best feeder?

[Kingbooglyboo]

hey i was wondering what the best and easiest-to-breed feeder is for my 2 eastern american toads and my boreal chorus frog. they are both babies. and i was also wondering which insects are high in certain vitamins?

[daybr4ke]

Hi again! In my personal opinion, dubia roaches are the easiest. They do not cannibalize like crickets do(unless they were ABSOLUTELY starving, then maybe they would.), they are easier to digest, and are higher in nutrition. I have a colony and maintenance is hardly any work. I would never say crickets are bad, but dubia roaches can be very nice. That said, I still feed my frogs crickets. Depending on how small they are, flightless fruit flies may be a good option(the larger species. The smaller I doubt they would notice.), but my adult toads didn't pay them ANY attention.
As for nutrition, this is a wonderful resource:
https://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/foods2.shtml
I'll add some size comparison pics for dubia in a moment. As babies they may not be able to eat then until a few months of age.

Despite all of this, "best" is a very loaded term for feeders...in the wild these animals would eat many different species. For them, no feeder is "the best", each is but a part of it's diet. The staple of their diet really comes down to your preference. Some people hate crickets. Others don't want any type of roaches in their home and refuse any association with dubia roaches, and won't even consider buying even one roach. At the end of the day, I stand by dubias. I've even come to appreciate them as a pet in their own right. I also like crickets. Some people seem to consider them outdated nowadays, but they are sometimes the best, easiest and most convenient food source. One advantage is crickets grow faster than dubia do, and breed a bit faster. Both have a wide variety of sizes so you can feed them to almost any frog at any size. Crickets have a smaller minimal size, as well. Newborn smaller Treefrogs probably couldn't eat newborn dubias, while pinhead crickets would be suitable. In the end, those two are my recommendations. I hope this helps and I'm sorry this so long, but there's a lot to say about frog food. Good luck picking your staple!
Edit:

[Kingbooglyboo]

Thanks daybr4ke.

my profile picture is the biggest of my toads and the frog.

[Dace]

For frogs, other roach species such as turkestan roaches and lobster roaches are vastly superior to dubia roaches.

[daybr4ke]

Thanks for adding those! That's true, in many ways. Turkestan Roaches grow and breed faster than Dubias, cannot climb smooth surfaces the same as dubias, and unlike Dubias do not burrow. Turkestans move much faster than Dubias, which is one reason I opted for Dubias-They're a very calm insect, and easy to handle. Often I don't even use containers to move them, and simply let them hang out on my arm/hand on the way to being fed to frogs. The main reason I went with Dubias is I couldn't find Turkistan Roaches available locally. Personally I cannot order online, so I ended up with Dubias. While in some ways inferior to Turkestans, I would still recommend Dubias in a heartbeat, but likely would have opted for the Turkestans had they been available. Lobster Roaches, on the other hand I hesitate to recommend, as they can climb almost anything, which for me was a deal breaker. I had my Dubias in a bin that wasn't smooth enough at one point,and had to apply petroleum jelly near the top. I managed to accidentally smear the stuff onto my arm a bunch of times. I wouldn't put Lobster Roaches into the "easy" category, but that's really just an opinion. Either way, thanks for adding these, I definitely agree on the recommendation of Turkestans.

[andfrogs]

I, personally, use turkestans and can attest to them breeding like crazy! Which is great because I feed different sized nymphs to different animals and I always have more than enough around 1/8". However, I have learned a few lessons in containing them while transferring because my reflexes are no match to their speed. Even when contained I have to wait until they start trying to climb to grab them. My beardie's reflexes are also no match, but he's kind of a lazy bum. Just be prepared for the speed, especially if you have a spouse that would not react well to escapees!

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[daybr4ke]

Wow. I kinda wanna get some now just to see how fast they are. I guess they're not called Red Runners for nothing.
Edit: Also, another possibility is hornworms, I'm currently considering breeding them. I found a small guide and am thinking of raising them since they're one of the only things I can't find for sale in my area.