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Here's a good one for you guys. My panther has been eating medium sized crix for a while... Maybe a little small side of meduims, abou half inchers maybe, and I was up to feeding him at least 10 to 15 a day. I thought hey this is too many crix so I switched him to the larger size. With the larges he would eat maybe 5 or 6. Then after a couple days after he started the bigger crix, I noticed a giant poo on the cage floor. It was seriously big. I was startled to see it, it was maybe the size of 4 regular poos, maybe bigger. It dwarfed all other poos in the cage. It was like comparing a little vw bug to a schoolbus I examined the poo because I thought perhaps it was so big because there could have been an obstruction building up a couple days worth of poo, so when it finally passed it was larger due to buildup. There was nothing hard in the poo, and nothing was abnormal, other than the size. So I am figuring possibly It could just be due to the large crix. Does big crickets=bigger poo? Did I feed too many large crickets? My cham is about 8 months, panther (furcifer pardalis) male, about 5 or 6 inches (estimately) from nose to vent. What do you think should be his daily intake of large (almost full grown) winged crickets? Thanks for helping with any advise. Has anyone else noticed poo size change after switching to larger crix?

go Panthers!

thats fine my panther has crapped out some large items. and i noticed it when i switched him to some seriously large crix, so dont be alarmed as long as the waste looked normal and it was soft you have nothing to worry about.

-andrew
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1.0 cb pastel bp
0.1 cb normal bp
0.1 cb BRB
0.1.0 cb Cyclops Mt. GTP
1.0 cb blue bar ambilobe panther cham.
2.0 wc scottish terrirers

you said It dwarfed all other poos in the cage.

you should be in the habit of removing any poops that you find. Crickets will eat anything, including cham poo, and if he has any parasite load this will only increase the population when he then consumes the crickets. Even if you cup feed, leaving poop in the cage is not the best hygiene practice as molds and bacteria can also grow on them.

I have read time and again and had my vet tell me-and now do it myself-that feeding more smaller, than fewer larger crickets is a better idea. adult crickets have wings and the females have a very long, indigestible, ovipositor. So the chitin (exoskeleton) amount is higher and less "meat." Easier to digest and less chance of impaction.

just my 2 beans worth

lele
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Chameleon Help & Resource Info
1.0 Nosy Be Panther Chameleon - Cyrus
0.1 Veiled Chameleon - Luna. She's now hanging from her big jungle gym in the sky
1.0 Beardie - Darwin
1.1.1 Side-blotched lizards - Ana and Stan
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Lita
0.1 African Clawed Frog - Skippy
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula - Rosa Leigh, Died 4/21/06
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha, donated to science 4/4/06
?.? Pinktoe Tarantula - no name yet

Lele u are such a good poster, I bet you have helped a lot of people in this forum. Youlve said really useful information.
About the poo...
So I use paper towells in the cage bottom now. Cham poos every day, so what I've been doing is every 3 maybe 4 days I take out the whole bottom whith the poo and put new paper towells. Basically what I should be doing instead is just removing the poo daily after he goes, right? How ofter should I change the paper towells if I remove the poo daily?
About the crickets...
I was wondering about the lesslarger/more smaller cricket thing when I started giving him larges. I thought he was eating too many small ones so I figured he might like bigger ones now. But I was wondering because the large ones are pretty big and crunchy and they caused an abnormally large poo, so I think I should feed him smaller ones, especially if your vet even said they are hard to digest. Do you think I should ever feed him large when he is fully gown, or just keep giving more mediums? How many medium crickets should I give him? How many do yours eat.
-ashley