Meal worms

[skillz]

Could i use thses instead of crickets for my main feed insect?

[meow_mix450]

uhhh i would say no because its hard for them to digest, meal worms should only be feed as treats

Meow

[Collide]

Meal worm are not near as good for chams as crix If you dont like to deal with crix look into silkworms they are the best but meal worms are still good for variaty some of my chams go absolutly nutz for mealworms.

[skillz]

Ya, when i put mealies in his cage....he litterly run down to them...its funny

[Brock]

Actually if you keep the mealworms in a calcium enriched substrate that's already a good dry gutload, they can actually be quite similar to silkworms in nutritional value.

Of course your best bet in terms of feeders are COCKROACHES!
Ooooh gotta love those cockroaches.

-Brock

[eyespy]

Mealworms will never equal silks. The vast majority of their protein content is in the form of hardened melanized proteins in their exoskeleton which are very poorly digested. Because the proteins are so difficult to digest, they extract a lot of fluid from the digestive system so they are likely to trigger dehydration when fed as a staple.

[skillz]

So silks are the way to go if you don't want crickets..

[Collide]

yes i would say that but u have to feed a variety but silks are a good base

[meow_mix450]

ya but silks are expensive, but im not gonna say not go and get silk but if you got the money go for it, i would if i did:p

Meow

[skillz]

I looked at slikworms.ca...Is that about the best price I will find?

[Trace]

Pretty much. I don't think there are any other silkie breeders in Canada at the moment and they are far cheaper than what you will pay at a petstore.

Awesome people to deal with too! :thumbsup:

Trace

[eyespy]

One advantage to silks is they have very little waste in that they are soft-bodied and almost fully digestible. Just a few silks makes a herp feel just as full as handfuls of mealies or crix. About 60% of a cricket is indigestible, it's more like 75-80% with mealies.

[Collide]

I find silks to not be that expencive onece you start if you let some cacoon and start breeding your self they are a great source of food the main cost is the food for the silks if you have a mulberry tree it helps alot.

[Brock]

Another great site and awesome person to deal with, I haven't dealt with him personally, but we have exchanged e-mails and he is great.

http://www.canadianfeeders.com

I recommend him, he takes great care of his feeders.

And your best bet for a base feeder is cockroaches, try a Madagascan species as that's where many chameleons are from and their natural base feeder there is roaches. You can set up a colony easily. They are easy to maintain, prolific (1-3 years depending on species), breed like crazy, and will eat anything so they are extremely easy to gutload. Definately look into them. They are a bit pricy, but once you get started they will pay for themselves.

-Brock

[Brock]

I was just checking out his site again, appears there are no silkworms. But he has butterworms and those are the same or better as silkworms. He has awesome prices too, try a mixed deal.

-Brock

[Pookie]

How old should your cham be to eat a cockroach? Aren't they pretty large insects?

[Collide]

The only reason i would say to wait on mealies if for digestive reasions Id say roaces would be good same as mealies they do start off small you can feed a roach that is the right size for you cham I have no experience with roaches because some of the people i live with can accept crix and worms but cant seen to accept the whole roach thing lol eventually ill brainwash them

[eyespy]

Baby roaches are tiny and great food for even hatchling chams. I use lobster rather than hissers as they are smaller and have softer exoskeletons and have excellent results. They are the favorite food of most of my bug-eating herps.

[Pookie]

ok so where can i buy cockroaches to start breeding? I live in Massachusetts so shipping is tough since it's cold. Any help would be great! Thanks for your answers btw! :)

[eyespy]

I use either www.herpfood.com or www.cricketfood.com