Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a 4 1/2 month old female veiled chameleon and she looks a little chubby. I was wondering how many crickets she should be eating. Right now she is eating about 8-12 4-5 week crickets daily. Thanks.

If she looks obsese you can certainly cutback. I would think a 4.5 month old chameleon should be eating 6-8 a day.

I'm feeding my 3mo old 8-12...
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1.0 Baby Sunburst Veiled Chameleon -- Dexter

Ugh..wish I could edit.

I wanted to say I feed him 8-12 THREE week old crickets and he is 3 months old.
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1.0 Baby Sunburst Veiled Chameleon -- Dexter

A good way to tell if your cham is chubby is to look at the base of the tail. The cross section of the tail should be oval from top to bottom not completely round. If you can see indentations along the muscles the cham is a bit lean. You should see slight signs of ribs when the cham is stretching out while climbing around, and see the hip bones too.

If your female starts to look lumpy in her abdomen she could be starting to develop her first infertile clutch. She's a bit young, but if she has been overfed it is possible. Start weighing her occasionally to get a baseline.

When my chameleon stretches you can see her ribs, but I will cut down on the crickets, instead of 8-12 I will feed her 6-8. Also when I get near her for any reason at all (such as trying to measure her) she will lunge forward and hiss at me and try to attack me. One time she even bit me when I was putting my hand near her to let her crawl on me. It was sooo scary. Are they suppose to be that mean or what can I do to prevent her from doing that?

Chams are really individual. She is either very territorial and resents you intruding into her space, or she is very defensive. About the only way to deal with this is to offer her favorite food treats by hand so she learns that you are not a bad thing. She may just be an aggressive cham, and there is not really anything you can do about that. If you have to move her out of her cage you can coax her (nudging her feet and offering the stick at foot level) to climb onto a stick and carry her to a big houseplant while you do whatever you need to. Don't pick her up by the body or put your hand over her head and back. That is definitely seen as an aggressive act. If she just won't cooperate turn her lights off or make the cage darker so she cools down and is less reactive.