Reptile & Amphibian Forums

just want to know what would be better. i go out every night and catch grass hoppers , and anything that comes into contact with my net! on occassion i'll buy crickets,meal worm, and silk worms.i dust maybe twice a week. but in all, whats better?
mahalo aaron

Both I'd say. Unless you have the money, facility, workforce to hold/breed/maintain all those bugs that you catch in the wild. But the wild caught stuff adds where others lack, and vice versa.

BTW, what island are you on?

the big island of hawaii!! or as some would say "Hawaii"! lol
lots of chams here!

That's sweet. I'm headed to Kaua'i Dec. 31 for two weeks of surfing and some time checking out the chams there. Mostly surfing though. Aloha brudda treehorn!

HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD TIME! KAUI HAS THE BEST SURF! NICE BEACHES AND SCENERY! ALOHA

If I had the time and enough open field on my land (most of my property is woods and believe it or not there is not a great variety of food suitable bugs there.) I would feed grasshoppers moths, butterflies etc. exclusively. It is definately a superior diet to comercial insects for the chameleons. I used to breed striped basilisks when I lived in NYS and for a few years after I moved to Fla. Believe it or not there is a superior variety of wild caught insects available in the north east during their short warm season than there is in fla year round (Lots of roaches,a fair amount of grasshoppers,few moths and butterflies.)I relied upon wild caught bugs heavilly in Nys. for my basilisks as well as my chameleons and used comercial insects to make up for what I couldn't catch. When I moved to Fla it ended up the other way around. With my baslisks my egg production dropped by half with all other conditions being about the same. Living in Hawaii I am sure you know what jacksons eat in the wild and as you know they thrive on whatever it is. I would stick with the wild caught bugs and occasionally supplement with the comercial stuff for variety.