Hi everyone,

I'd like a little "holistic" advice for feeding/caring for my green anole: Francis (his name is a cute story for another post). Since I can't invite you all over to meet him and his setup, I've described his feeding habits and cage setup (below) as well as possible, and have included two photos (also below). Please be patient with my rambling in this post, I wanted to be thorough! Let me know if my care guidelines are too flexible, or if you think he (or his feces) need a trip to the vet; I found a reptile vet only 1.5 hours away.

I'm particulary interested on feeding advice, which has been difficult. I have to leave Francis in someone else's care next week, so I'm looking for simple effective methods, given his habits. I don't think I can expect them to be as creative with feeding as I have been.

I've had Francis (he appears mature, with body about 3 inches long not including tail) for about 2 months now, and he's a little difficult to feed. I don't *think* I'm expecting him to eat too much, but since he is my first reptile... but he might be underweight (see photos) and he's not as green as he was at first (now he's usually olive green). He's pretty active, and I can tell he'd like a larger cage (I've been waiting 3 weeks for a screen cover I ordered so I can move him to a 29 gal tank). He shed his skin without complication about 10 days ago, and promptly gobbled it all up. I've listed his cage description below.

He'll eat mealworms (< 3/4 inch) anytime I put them in, and I think it's because they stay visible (in the food dish). However, I want him to have a more varied diet (and crickets hold calcium and vitamin dust better).

He'll eat crickets (< 1/2 inch), but by the time he appears interested in them, they're often out of sight. If he's in a certain spot in his cage (near the ground in a corner), I can drop in a cricket and he's more likely to get it immediately, but he doesn't hang out there often. I've heard that anoles will eventually get the crickets even if there are a lot of cricket hiding places, but he isn't getting them, even when I'm pretty sure he's hungry. I don't think I have any evidence (like missing crickets) that he has ever eaten a cricket that hadn't just been put in the cage. The crickets also loose their dust after a short while. I've tried tweezers, but they were too short and he was scared of me. Maybe I should order longer ones? Another issue is that it's very disruptive to remove crickets daily (he's a very skittish anole) but I don't like leaving the crickets in there overnight (even with cricket food and drink in the cage too). I keep putting more in because he'll sometimes get the second or third one. When I was feeding him just crickets, he was only getting about two crickets every 3 days, on average (though some were about 1/2 inch long).

Setup:
10 gal glass enclosure w/ screen lid (29 gal whenever screen lid arrives in mail)
15 W UVA/B (reptiglo 5%) light
75 W incandescent light
95-78 degree F temperature gradient in cage
Humidity 85 to 65, but sometimes down to 50
Lots of spray at least twice a day
Substrate: was reptibark, now green repticarpet
Furniture:
1 grapevine
two small potted Araceae (arum-like, no pesticides or ferts)
cardboard tunnel 8"x2"x1"
regularly replaced branch of willow oak (not sterilized)
jar lids for dishes (temporary)
Will have small waterfall next week

Photos of Francis:

He looks good, definately not too skinny. If there is glass on top of the tank the UV is not penetrating it leading to lack of UV exposure. Instead of feeding him lots of crickets at once just do something like 2 every other day and let him get plenty of mealworms.

okay I've had problems like this before first of all leave the crickets in because anoles stay in one spot and wait for prey to come to them. when they see prey they might or might not go after it. Do you have a branch where the anole suns if so make sure its touching the ground! If it is toughing the ground the crickts can venture up there and into the anoles sight. But the pics look good! he looks active! remember to spray the leafs with water 2-3 times a day. good luck!

also anoles change from brown to green soooooooo ya don't be alarmed with that.

Thankyou for your thorough description! You just made my day, usually it takes us 5 or 6 posts to determine all of the information you put in your first!

Francis looks like hes a healthy weight. If you want you could try feeding him silkworms, they are more nutrious and alot slower than a cricket, although they are more costly.

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~Lacey~

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Hey thanks everyone!

You've helped me to not worry so much about Francis. I'm glad you think he's not underweight. I had read posts that say his ribs shouldn't show, and that a greener anole is *usually* a less stressed anole. I still think he'd be happier with a little less stress (a bigger cage will help soooo much... where's my order with the screen cover??!) . Of course I'm still keeping my eye on him... I might try waxworms as a rare treat too. I've heard silkworms are good too, even as a staple food, but they're only available over the internet.

Another question:

Is it fact or fiction that we should behead mealworms before feeding them to our lizards? I've heard both, but I haven't heard of a proven case where that happened (a mystery death hardly counts as proof in my book, no matter how well-cared for an anole is). Of course I'm beheading them just in case, but it has peaked my curiosity!

I don't think so...I mean...I can even handle mealworms and poke and prod at them and they've never bitten me...and I doublt skittles would eat them if they were all beheaded. How many mealworms or crickets can a anole scarf down a day?
Just wondering!

my anoles eat alot of mealworms when I give them to them atleast 5 in a sitting and a bunch of crickets if you want to see your anole go crazy throw in a flying prey item it's the craziest thing, I threw in a moth and my little guy who didnt look to good like flew from one side of the tank to the other and caught the moth mid flight it was amazing