# Lizards > Chameleons >  What to feed baby chameleons?

## footballpythons

I plan on ordering a pair of baby chameleons. And what should I feed them and what size? :Smile:

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## highqualityballz

panther chameleons?

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## footballpythons

veiled actually :Smile:

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## highqualityballz

How small are they? Tiny babies eat fruit flies and bigger babies eat pinhead crickets.

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footballpythons (03-14-2016)

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## footballpythons

three to four inches in length

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## highqualityballz

> three to four inches in length


Id go with pinhead crickets.

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## footballpythons

where could I find them or should I just breed crickets?

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## highqualityballz

> where could I find them or should I just breed crickets?


You could breed them that up to you. If you want i can make a list of a bunch of online stores that sell crickets. Let me know.

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## footballpythons

thanks, can make the list? :Smile:

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## highqualityballz

http://www.joshsfrogs.com/food-nutri.../show/all.html
http://www.rainbowmealworms.net/crickets-1/

http://www.rainbowmealworms.net/crickets-1/

http://www.ghann.com/mobile/Live-Cri...heads-P58.aspx

http://www.premiumcrickets.com/produ...ets__1000.aspx

You already know to dust the crickets right?

Just a disclaimer i have not ordered from any of these sites so i cant tell you who is good or not, but after research i think i would go with josh's frogs!

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footballpythons (03-15-2016)

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## bks2100

Check locally for crickets.  They're supposed to live like 1-2 months so you'll have to buy them usually every 4-6 weeks and online has always been more than what I could find locally.  My local store is charging me like 16 bucks for 1,000 crickets where online it seems like they cost 20+.  If you can't find them local then I'd plan on breeding, but I haven't done that at all or looked too much into it.  You'd need food, water crystals (or something to give them water, can't use a bowl), a few containers for different stages, a few containers with some type of substrate for eggs, and then an incubator seems pretty important.  Incubator wise you can use really simple set ups, you can hatch out cricket eggs in the 70's, but they take longer to hatch than if you incubated at 90 degrees.  So setting up a cooler with an heat source and a dimmer switch can do really well (if I breed them I'll probably leave them in the garage or in a box outside since it's like 90 degrees for 9 months out of the year).  

They're supposed to be super easy to breed though because they grow fast and breed crazy well.  A dollar's worth of crickets can get your breeding program started and you could hatch 1,000 crickets every week in like a month.  And once you have them started you shouldn't have any issues maintaining the production.  You could wipe out all of your bugs and spend minimal money to get back to where you were.

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## StillBP

Be sure to gut load any that you buy you do not know what they have been eating and chameleons are rather sensitive you want to make sure the crickets have a good diet of good food not just whatever so that your chameleons get the most out of them

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## BFE Pets

3-4" baby vields are practically new borns. I do not know you level of experience with chams but newborns are a challenge to get well established. make sure you are getting them from a reputable breeder and do lots of research on rearing the babies. I've been down this very path and it can be devastating. I know a nice sized cage and all the stuff to make it luxurious for them is tempting but at that size simple and small is the way to go at least until they are well started. babies can have a hard time finding their food in a large cage. breeding crickets is not a simple task either. they smell and are not the simplest feeder to breed. if you want to breed your own feeders then I would suggest fruit flys to start and a colony of red runner roaches. new born red runners are about the same size as pinhead crickets. they dont smell anything near as bad as crickets, they breed easily, the care is simple for them. Hope I gave you some things to consider and best of luck.

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