Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have read in many places that veiled chameleons and possibly panthers,eat many other animals besides insects.i have read field reports of herpers that witnessed wild veileds eating small geckos,frogs,birds,and others small reptiles and amphibians.this said,i was wondering if anyone has supplimented their chameleons diet with these foods on occasion.i realise that an overwhelming percentage of their diet should be insects,but im wondering if an occasional gecko or other vertibrate could provide the needed calcium that seems to be such a problem in captive chameleons.after all,chameleons in the wild are not dusting their prey with suppliments,and they are extrememly healthy.much more healthy than many captives.i theorize that its by eating the occasional vertibrate,that supplies them with calcium.especially the females that really need it when developing eggs.i know that some use pinky or fuzzy mice for this,but i think these are a much more unnatural food source and are higher in fat,lower in calcium and because they are not eaten in the wild,they evoke a much weaker feeding responce.i once fed my adult male veilded a small house gecko and i swear i never saw him get so excited,he actually chased the lizard all around the enclosure untill he decided to calm down and use his chameleon stealth to eventually catch the meal.i had kept him for over 2 years and never before this had i seen him actually "chase his prey" with insects he simply waited for it to come near him or he would slowly walk towards it. anyway,im wondering what you guys think or what other odd food items you have tried on occasion.i once read about snails being taken by chameleons.they would be very high in calcium but i also have heard that they are notorius for harboring parasites.probably not a great idea.

Some people occasionally offer a pinkie or lizard. But, you would still need calcium dusted on the pinkie as they are actually not rich in calcium at that age. Also high in fat. Other lizards will have parasites and possible bacterial infections based on the poor care they get at pet shops. Not all chams will eat them. A larger number of smaller food items is more nutritious than fewer larger ones generally, and easier to digest.

I agree 100% with Carlton.
So many people point out the 'wild' theory to justify their straying from the accepted norms in regards to feeding. They point out how wild chameleons do not get vitamins, or supplementation, they point out how chameleons will eat anything that comes within their reach and they point out the apparent health of wild chameleons.
What this sort of logic fails to see, however, is the plain and simple fact that our captive chameleons are NOT in the wild.
They do not have access to a well-varied diet. At most, I am able to provide about 7-8 different prey species to my chameleons; I'm willing to bet that most offer substantially less. I'm also a strong proponent of natural, unfiltered sunlight. Up until recently, all my chameleons were receiving at LEAST 2 hours of sunlight a day. Again, I would be willing to wager that most people do not offer this much sunlight to their chameleons. These two factors (varied diet and natural sunlight) will go a LONG way towards addressing chameleons special requirements in regards to lighting and diet.
Wild chameleons get a good, varied diet and natural sunlight, but they're also subject to parasite loads. Most wild chameleons do have a natural parasite load, but it's not really an issue as long as the chameleon remains healthy. They have a large area to explore, and are not confined to a small enclosure, so they do NOT come in contact with their own feces as much as our captive animals do. Living this close to their own waste means that it is imperative that we reduce/eliminate parasite loads in our captive chameleons as much as possible.
One point about wild chameleons. To say that that wild chameleons are extremely healthy, as compared to captive chameleons is not true. In the wild, an unhealthy chameleon will become an easier target for predators, so a less than healthy chameleon would not last too long.
Final thoughts on this 'wild vs captive' animal:
There is nothing 'natural' in the way we keep our chameleons. We create for them (or at least we try to) an environment with optimal conditions in regards to the health of the chameleon. We breed chameleons to best reflect what WE think they should be. To compare a captive chameleon's environment to a wild animal would be akin to comparing your own living conditions to say an aborigine living in the Amazon.
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Victor Gomez
gomezvi@yahoo.com

i dont really understand your post.you say that you cant compare wild chameleons to captives because captives get a much less diverse diet and this explains why we need to suppliment with dusting.this was in responce to me saying that maybe we should feed our captive chameleons a diet that more closly reflects what they eat in the wild.i was suggesting that this may reduce the need for so much dusting.so really,what exactly did you say in your post?we should only feed our chameleons a limited amount of food items but dust them? this is considered the norm and shouldnt be deviated? as far as i understood it,the need for captive dusting and suppliments,is mainly needed because of most keepers inability or unwillingness to go the extra step in providing a varied diet that more closly refects their natural diet.now dont get me wrong,panthers wild diet rarely included vertibrates and i feel their captive diet should reflect this,but small reptiles and birds make up a rather large percentage of larger chameleons diet,chameleons like veilds and parsons.now your comment about pinkie mice being low in calcium and high in fat,well you just repeated what i said in my initial post.mice are not often found in trees and therfore its safe to assume that they would not often be eaten in the wild.the captive diet should reflect this basic fact.

oh and by the way.if youd like to compare our diet to that of a tribesman living in the amazon,well ill take the amazonians diet in regards to health anyday.we suffer from high blood pressure,heart disease,obesity,cancer,and a plethera of other illnesses directly attributed to our deviation from our "wild diet"but we make up for our own lasy and unnatural diet by doing a bit of "dusting of our own" we feel that we can eat whatever is convenient and mask the ill effects but popping a pill or whatever else we decide to compine with out bad diet.

