Reptile & Amphibian Forums

is it better to have a feeding dish for my ariving baby veiled or should i allow the chameleon to hunt for the crickts and other feeders? thanks -Cory

Many keepers "cup feed" their chams(especially young chams)to help monitor their eating.

If you let the chams hunt down crickets, there's a possibility that the food never makes it into your chams belly. (also other less than desirable things can happen, like; crickets can gnaw on things at night including your cham)

I have always let my food roam freely. Thats just the way I do it, and I am comfortable with it.
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Joe
- www.silkwormfarm.com-

First, ask the breeder you are buying from how and what he fed them. It will help your new cham settle in to make as few changes as possible. Moving to a new home will be stressful enough. If your baby is so small it is only eating fruitflies or pinheads this may answer your question. Fruitflies can't really be confined to a dish, and pinheads probably should be so the cham can find them. There is a lot of debate about this for older chams. Free range food allows hunting and good tongue exercise but allows insects to lose their gutload and dust, pick up fecal material and grunge from the cage bottom and plant pots, and yes, crix can chew on a sleeping cham at night. Cup feeding can contribute to lazy tongues and lazy bored chams, but insects stay cleaner and keep more of their nutritional value. I find a combination works for me. I offer some gutloaded insects in a larger feeding box so the cham still has to "chase" them down. I don't leave the feeding box in the cage all the time and change its location. I also offer some free flying insects such as houseflies so the cham gets a chance to hunt and shoot.

I offer all of my dusted insects in a feeding dish and 90% of the non-dusted in a feeding dish. then I throw a few in the cage for hunting and fun. Works great for me as I know my chams are getting the amount I want them too and they still have 2 or 3 to play hide and seek with.
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From Sunny Florida
Jovana's kids listed below
1.1 Veileds
1.0 Ambanja Panther
1.1 Tamatave Panther

I don't leave crix or zoophobas to free range because they just hide pretty quickly during the day.