Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey all, just curious how many crickets/mealworms you feed your Basilisk a day.(People with WDs, any help here is appreciated as well).

I have heard mixed answers in regards to this. Some say for adults to only feed them 2-3 days a week, and some say feed everyday, just not as much.

Right now in Michigan we are just getting over winter and cold temps. Which i think might be part of it, even though the temps/humudity in the house don't change much.

Humidty is between 60-80%, Basking averaging 95-98 and cool side about 70-80degrees. 5.0/10.0 UVB lights. Big 36" by 18" pool as well. 6x5x5 feet enclosure.

However mine lately are only eating 4-6 crickets, superworms, mealworms (total) every other day, which seems a little low to me. Or any given week, they will eat between 28-42 insects of those combinations.

Their tails are fat and both are energetic and climb all over their 6x5x5 feet enclosure.

Right now I dust all their food with a RepCal/Reptivite mix since they are only eating 4-6 each every other day. What other insects could I go with that are healthy and not used as more of treats? Like waxworms are more of a treat thing.

Also if yours eat more, how many insects do you dust with Calcium a day and how many dusted with a Vitamin supplement a week? Thanks!

Forgot to add mine are almost 2 years old now. 1year 9months.

I use directional white heat light in a big cage like that and it is easy to provide a hot spot a tad over 100 degrees. I dont know if a 105 hot spot is widely recommended but it is what works for me as long as the cold side isnt over 80. I like to use reptocal since its d3 count is way lower than rep cal so i feel comfortable being more liberal with it. I dont think its known exactly what amount of d3 is ideal but this works for me. I hatched mine at home and they ate 15 or so crickets/superworms of an appropriate size daily but as soon as they reach the most of their adult size they seem to eat a whole lot less(3-5crickets/superworms a day) and maintain great muscle mass and grow still. hope this helps

Thanks, but I havn't heard anywhere to beef up the basking temps abe 98 or so. I've spoken to a few breeders of them about the temps and they said anything over 100 isn't a good thing if they like to sit and bask a lot.

Anyways, so your adult Basilisk eat 4-6 insects a day? What else do you think I could try in regards to food, maybe they are bored or crickets, mealworms and supers?

I have heard fish can be used (but what kind) or maybe shrimp?

Crickets are my favorite of the commercially raised feeder insects because of their nutritional value. Superworms i like because they are healthy, big and easy to keep and gutload. I wouldnt do fish or waxworms since the only benefit the basilisk will get from them is the exercise from running to the food bowl. I have an old old female basilisk that i will occasionally give a pinky to to keep her weight up but i have a rule that i dont feed mice unless i have to. Just my opinion that mice are an incomplete diet to an otherwise healthy insectivore so my cbb 8 month olds have never seen a mouse. Your diet sounds great. I dont vary a working diet if my animals have good weight. If you dont mind living with roaches i hear they work, oh, and maggots work great if they eat them and you can find them

Thanks for the info. I have heard Pinkies were actually pretty good protein, but I havn't tried it yet. I am just not sure if mine are bored of their current food or maybe it's the michigan weather and they can sense it's still somewhat winter. Have you tried Hornworms (Not wild off tomatos but bred ones for reptiles?) Have also heard Earthworms, but havn't tried that either.

Both of them like I said are extremely active and have fat tails. I don't see any symptoms of MBD (I dust all their food, with the Repcal/Reptivite mix as I said) and neither are skinny. When I bathe them 1-2 times a week they sprint across the tub on the water and basically don't stop moving in there as well. 2 rocks to climb on of course so it's not just them having to float.

Crazy as it seems both of mine look almost exactly like yours lol. Except they are more Green than Teal/Blue.

Are yours just maybe a different mix of basilisk than mine or is there a way to get that blue color?

I am getting a MH bulb to increase the brightness of the tank. Right now I use 2 5.0 UVB for their basking spots (Not through mesh so it's direct) and then 2, 2.0's for added Light.

My babies are as blue as their mother when she came out of the bushes so i dont think its a mineral deficiency but its hard to know what makes what i guess. Dad was booger green though. They both look much greener in person than they do in the pics but definitely bluish still. I heard that tomato worms are a bit fatty and earthworms probably the same. Crickets and superworms are among the best so i personally will stick to them unless my lizards stop eating and get skinny. Let me know what you think of your halides when you get them. oh, and thanks for the compliment!

Also if they are as big as mine my male has been chasing the female and biting the back of her head so get a nest box if you havnt already and we can have a race to see who gets eggs first!

