Mealworms and Chameleons?

Okay so before I got my leo people said they give a staple of mealworms and have had zero problems over the years. I'm now breeding mealworms and feeding my leopard gecko with them. I keep looking into other pet's I could use mealworms as a staple. The mealworms are gutloaded and calcium is added on specific days. Almost every time I see someone asking about mealworms as a staple people say they can be impacted by it but no one ever has said it out of their own experience or even knowing someone. It seems like it is a myth that has been around that reptiles cannot digest them correctly. Apparently from what I could tell, people use to not use mealworms as a staple not even for leo's and said the same thing about how they have the hard shell, but then owners and breeders prove that you can use them as a staple as long as they are gutloaded correctly and other supplements are provided. Can this really be true that some other reptiles can use mealworms as a staple? Are people too afraid to even try? Someone I know had a bearded dragon that got impacted on correct sized crickets. Is it really just dependent on the individual reptile's health if it will get impacted or not? Something just doesn't add up with it all.

Also I know people like and encourage to have a more varied diet but feeding a primary feeder is just the way I have chosen and have had no problems thus far.

I dont buy into any of that BS. All my reptiles and there's lots of them that are on a staple of mealworms. I also feed superworms to some of my bigger animals and i also feed Dubia Roaches. A varied diet is highly recommended. It gives your reptiles something different to eat first off so they dont get bored with the same foods and also each different feeder will supply your reptile with different needed vitamins and proteins and things of that nature. Ive never had any problems with impaction due to food items. I have bearded dragons, leopard geckos, and chinese water dragons that all eat mealworms mainly.

asianpersuasion wrote:I dont buy into any of that BS. All my reptiles and there's lots of them that are on a staple of mealworms. I also feed superworms to some of my bigger animals and i also feed Dubia Roaches. A varied diet is highly recommended. It gives your reptiles something different to eat first off so they dont get bored with the same foods and also each different feeder will supply your reptile with different needed vitamins and proteins and things of that nature. Ive never had any problems with impaction due to food items. I have bearded dragons, leopard geckos, and chinese water dragons that all eat mealworms mainly.

There we go. One person that says so and that actually says it from experience. I think people are too scared with their animals. It's simple, if you start having problems you change what you are doing but nobody will even try it and when people ask about it they always get some kind of response that it is really unhealthy but my leopard gecko eats them.

The only thing i dont feed my reptiles anymore is Crickets. Thats because for starters There NOISY!! LOL and they stink and they have high potential to carry parasites that can in turn infect your leo.

asianpersuasion wrote:The only thing i dont feed my reptiles anymore is Crickets. Thats because for starters There NOISY!! LOL and they stink and they have high potential to carry parasites that can in turn infect your leo.

They seem hard to take care of too.

I just recently stopped buying crickets all together and switched to dubia roaches. I definitely had difficulties taking care of the crickets. They were really unpredictable - I'd buy 50 and sometimes half would die in 2 days and other times only a couple would die in 2 weeks, so I had to get them very frequently. Plus they would keep me up some nights chirping like crazy. From my experience at least, they were hard to take care of.

I would keep doing research on the mealies for chameleons but as far as I know, plenty of reptiles will eat bug larva in the wild. So I wouldn't think it would be a big problem. For chameleons I've heard they need a more varied diet of crickets, larva, and fruits & leafy veggies. I've looked into chameleons because I want one soo bad! haha. But hopefully a chameleon owner will respond and give you some more accurate information than I can from experience

@tdedolph the thing with grubs is there a lot like wax worms and are much higher in proteins and fat so they shouldnt be feed to leos as a staple diet as this could be bad for them. They would be ok 1 or 2 a week as a treat but not a staple food

Sorry about that, I should have been a little bit more clear in my reply. Instead of 'grub' I meant 'bug larva'. And in my last paragraph I was referring to chameleon diet. I'm not sure why I put 'worm' but I also meant 'larva' haha. I'll have to edit that so it makes more sense on what I was trying to say

Thanks for the information, though I only feed my leo roaches and the occasional mealie. He very rarely gets anything other than those 2 feeders.

For a chameleon, mealworms are not a good base in their diet.. since they are not very nutritious. Chameleons also need variation in food, but i'm sure you already know that! We feed our chameleons crickets (if you get rid of the males first, they aren't noisy anymore, lol) and grasshoppers as her main food. We sometimes give her mealworms + mealworm beetles, and at times other insects as well. but I wouldn't reccomend only giving mealworms to your chameleon..

With chams, they are very picky. They constantly need their food changed up. Many people say that super worms and meal worms are bad for a chameleon diet because they have a large amount of chitin (shell around the worm). I have never had a problem feeding my vieled supers or meal worms but that should not be a staple diet for them. Their food should be switched up every couple weeks. ex: one week could be gutloaded crickets and super worms then the next week could be hornworms and meal worms and then you just give them a HUGE variety

It's hard to care for crickets on a large scale. When you're buying them 25-50 every week or two to feed one or two animals, it's quite easy. Every three days, sometimes four, I move them out of their container into a spare 10 gal I have then clean out the five gallon bucket I keep them in. Put them back and they're all squared away. I gutloaded them with potatoes personally. Though, I never have them long enough to really need to change up the gutloading material, feed them off too fast.

I switched from crickets to dubias very early, less stink and no noise. They are also pretty similar nutritionally. With all my reptiles supers mealies and dubias are the staple.