i just wanted to briefly share a warning with people about the source of your feeders... i won't lie, it's going in general herp in hopes that more people may see it.
we all know not to feed wild insects, generally, because of possible toxins and contaminants in whatever the feeder may be feeding on. well, we recently had a very tragic incident with feeders from a bait and tackle shop.
the bait and tackle shop gets their crickets from the same place the pet stores do... i won't name the name, but it's a very large national supplier. anyway, this shop is much cheaper than any pet store because the crickets are sold for fishing bait instead of the pet industry... it also happens to be right by our house, so price and convenience made it an obvious choice.
we'd been feeding these crickets to our two, year-old veiled chameleons, who were in pefect health, for about two weeks when i noticed that they had both slowed on feeding. there were no noticable changes in husbandry, weather, etc etc. i figured maybe they just weren't as hungry because summers getting over, or maybe it's time to pair them up and try to breed them... i don't know, it hadn't been that long and animals are weird like that.
well one day my wife walks in to feed them and the male is laying dead in the bottom of the cage. when i took him out, he appeared to have a large section of paper thin, blackened looking skin near his abdomen... at first i thought maybe it was a burn, but upon closer inspection, it looked like it was rotting from the inside out or something. very disturbing. we feel terrible...
the female was found laying in her food dish, barely alive, around the same time that i hypothesized the correlation between the new crickets and the sudden changes in behavior and health. she was not fed for a couple days, then given the regular pet-store crickets which she ate with gusto (rather than avoiding eating them like she had been). she has slowly gone back to normal color and seems to be acting more normal... i've noticed her eyes are a little swollen or something, but i'm hoping she pulls out of it.
please note that my wife and i are experienced keepers and very dilligent with our animals... i've poured over the details of every aspect of husbandry and there are literally no errors - not to mention we've had them thriving for a little over a year. i just want people to be aware that even though feeders come from a recognized source, there may be a difference with where you get them from due to methods of keeping/raising those feeders, or from whatever other external factors may have been an issue here...
please learn from our mistakes.