We keep a pair of B. vittatus, and they seem to do well on around 2 dozen crickets every 4-5 days or so. Note, though, that B. vittatus are significantly smaller than B. plumifrons, so take that into account. We also keep a mixed fruit-and-vegetable salad in their enclosure, which we generally replace daily. They seem to graze on the salad about as much as they eat those crickets. The salad be use if a home mix of mustard greens, squash, berries, and snow peas. Basilisks generally need at least some plant material in their diet, so I'd suggest offering some sort of mixed salad. Make sure you don't offer lettuce, spinach, or cabbage, though, as these are generally bad for lizards.

Hey, I have heard of people trying to offer their Basilisk some types of greens, but have basically heard they won't touch them. I will give it a shot though thanks!

You said: mustard greens, squash, berries, and snow peas.

Any others I can give them? I think I read small pieces of apple and collard greens work too? Thanks in advance

Also, should I dust these with some RepCal/Reptivite mix or?

And lastly, did you give your Basilisk greens from the start (as babies) or did you introduce and they happened to like them later on? Mine are almost 2 years old now.

I forgot to ask what types of squash and what types of berries will your basilisks eat? Do you grate them or smash the berries? Thanks

Our basilisks are rescues, and were probably originally WC. So no, we didn't start them on veggies as babies.

As far as veggies go:

Collard greens should be fine, we chose mustard greens simply because they were cheaper in general. Most berries work fine; since we mix our salad in bulk and freeze it, we just grabbed a frozen berry medley with strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries from the local safeway; we just mix the berries directly in. We've used primarily yellow squash, but we've used zucchini as well; we grate this into the salad.

We also add prickly pear paddles occasionally, although you should be careful to make sure there are no spines.

A good guide to vegetable mixes for iguanids can be found here:

http://www.anapsid.org/iguana/igdiet.html

This guide was written specifically for iguanas, which are entirely herbivorous, but can easily be adapted for basilisks.

Since we freeze our salad, we add powdered vitamin B1 (thiamine) to the salad when serving it; the freezing process generally destroys this vitamin in vegetables. We don't enrich with calcium, primarily because we enrich the crickets with it instead.

I couldn't tell you how hard it is to get basilisks taking vegetables; we never had problems with ours, but different animals respond differently. The best suggestion I can give is to offer vegetables, and if the basilisks repeatedly refuse to eat it, then it might not be worth bothering. However, I suspect you'll find they'll graze a bit along with eating their insects.

I hope this helps a bit.

Thanks, I just wasn't sure if any berries were bad for them.

I am probably going to try a mix of Collard, Mustard greens and some yellow squash and go from there.

Think I should try introducing them seperate at first or just stick some in a little dish and see what happens?

And also with the berries, do you Mash or Cut them? Or do they eat them whole? I ask because berries are squishy and I wouldn't be suprised if they could chow them down whole.

And lastly would refridgerating the salad mix get rid of most/all of the Vitamins or just freezing?

I'd just toss them all in, but you could try introducing things one at a time to see what they do and don't eat. Berries can be offered whole, because, as you said, they squish well.

Refrigeration shouldn't mess with the vitamins, but food only lasts so long in the refrigerator.

This is true. Well I actually yesterday went out and bought Strawberries, Blueberries, Yellow Squash, Zuciini squash(Green squash), Mustard and Collard greens.

Cut them into bite size pieces and we'll see what happens today!

So far I havn't noticed anything missing, but i think if they do not eat anything today I am going to cut pieces and count how many I put in and introduce seperately.

Now I have heard fruits give the runs so if they only like those should I just offer them maybe 2 days a week?

Also, can they smell the fruits decently well or do they essentially have to see them to eat them? They are sitting next to their Worm dish though.

They are still only eating 2-4 Supers/Giants/Crix every 2 days =/. But again, they are active, tails fat, they are not skinny so I am not sure. Maybe still in some sort of hibernation? I live in michigan and the weather is just not starting to get into 50-60's.

I have heard that green basilisks eat vegetation too but i have offered a few different greens over the past 3 years and not once have i seen any of mine so much as tilt their heads at it soo.... is there any information available about the benefit of a vegetation diet for basilisks?

One of mine actually ate some blueberry slices that I have noticed so far!

Two things off the top of my head are:

1. Adds variety so they don't get bored
2. They do have vitamins and other nutrients in them

You may be overdoing it with the mineral dusting. Insects eaten whole provide a wide variety of nutrients. I also noticed that my waterdragon ate more insects when they weren't dusted. As your animals mature you can definitely reduce dusting to every other feeding.

I dust everytime at this point because they are eating maybe 2 Supers or crickets every other day. Which would amount to me dusting 6-8 Supers/crickets a week, which is the recommended. While their tails are still fat, I think it's them still in a sort of hibernation because of the Michigan weather.

However I am ordering some Silkworms and i'll see if they like those. I've read they are better than crickets/supers or about the same.

And i'll give them some undusted food as well and see. But they ar'nt losing weight, are drinking and are very energetic.