Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've asked this before. I bookmarked the responses instead of copying them and saving them to my computer.. Now they are archived. honestly the archive system on here is very crappy. I can't remember the old one much, but it seems to me it was a little better...
anyway. What I need to know is how much I should be feeding my female panther cham. She is just over a year old. I was in a routine with her but the pregnancy screwed me up, and I can't remember what I was giving her before. Right now I'm feeding her everyother day. I don't want to give her too much or too little.. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!! THanks!!
~Lindsay

Hi Lindsay,

We feed our mature female panthers about 5 days per week. They get crickets; silkworms or roaches. If feeding roaches - we offer 3. If feeding crickets - we offer 5. When giving 1-1/2" silkworms, we offer 4. Sometimes we give a combination - maybe 3 crickets and 2 silkies. We try to leave them a bit on the hungry side. This seems to keep them more active.

We hardly ever feed any kind of mealworm anymore. Wax worms are still offered for treats... but there are times when silkworms are the main diet (when we need to feed them off).

Eventually, we hope to get to the point where lobster roaches (pre-winged) and silkworms are the mainstay. Crickets will become an occassional food.

One note: when we know a cham is gravid, we select only female crickets to feed to her - and remove the hopper legs. The female cricket has beneficial hormones (as an egg producer).

However... since every cham is different - you need to weigh your gal and keep weighing her at intervals. She should be slowly growing - not just maintaining her weight. If she should stop slowly gaining, I would increase her food slightly.

Our average non-gravid female panther (between 1-2 years) weighs 60-80 grams. Once they reach 2, they slow considerably - except for gravid weights. Some females are larger overall than others - so check the tail too - a nice oval roundness is ideal.

Hope this helps,
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I'll up her food a bit. She was eating liquids up until recently so I didn't want her to get too much at once. I was only giving her about six crix every other day, and some large mealworms. I don't have to worry about her being gravid anymore she has no parts left lol but i will keep that in mind for next time. Orions a bugger, she wouldn't even eat crix let alone just females. all she'd eat was mealies....
Anyway she needs to grow quite a bit still so i'll give her five or six a day, and start getting silkworms again. Thanks for your response!!
~Lindsay