Help! My crickets are eating my chameleon

Posted by Sarah on May 19, 2009

David just left a comment with a very good question, which I edited a bit for clarity.

“My chameleon is a youngster and eats medium crickets.

Now I looked at him just a moment ago and the crickets have been eating just belowe the spikes on his spine.

Can someone help me please as i cannot figure out what to do.

My e-mail is ***deleted to prevent spam*** thanks and help is needed urgently.”

David, the easy answer is don’t leave crickets in the cage with your chameleon if he isn’t going to eat them very soon.

If there are extra crickets running around, there is always the chance that they will get bored and start crawling on or biting your chameleon.

We keep our crickets and other chameleon foods in separate tupperware containters.

Instead of gutloading the batch we are going to feed the next day, we gutload the entire container, and then we can just grab a few when we are ready to feed the chameleons.

Jeff feeds crickets and mealworms from a cricket feeder cup, and he justs dusts them before he feeds them.

He uses tongs to feed Sully roaches one by one (we really don’t want roaches loose in the house), and he takes a sprinkle of whichever mineral powder he is using that day, and dusts it over each roach before he feeds it.

This way we can see exactly how much each reptile eats, we can make sure they eat the supplements before they come off of the food items, and we can make sure that none of the food escapes from the reptile cages, or stays in the cage long enough to harass the reptiles.

When we do use crickets we will occasionally let one loose in Sully (the panther chameleon) or Tiger’s (the leopard gecko) cages so that they can hunt and get a little bit of exercise, but only when we can tell that they are still hungry, and will be pretty likely to hunt the cricket down before the reptiles go to sleep.

I have heard of people who use a bowl full of crickets wrapped in wire so the crickets can’t climb out of the bowl and eat the reptiles, but with that method you still can’t be sure that your pets are getting proper supplementation.

Your chameleon should also be seen by a vet to make sure the bite wounds below his spikes aren’t infected, and to see if he needs any medications to prevent are treat infections.

Good luck, and let me know how your chameleon is doing.

Thank you.

If you have a reptile question let me know about it! If I don’t know the answer I’ll do my best to find it.

You can see David’s original comment at What do you feed your crickets?

I have roaches :-(

Posted by Sarah on November 25, 2008

I don’t know how to tell you this.

I really don’t want to tell you this, but I must.

I have roaches.

I thought I was through with them when I left Georgia, but it looks like I wasn’t.

Jeff got tired of the crickets, which admittedly did smell on occasion, and since winter is (supposed to be) coming up, and we can’t order the crickets anymore we were looking at alternatives.

We found someone selling some dubia and discoid roaches in Minneapolis and it was all downhill from there.
We had to go to Minneapolis for a birthday party anyway, so we carpooled down there, and I know I asked Jeff’s mom at least 50 times if she was really going to let him put roaches in her car.

I still can’t believe they let us bring them home.

I wouldn’t have.

Now that the roaches are here they aren’t that bad.

They’re in a rubbermaid container packed with egg cartons, and you can’t hear their creepy little feet skittering over the egg cartons unless you are messing with their cage.

I’m finally getting to the point where I’m not too creeped out to go in the reptile room, where the roaches are staying.

Jeff came in this morning and told me he saw a roach giving birth.

I told him I didn’t want to hear about it.

If you’re curious leave a comment and ask him about it – I’m sure he’d be delighted to share with you.

The chameleons and Tiger seem to like the roaches.

When Jeff brings Sully his roach cup Sully rushes right over to eat it.

He was a lot more ambivilant about the crickets, so Jeff usually left the cricket cup in the cage with Sully.

The only problem (if you don’t count digging around in the roach container to find the right sized roaches as a problem) is that he’s scared to leave the roaches in the cages, so if one of the reptiles isn’t hungry, they don’t get fed right then.

Which is good for me – I don’t want to give the roaches the slightest bit of room to escape.

It was bad enough to find the occasional cricket loose.

I’d freak out if I saw a roach running around the house.

We do have some superworms and mealworms for Tiger, Sully and Skye, so that they can have some variety, and if Jeff leaves me at home and goes off somewhere I’ve already told him I’m not messing with the roaches.

We’re gonna have to get some crickets!