Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I threw some food into my Jackson's enclosure and a wax worm ended up in the dirt. He aimed... he missed... and took in a mouthful of dirt and swollowed it. Will this hurt him? Should I have tried to get the dirt out? A minute later he tried again and got the worm. I wonder why he missed. Any advice would be appreciated.

where is this dirt? in the plants? Chams do not need any substrate, so if you are using any I would suggest removing it. If it is in the plant pots you can cover it with a piece of plastic canvas (this way air and water can get through but not your cham's tongue) or large stones.

You should always repot any plants with fresh soil that does not contain perlite (the white pieces) or synthetic fertilizers, etc. Plants should also be washed as they are probably sprayed with pesticides at some point. If the soil he got was clean it should not pose a problem this one time. Frequent snacks of soil are not good as he could become impacted - they do occasionally miss
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Chameleon Help & Resource Info

0.1 Veiled Chameleon - Luna
1.0 Beardie - Darwin
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Lita
0.1 African Clawed Frog - Skipper
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0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula - Rosa Leigh
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha

Thanks for the reply. The soil is from the potted plants. No substrate. I'm going to try your idea of putting large stones on top of the soil, that would probably work well. I ran the plants under the shower for a long time before giving them to him. The little white balls just float to the top and wash over that way so I think it was just soil that he got. Today I hand fed him, but I don't want him getting lazy so I'll go get the stones.