Veiled not eating greens

[Snowgoose]

Hey People,

I recently got a 7month old male veiled chameleon. He has been with me for a month now.
He seems very happy in his enclosure, has the full compliment of lighting & misting and is eating up to 30 crickets a day.
My only concern is he does not seem interested in the greens I put out.

I usually give him a mixture of chopped Rocket, Basil & mint. I sometimes add finely chopped red/yellow pepper.
I serve them in a large, shallow bowl.

To my knowledge, he hasn't eaten any of the greens. He does sometimes munch on the leaves of his Ficus Benjimina though.

Please help me - what am I doing wrong?

Thanks!

[cheacvdm]

Hi

I think you are offering the wrong stuff - it is greens, but not the sort that they would eat. Try finding Melissa Kaplan's web page on iguanas - as far as I know there is a link on it. Some never learn to like greens at all, so don't feel too bad if nothing seems to its liking. As I think you already know they all have personalities!

[Clay]

Every now and then I put a mulberry leave or two in my Veiled cage and he usually takes a few bites.
Maybe give that a try...

[Chameleons]

It is not a big issue if the Veiled don't eat greens. We have been breeding them for several years and except for the odd nibble of the ficus plants they have never eaten greens. They are primarily insect eaters and one book suggest that they will eat greens if something is missing from their diet. Having said that, a lot of people do feed their Veiled greens and the chameleons seem to love them. The key is really to offer as mixed an insect diet as possible. Gut load your crickets but try as many different other insects as possible - if you can get them safely. Silkworms (and the moths) and roaches are good, as are grasshoppers.

Also be careful not to overfeed if you are no able to get them out into the sun light. A lot of people feed their Veiled large numbers of crickets and ultimately suffer with MBD. They are programmed to eat pretty much what you put in front of them unlike Madagascan chameleons. This can lead to excessive or fast growth not matched by the calcium intake.

So don't be overly concerned if your Veiled is like my daughter and refuses her veggies!

[froot]

When I eat strawberries I bite off the leafy bit with the stalk and some of the fruit and leave it on a branch for my male. Most of the time he devours it.

[Snowgoose]

Thanks guys! I will try the strawberry thing.

I read that if you put whole leaves on a veggie clip stuck to the side of the cage they might prefer to eat them like that rather than chopped up in a bowl. I'll try that too.
He apparently loved salads with his previous owner so that is why I was worried that I am doing something wrong.

He gets a very varied insect diet at the mo - 2-3 large silkworms in the morning, a bowl of 10- 15 crickets for lunch, sometimes an afternoon snack of crickets and the occasional Ga ga grub fly (we leave the tub in the cage and as the flies emerge he catches them out of the air.) We dust the crickets with calcium and we will start putting him outside on weekends to catch some rays from this weekend. We were just worried about stressing him too much in the 1st month.

I'll post some pics and keep you informed of his progress.

Thanks again!

[Pseudogekko]

I wouldn't worry too much - my Veiled won't touch any sort of vegetable! A lot of Veiled's are like this and its usually because they haven't been offered them to eat from day 1, almost like they're comfortable with their existing diet. I also reckon a lot of Veiled's won't eat vegetables because they don't move, which is understandable.