To clarify what my position is:
There are a lot of variables involved in keeping chameleons and we don't really understand ALL of them. We can look at conditions that a wild chameleon faces and try to replicate those conditions in a captive environment, but it is just impractical to recreate the environment EXACTLY, nor do we necessarily want to in the first place. What we are concerned about is providing the optimum conditions for keeping a chameleon. We obviously would not want to introduce predators and pathogens that a wild chameleon would be facing in the wild. That is my point: The 'natural' model is obviously not optimal for the practical keeping of captive animals.
My point about our living conditions versus say an Amazon aborigine is to say that we are VERY much divorced from the natural world. You and me compared to the aborigine is very much like comparing our captive animals to their wild cousins.
Both the aborigine and the wild chameleon will have a MUCH shorter life expectancy. The Yanomamo life expectancy is 30 years, btw. Being that I'm 36 and I can expect at LEAST another 36 years on this world; I will take my chances with our own 'lazy and unnatural diet' any day.
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Victor Gomez
gomezvi@yahoo.com

>>The Yanomamo life expectancy is 30 years, btw.
My bad. The life expectancy of the average Yanomamo tribe member is actually 21.
Which means I'd be WAY past my shelf life if I was Yanomamo.
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Victor Gomez
gomezvi@yahoo.com

actually life expectancy is not actually 21 years.they come up with figures like that when talking about regional people because they factor in the extremely high infant mortality rate and then average that into the actual number of people.if one where to actually survive past puberty,its common to live a nice long illness free life due to the almost non existant heart disease,cancer and every other illness that is related to our way of life.of course our modern medicine allows us to survive situations that would normally kill the average indian.if an indian were to die prematurly,you can almost never blame it on his health.its usually external causes like accidents,starvation,drought,or disease.i bet if you actually study these people we are talking about,you would be looking a long time before you found a single case of heart disease or cancer(the two leading killers in the modern world)even when looking at the elderly.did you know that when penacilin was invented,our life expectancy was improved overnight by like 20 years?.this is not because our health was better,it was actually begginning to get worse,it was because we eliminated the leading killer of the time,which was infection.if you got a splinter pre pennacilin,it was a life threatening situation.

Even when taking diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart diease, you cannot get away from the inherint fact that life expectancy has risen with modern living. We all know that proper diet, exercise and weight loss go a long way, yet we continue with our less than healthy habits. That is a choice.
Choice is not something the Yanomamo have. They live how they do because they MUST. Not necessarily out of choice.
Just for the record, I chose to speak about the Yanomamo because I've been to a Yanomamo village. I have seen them up close and first hand. And yes, tribal elders were in their 30's for the most part. There was ONE person who was in his early 50's. He looked FAR FAR older than this, however. Most girls in the village were married off by the time they were 8 or 9 years old. I really hate to break it to you, but they did not live "nice long illness free life due to the almost non existant heart disease,cancer and every..." They live HARD, difficult lives, under conditions that you cannot even begin to fathom! Diseases such as dysentaria, malaria, tuberculosis, tooth decay take a huge toll. Not exactly what I would consider 'healthy living' Now that's just for starters! Nevermind what happens to you if you're unfortunate enough to break your leg or arm. Disfigurement for the rest of your short life.
taking all these things into account, I would take my 'lazy modern lifestyle' any day!
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Victor Gomez
gomezvi@yahoo.com

Cancer, especially brain tumors, can be traced back to egyptian times. I don't think that you can accurately say that it simply didn't exist in native tribes. I think it was there, but as native populations are significantly smaller the occurances would have been much fewer and farther between, not to mention the lack of diagnostic tools. Some diseases we are still fighting, there is still no cure for smallpox or bubonic plague both are some of the oldest diseases known to man.
My opinion is that you aren't keeping your chameleon in the wild, it's a pet. I'm not against trying new foods or varying your diet but do be aware of parasites and toxins in the animals you intend to feed. All of the critters you intend to feed your cham come from petstores not the wild so the chances that they are carrying an extra little something are dramatically increased. Some of the same diseases and parasites we fight here in our artificial environments do exist in the wild as a form of population control. I would be extremely careful when choosing what new foods to try.