts and crickets at the moment. Is it ok to feed locusts? She loves them so I hope so.

She's started taking food from our hand now where before she used to run a mile =D

O gosh yeah!
Locust is fine.
In fact, I am a bit of jealous of the fact that locust is commercially available to you guys. It is illegal here in USA.

But, we do have hornworms here..

 

[Miss Lily]

Yep, locusts are fine! In fact that was all I used to feed Lily when I first got her as I couldn't cope with the crickets, lol! Locusts are more expensive though. Amy/Amos always takes two from my hand for brekkie before I put in the tub of crix.

 

[Miss Lily]

O gosh yeah!
Locust is fine.
In fact, I am a bit of jealous of the fact that locust is commercially available to you guys. It is illegal here in USA.

But, we do have hornworms here..

We can't get hornworms over here for the same reasons that you can't get locusts in the US!

 

[joeandsoph]

Locusts illegal in the USA!! Didn't know that. That's a real shame, I much prefer them to the crickets. They aren't as fast. I like them cos their little feet stick nicely to the vines haha.

 

[dodolah]

I bet In the wild, Chameleons will probably encounter more locust than crickets.
But, you cannot get this in UK though:

These are awesome for dehydrated and recuperating chameleon and from the look of it, seems like they taste great. My chams cannot get enough of them.

 

[joeandsoph]

good got what are they!? No I'm sure we can't get these haha. Just out of curisity, why are locusts illegal in the USA?

 

[Miss Lily]

I read in a chameleon book that in the wild a chameleons main source of calcium is locusts. Presumably because they eat lots of grass! I used to grow wheat grass to gutload my locusts and it's easy to see just how quickly they can destroy fields of crops!

 

[joeandsoph]

We put greens in the bag of locusts that we feed to our beardie and they are gone overnight. They eat so much.

 

[dodolah]

We put greens in the bag of locusts that we feed to our beardie and they are gone overnight. They eat so much.

exactly the reason why they are illegal here.
These opportunistic insects can cause potential hazard to our environment.
So, they are viewed here as invasive species.

 

[joeandsoph]

Wow I really didn't know that.

We buy a bag of 50 large locusts each week for our beardie and they can get through a whole bag of salad in one night it's unreal. And then they crap everywhere

Occaisionally, we find an adult locust has got into it, and they are HUGE. Draco the beardie loves them.

 

[Miss Lily]

Lily used to go mad for the adults. When she was going through one of her hunger strikes a few turned into adults - they certainly got her interested in eating again! I thought they were rather pretty and I even took photos of them.

 

[joeandsoph]

They are alot prettier than feeding the ugly crickets. And I hate touching the crickets, don't know why but I just do!!