Reptile & Amphibian Forums

could i feed my female veild a pinkie and how long will she be filled with it plz i only ask this because i am having a hard time feeding her. she is in a small enclousure because she wount catch crikets and she wont eat her meal worms wax worms or silkworms.

A pinkie isn't a great idea really. It will be a huge meal for her to digest and not a very natural one. Sometimes letting a cham fast for a couple of days gets them interested in food again. Most of us overfeed our chams and they just lose interest. If you are feeding every day and she's full grown, start feeding every other day or so and see if this helps. She won't starve...chams can easily go a week without eating much at all as long as they are drinking regularly.Try some nice fat houseflies or garden spiders...most chams love to hunt them down.

well i dont feed her every day but when i do she rarely eats thats why im trying to feed her big silk worms and wax worms but shelooks really skinny you can even see her ribs and she is a grown female veild chameleon

Actually, she looks OK to me. You should be able to see some ribs as she moves around. A better way to judge her weight is to look at the base of her tail. The tail should be oval shaped in cross section, not completely round (too fat). Ha she laid any infertile eggs? They can produce an egg clutch without a male present. It is important not to overfeed females as they can start producing really large clutches of infertile eggs. Sometimes the eggs themselves are so large she can't pass them and she'll end up being egg bound. As long as she's eating, drinking, basking and moving around normally she should be OK.

You mention that she is full grown, how old is she? Her casque looks a little small. Do you gut load the food you feed? Dust the food with calcium?

Not eating over a long period of time may indicate that something else is going on.

As for the pinkies...I lost my female veiled cham about a month and a half after feeding her a pinky. I didn't research it enough and took the advice of a pet store attendent. She was perfectly healthy prior to that. There was a string a few months back regarding this same thing. If she is already compromised, feeding a pinky could be very bad. They contain proteins and bacteria that the normal captive bred cham is not used to digesting.

Perhaps she is stressed from being moved into a smaller enclosure. I feed 4-6 crixs daily to my juvenile, and just stick them to the side of the screen. Their movement stimulates them enough. Perhaps the "large" food selection caused problems for her. All in all, I would seek the advice of a Herp Vet to diagnois any problem she may be dealing with.

Thanks,

Kris.

PS here is a picture of my female that I lost. She was 2 1/2 years old.

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2.1 Black Labs Tucker, Raider and Lacey
1.0 Lepoard Gecko Kumar (Another lost pet RIP and party on with Harold!)
2.0 Horses Smoothie and Rocky
1.0 Husbands (he puts up with me)
1.2 Kids-Trevor (congrats c/o 2006), Logan and Rylie
1.1 Ferrets Tank and Ellie (The fun fuzzies)
1.1 Veiled Chams Squiggy and Pudge (may she RIP)
0.1 Snowflake Cornsnake Lucky

well when i got her she was a juvi and the thing on her head stared to grow more and more and then it stoped well thnx for your coments i was getting scare but now im not. but she has never laid eggs but its hard to tell because one day i though she was but she wasnt and i have slowed down on her feeding also i feed all my crikets water bites with calcium

That "thing on her head" is called a casque. Its size can vary a lot between individuals so it isn't always a good indicator of growth.

Do you feed your crix anything other than water bites? If not, they are not very nutritious. Crix should be fed a variety of things not only because they will be healthier for the cham, but this can also change their taste. Sometimes a cham will stop eating crix because they don't like the taste. Feed your crix fresh dark greens (not broccoli), carrots, a fortified cereal like Total, chunks of fruit (oranges are good), bee pollen, alfalfa, hormone free chicken mash, etc.