Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my cham loves daddy long legs so i'd like to set something up to try and breed them...what do they eat??..will they eat pinhead crickets??

i'm raising mantids right now and it's turned into a part-time job taking coffee filters off of 50 plastic cups and rounding up baby roaches so i'm looking for something a little easier...any suggestions??

Thats not off topic. Check out some webs in your house or outside to see what they eat. I think I've seen bugs bigger than pinheads in there, probably the largest is a small cricket, just bigger than a pinhead.

I was gonna order everything off the internet but I think I'll set up a small "trash can" for fly larvea. Put in some rotting fruit, maybe meat, cover the top a good 80% and place in a cool spot outside. Roaches are a little large for my chameleons at the moment, but I will do something similar after I find out what pesticides are used in the area (if any).

Someone once told me that Daddy Long legs were the most poisionous spiders or something, but couldnt bite. Is this a tall tale or are they really poisionous? And would that have any affect on the chemeleon eating them?

Erin

They are totally harmess. Just an urban myth. You can search on google.com and get tons of info. Also the MythBusters show on the Discovery channel did one on them and proved them to be harmless.

Remake to the mantis: Yes, it can turn into a huge job to feed those guys. If you have too many, mine cham would even eat the tiny ones, though they weren't hardly a snack for him. lol If you like them as a feeder, just keep one female and a male (maybe 2 males in case one gets eaten) alive. One female will lay 2-5 egg cases, each with 50-200 eggs inside. More than enough to start over with. If you want more info on mantis mating, just ask.

Hmm,

I know a couple of people who were bitten by daddy long legs who had major problems. Mostly localized infection/skin necrosis. Maybe it is more of an allergic reaction to the bite or possibly there are different species? From my understanding their mouth parts are not that strong and it takes some chewing to really get through skin, and that they are most likely to bite if accidentally sat or rolled over on. They do have a venom to help them capture prey, but someone bitten doesn't always get a dose of it.

i'm going to try my hand at raising mantis again even though the first time didn't go off too swell (my fault)...first, they hatched in 6 days and i wasn't expecting them for 2 weeks so my pinheads hadn't hatched yet and i had no food for the mantis...second, i didn't realize they were soooo small so when i went downstairs there were a hundred or so crawling up my walls, lol ( my wife didn't lol, however)

i was thinking of putting a couple of males and a female in a 65gal reptarium and putting them outside and letting nature take it's course but i'd love some advice on what the best idea to breed them is....i also don't know what you have to do with the egg sacks after they are laid..do you have to refrigerate them??...

i've given him about 8 over the last 2 months...they're more of an appetite stimutant as my cham gets bored of food very quickly...if i don't give him something new and exciting to chase around he won't go back to his staple foods of roaches and crickets (he doesn't like silkworms)

Raising fly maggots is a very nasty smelly business. There is an easier way. You can buy fly pupae from Grubco and let them emerge over time as you need them. You can skip the whole maggot stage. Keep the pupae in a cool (45 F) place (I went out and found a used bar/dorm fridge and keep it warmer than my main house fridge. Works great for waxworms, pupae, and other insects and I don't gross out human visitors) and let batches of them warm up and emerge as adult flies. Keep the flies in a small screen cage such as a smaller Reptarium and catch them in a jar as needed.

will they eat pinheads??