veiled chameleon has strange eating habits

[oiler17]

Pretty much all summer, my brother and his roommate have been taking care of my veiled because I was out of town for the summer and so on.. Anyway, the chameleon wouldn't eat out of his cup suddenly, and only started to eat again recently when food is help up to his mouth. He still hasn't actually shot his tongue out and eaten food.

Is this normal or is there something I should do? I've always offered crickets (sometimes dusted), superworms, giant mealworms, and the occasional wax worm. Is there something i should try with that or is it probably something else?

Oh and he still drinks normally when he's sprayed.

[CanadianJackson]

How old is it, and is it a male or female??

[Collide]

Its possible he has hurt his tongue, do u notice that he is interested in food but dosent hit it or is it a lack of complete intrest.

If in fact for some reasion his tongue is injured u may have to hand feed him for a bit and hope its not a perminate injury,

If its lack of intrest well trying different food, not providing food for a short time can peak intrest again,


umm im not sure did your friends tell u anything about his time with them that would give any insite?

[huhet]

well, we did routinely hit him with a largish stick, but otherwise, it was standard husbandry. he just up and went on a hunger strike one day, and not for lack of trying on our behalf.

he is eating quite a bit now, but only straight from the hand to the mouth with no tounge. strangely enough, i witnessed him shoot his tounge a few days ago, except it wasn't at a food item, just a random leaf.

plus he probably misses his daddy.

[Collide]

sounds like he might have hurt his tongue too me, your luckey he is eating from your hand like that. I personaly like to stone my chams but hey to each his own lmao. Keep feeding him how ever he is eating keep an eye out for him usuing that tongue.

[latazyo]

I tried branding him too, and that didn't seem to help him get his act together

[dank7oo]

To me it sound like he has a lazy tongue from always cup feeding. Depends now on having the food right at his mouth rather than "hunting" for it.

Jason

[panther_dude]

cure for lazt tongue:
Well the best remody is to prevent lazy tongue from happening in the first place. The way I do this is to use a removeable feeding dish. I personally love to watch my chameleons eat. So to prevent lazy tongue I hold the feeding cup in my hand and hold it infront of them with crix inside. AS they are eating I slowly move the cup around. Moving it side to side and close to them and then as far away as theyre tongue will reach. Aside from doing that I place meal worms or crix with back legs removed on branches to crwl around near the cham. They see it in no time and ZAP! bug is gone.lol
By moving the cup around and sort of free rnage feeding. They are used to catching prey at different distances from them. HEnce preventing lazy tongue.

[J-Man]

A long time ago somebody posted an article here about how to turn a milk jug into a feeder dish. It was great. If anybody could dig that article up I think it would help out a lot here.

[dank7oo]

Well .. I dont know where it is ... but I remember how to make one ...

You basicall take an empty milk jug, and the front out of it.
Then you cut a hole in the back of it (but leave a couple of inches of jug between the two holes).
Then you attach mesh to the back hole, so when you put crix in the feeder, they have somewhere to climb, so the cham can see them easier.

I hope I explained that well enough?
So chameleons will also only each bug off of mesh (crazy) so instead of free-roaming the bugs, this is another option.

Jason

[tranz]

hi..i am a new cham owner and i understand that variety of insects are vital to cham's diet. I live in toronto and i am wondering where i could buy food sources such as superworm, silkworm etc other than crickets and worms. If there is anyone out there who lives in toronto, please help me out here..thanx

[meow_mix450]

my opinion sounds like lazy tongue as well

Meow

[latazyo]

it could be.. he's starting to show a lot more interest in his food now.. and instead of forcing it against his mouth until he eats it he has actually started to bite at it.. hopefully the next step will be that he starts to flick his tongue out again, and be a good little chameleon

[Solomon]

Here is the link to the milk jug article if anyone is still interested - It works really well with picky eaters - I'm trying it out now on a cham with lazy tongue. I also found that adding more vegatation to the diet seems to help(with veileds)

http://www.chameleonnews.com/year2003/jan2003/hints/hints.html

enjoy

[latazyo]

so for that feeder one would probably want to rip the back legs off of the crickets, or do they stay in there on their own for some weird natural reason?

[J-Man]

What I've found works WONDERFULLY is placing silkworms on the sides of the cages. They stick easily and they don't walk around but they still wiggle so it catches the cham's eye.