Feeder Insects

How to Dust Feeder Insects for Chameleons

~ BackwaterReptiles

Keeping chameleons in captivity can be a challenge. These delicate lizards have very specific care requirements and need their wild habitats to be replicated as closely as possible in order to thrive as pets. Dusting their feeder insects properly is a key to keeping chameleons successfully.

How to dust feeder insects
Pictured is one of our extremely healthy female Oustalets chameleon, fed a diet of properly dusted insects.

Besides requiring a mesh enclosure or cage, a dripping and misting system to meet humidity requirements, and UV lights and heat, chameleons also require their invertebrate meals to be extremely nutritious. This means that you can’t just feed your pet chameleon any old feeder insects. You will need to make sure your chameleon’s insects are gut-loaded and vitamin dusted regularly.

So what is vitamin dusting? What vitamin dusts do you give a chameleon and how often do you need to do so? How do you go about dusting the insects?  These are all questions we will address in this blog article, so read on if you want to make sure your chameleon stays healthy and strong.

What is vitamin dusting?

The answer to this question is actually very simple.

Vitamin dusting is where you coat your feeder insects in a film of powdered vitamin supplements before feeding time.

Do you take a multivitamin pill daily? How about a vitamin C tablet every now and then? Well, dusting your chameleon’s feeder insects is basically the same concept. The only difference is that because it would stress the animal to try to get it to ingest a vitamin pill, reptile hobbyists have invented a clever way to get the animals their vitamins. By coating the insects, the chameleons don’t even notice they’re eating the vitamins they need.

What types of vitamin dusts are good for chameleons? How often do you need to dust your feeder insects for your pet chameleon?

These are questions we get a lot at Backwater Reptiles. This is because there’s no manual on how frequently dusting needs to be done and the frequency as well as type of vitamin dusts required can vary from species to species.

At Backwater Reptiles, we use five main vitamin dusts for our chameleons – bee pollen, spirulina, a calcium + D3 supplement, a calcium supplement, and Herptivite/Supervite supplement.

The general rule of thumb with baby chameleons is to dust pinhead crickets (or whatever food source you give them) fairly frequently with calcium. Babies are growing fast and their little bodies need lots of nutrients to make sure their growth process happens smoothly.

Listed below are the vitamins used at Backwater Reptiles and the schedule we subscribe to when it comes to dusting feeder insects for our chameleons.

Bee pollen

Bee Pollen Vitamin Supplement
Bee pollen can be bought in powdered form from specialty retailers and health food stores.

In the wild, chameleons eat insects that could have recently pollinated a flower. Supplementing with bee pollen is said to help avoid chameleon “hunger strikes.”

Frequency:
Babies: once monthly
Sub-adults: twice monthly
Adults: twice monthly

LoD (calcium + D3)

Calcium and Vitamin Supplement
This Repashy vitamin and calcium supplement is what we use at Backwater Reptiles.

At Backwater Reptiles, the type of LoD vitamin supplement we use is called “Repashy Superfoods Calcium plus LoD.”

Frequency:
Babies: once monthly
Sub-adults: twice monthly
Adults: twice monthly

NoD (calcium)

Powdered Calcium Supplement
This powdered calcium supplement is used frequently when feeding baby chameleons.

The kind of calcium supplement used at Backwater Reptiles is called “Repashy Superfoods Supercal NoD.”

Frequency:
Babies: 10-15 times monthly
Sub-adults: 5-7 times monthly
Adults: 2-3 times monthly

Spirulina

Spirulina Powdered Supplement
Spirulina is a powdered algae that can be purchased at health food stores or specialty stores.

Spirulina is an algae that commonly grows in freshwater ponds and lakes. The kind fed to our chameleons is dried and powdered. Any powdered spirulina will be fine for your chameleons, but we use an organic, non-irradiated, and non-GMO spirulina from www.nuts.com.

Frequency:
Babies: once monthly
Sub-adults: twice monthly
Adults: twice monthly

Herptivite/Supervite

Multivitamin Supplement for Chameleons
This is the multivitamin supplement used at Backwater Reptiles.

These are general vitamin supplements or multivitamins. The kind we use at Backwater Reptiles is “RepCal Hertivite with Beta Carotene Multivitamins.”

Frequency:
Babies: twice monthly
Sub-adults: twice monthly
Adults: once monthly

How do you dust your feeder insects?

The good news is that the physical process of dusting your feeder insects with vitamins is not as tedious as it sounds.

All you will need to complete the process is a small plastic bag, your vitamin of choice, and your feeder insects.

Reptile Feeder Crickets
At Backwater Reptiles, we opt to dust our crickets in a bucket instead of a plastic bag simply because we have so many animals to feed. It makes sense for us to do it on a larger scale. But a plastic bag works just fine in most cases.

