Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
I just recieved a blue bar ambilobe two days ago, and I am looking for some help regarding getting him to eat. He seems to be well hydrated, as I have misted him often, and he is drinking. Just this morning, I tried to hand feed a cricket to him by holding the cricket by his antenae in front of his face. For 10 minutes, the cham stared at the cricket, and then returned to the pothos, and started eating the soil. Is this to be expected?

NO. eating soil is not normal. Most people think it is due to the chameleon lacking certain vitamins and minerals. Cover the soil in the cage with rocks or screening. Usally it takes chameleons a couple days to adjust to the new enviroment and to start eating again. Make a feeding cup and leave him be for a while to eat on his own time. He will come around in a day or two.

As for the soil, thats very odd. My blue bar male was a hunter ever sine I got him. I never used a feeding cup and it's good exercise for him too. Where did you get this cham?

Is this chameleon a baby or an adult? To get him to eat, make sure you offer the right size food. Give young chameleons (0 to 3 months) small pinhead size crickets, graduatiing in size as he grows. For older 3 to 6 months old, regular small to mediums are ok. Adults will eat medium and full size. A small chameleon may not be interested in a large cricket and vice versa. I've read that a good rule of thumb is to not feed any cricket that is bigger than the distance between the chams eyes. Now that you knowwhat to feed, the question is getting it to eat them. Hand feeding isn't the best method for a new chameleon, because no matter how bad he wants to eat it, he won't go near the unfimilar hand. They are generally very cautious. It took mine almost 2 months to learn to do this. Cup feeding is an alright idea, but I would suggest just introducing maybe 5 crickets into his cage, not too many in case he dosnt eat you don't want crickets running around all over biting or scaring the cham. (You have a screen cage which is cricket tight, right?). Leave them in there for a while and go to a far corner of the room and sit still and watch, or leave the room entirely. Give him a little while, he may not eat immediatly. In a few hours, if he still has not eaten, do your best to capture any crickets and remove them. Try the same thing the next day if you were unsuccesful. As for the eating of the dirt... Hopefully you didn't use a soil with fertilizer in it, as this will kill him. Soil eating is a normal documented behavior of wild chams but reasons are still unclear (minerals, aids digestion, hunger, whatever). I would try to discourage this behavior like mentioned earlier by putting screen or rocks over the soil. Let us know how he is doing!
Goodluck -ashley

Thanks for the replies everyone! Turns out, he ate a couple butterworms, and 5 crickets today. I think that the problem with the soil was just that he wasn't recieving proper mineral supplimentation (because he wasn't eating) I dusted everything today w/ calcium, and he ate it all. I think that you were right, the shipping just stressed him out ALOT, but he is returning to normal now.