Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Why wont my cham eat anything but crickets? I have given him silk worms, wax worms, phoenix worms, but all he wants is those damn crickets which is fine because they are cheaper but i thought they liked a verity of food? Any suggestions, can i add the silk worms in with the crickets for a while to "scent" the worms, i know they arent snakes but.......

Some of my panthers don't care for silkworms and will eat them only occassionally or not at all some of my oustellets don't care for them much either. I find waxworms to not be all that great of a food choice as many reptiles do not digest them well. Here in florida where I live waxworms don't ship well either so I find them more trouble than they are worth. As far as soldier fly larvae go (Oh I'm sorry...I mean "Phoenix Flies" I don't care if they are made out of pure calcium, I know where they breed around here they are disgusting. They are called soldier flies because they were common in latrines during the civil war. Since your chams are eating crickets and nothing else try varying the diet you feed the crickets (different fruits and vegetables greens, grasses sprouts etc.) I have always found that with chams that are picky eaters that when all else fails...use grasshoppers. Of course I realize that they are hard to come by for most people this time of the year but they work great. I have a male Oustellets that was feed exclusively on walking sticks and various roaches by it's previous owner. I had a heck of a time getting that chameleon to take any comercially available insects at first and I did not have access to stick insects (which also work well if you can get them.) Grasshoppers came to my rescue for the first few months as did variuos types of butterflies and moths which also work well (stay away from Monarchs and other such toxic butterflies and moths.) Which reminds me of something else you can try. You can metamorphose your silkworms and waxworms into moths. I used to do that with waxworms during the winter in upstate N.Y. when I lived there. I used to keep jacksons then and they were always very picky eaters that got bored with monotonous diets. The waxmoths were always a welcome change and they seemed to be more digestable than the waxworms.

Maybe your breeder only used crickets (not a good thing) and so your cham simply doesnt recognize other foods yet.

Do you use a feeding dish or cup? Maybe if your cham got used to the idea of the crickets being in a certain cup, you could then add other insects there for it to associate with prey/food. Make sure said dish is dark in colouor and not shiny.

Try butterworms, stick insects, hornworms (not wild caught) and moths.
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Sandra
BC Canada