Just put your insects in the plastic bag along with your vitamins and seal the bag shut. Then shake the insects around in the bag with the dust for a few seconds until you can see that they are visibly coated with the dust.

Now your feeder insects are ready to be eaten!

A quick tip – if you are feeding your chameleon dusted crickets, be sure to feed them to the animal quickly after the dusting process has been completed. Crickets have good hygiene and will clean themselves of the dust as quickly as they can, so the sooner they are eaten, the more vitamins the chameleon will ingest.

Vitamin Dusted Crickets
When your feeder insects are coated like these crickets, they are ready to be served to your chameleon.

How to dust chameleon feeder insects – Conclusion

A healthy, happy chameleon will require supplemental vitamins in its diet. This can be achieved by dusting your pet chameleon’s feeder insects with a number of multivitamins.

 

Drosophila melanogaster vs. Drosophila hydei

~ BackwaterReptiles

In this blog post we compare and contrast Drosophila melanogaster vs. Drosophila hydei. Tiny reptiles and amphibians eat tiny food – makes sense right? But what, you might ask, is tiny enough to feed to a hatchling pygmy chameleon or a baby dart frog (both of which can measure only a half inch long)? The answer is fruit flies.

Backwater Reptiles sells two different kinds of feeder fruit flies – Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila hydei. This article will detail the differences and similarities between the two. Hopefully it will help you decide which type of fruit fly to feed to your tiny critter.

Melanogaster vs Hydei

When you place an order with Backwater Reptiles for a vial, jar, or fruit fly culture kit, you will receive the product via overnight delivery, which helps insure live arrival. Shipping these delicate insects via 2-4 day delivery is a risk.

Any fruit fly kit, jar, or vial from Backwater Reptiles comes equipped with food and egg laying material –everything the flies need to reproduce for at least three weeks. We recommend letting them breed and lay eggs for a few days before beginning to feed flies to your reptile, amphibian, or invertebrate. If you feed them off too quickly, the colony won’t reach it’s full potential.

melanogaster-vs-hydei
A close up of the jar of Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies. The jar contains a food source and everything the flies need to reproduce for several weeks. The inside of this jar is a bit too wet–this happens when there isn’t adequate ventilation (usually a screen top will suffice).

The main difference between the two species of fruit flies is size. D. melanogaster are generally 1/16th of an inch long, whereas D. hydei are approximately 1/8th of an inch long. D. hydei are therefore quite a bit “meatier” and larger of the two species.

fruit fly comparison
Notice how Drosophila melanogaster is smaller than Drosophila hydei. Both are flightless, but melanogaster can jump.

D. melanogaster are not only great feeder insects, but they are very commonly used in scientific experiments. Different genetic varieties exist and there are even wingless variations which make good feeders because they obviously can’t fly away to escape predators. D. hydei can also be bred and purchased as flightless insects, however they will usually still retain their wings. None of the fruit flies we sell can fly.

As far as regeneration of fruit fly specimens goes, D. melanogaster has a quicker life cycle than D. hydei. Starting from scratch, it usually takes around 14 days for a new bunch of D. melanogaster to emerge and from day 14 through 30, new feeder flies are available consistently on a daily basis as new flies are constantly emerging. D. hydei on the other hand, has a regeneration cycle that begins around 21 days when the culture is started from scratch. D. hydei also have population “booms” – every five to seven days after the initial 21 day mark, the culture will go from seemingly empty to bursting with flies overnight. Each culture will produce approximately two to three booms.

hydei fruit flies
A vial of D. hydei fruit flies. The blue at the bottom of the vial is the fly food, and the place where eggs are laid. The little white worms you see on the side of the container are eating the substance and will eventually form a cocoon.

Flightless cultures of both species of flies are capable of regenerating their ability to fly. Because flightlessness is a recessive gene, both parents have to possess this trait. If a wild fruit fly that can physically fly introduces its DNA into the gene pool, you will have flies born that can “magically” fly again. So if you don’t want to deal with pesky little fruit flies escaping and flying all over your home or your reptile’s enclosure, be sure to keep your culture safe from foreign fly DNA.

Both species of fruit flies are perfectly acceptable food for very small reptiles and amphibians. We recommend them for dart frogs, baby chameleons, tree frogs, salamanders, small scorpions, and spiderlings. Backwater Reptiles currently offers both varieties of feeder fruit flies for sale on our website.

melanogaster fruit flies
This is what your jar of D. melanogaster fruit flies will look like. Notice the jar contains food, a ventilation screen, and everything needed for the flies to reproduce.