Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm a little confused about everything I'm reading about supplementation. How does one measure the right amount and how do you decide what's "a little less" when you take your Cham out to the sun more. It seems to be paramount to health, and yet the caresheets, books are not yet precise in the answers that I've seen. Anyone have a sure method? thanks-Maggie

Don't feel bad; it IS confusing! A big part of the problem is that we don't have it all down to a science yet. No one understands all the aspects of cham nutrition either. The trend is to rely less and less on dusts (calcium and vitamins) and gutload our feeder insects better. After all, wild chams get their nutritional needs met through their wildcaught prey, not dusts. I find I gutload my insects as if I was feeding myself (except for the meat) and only dust very occasionally to fill in any gaps that might be forming due to the low variety of prey I can feed captives. I feed my insects variety of dark leafy greens or mixed green salads, fruits, cereal grains (Total), bee pollen, soy flour, and SMALL amounts of tropical fish food and chick starter meal. I also gutload my feeders with 2 products: either the James/Lopez gutload recipe posted on www.adcham.com OR the commercially formulated gutloads from Walk About Farms (www.herpnutrition.com). As for dusting less or more due to housing outdoors, I don't attempt to dust more or less lightly. Many chams will refuse feeders that are heavily dusted anyway (can't blame them!) The main difference in what I do involves calcium with D3 or without. If my chams are spending the majority of their time outdoors each week (but I don't live where then can spend all their time outdoors at any time of year) I use Minerall without D3. For the part of the year when they spend most time under ReptiSuns I include D3. I only dust with vitamins about once a month. Clear as mud??