Through a series of unfortunate events I've all but run out of live insects and ended up having to buy more from the store. They had nothing that was close to hatching except for some expired black soldier cultures with a little movement (they'd all started pupating.) I spotted some canned crickets and picked them up.

I removed as much of the hard material as I could from two crickets - no legs, heads, wings, much of the hard part of the thorax was removed - and cut it into pieces about as big as an adult black cricket's head. These were mostly abdomen chunks with some lower thorax mixed in. I then dusted them lightly and dangled these 'cutlets' in front of my frogs, most of whom went for it with surprising enthusiasm. They're green and gold bell frogs, but still pretty young and small, all with heads around the size of or smaller than my thumb (the smallest frog's head is the width of one of my other fingers.)

The thing is I've just now realized that crickets probably have a lot more chitin than what I usually feed them - fruit flies and blowflies - and although I fed them the softest parts I could (although I think the thorax sections still had some hard material) I'm now concerned if I should continue or not or if what I've done is dangerous. I know they'll eat whole live crickets when they're big/adults, but I wanted to ask if what I've done is/isn't OK or if there's anything I should be mindful of/if I should just stop completely/etc. It's just a supplemental feed until I can get my cultures back up or the wild fly population picks up again, I'm dusting it like any other food, and I don't intend for it to be a staple (except possibly in the short term - waaaaay too expensive.)

On woodlice: I intend to move my frogs into a bioactive tank when I upgrade them. I want to add woodlice to the new tank (I don't have access to springtail cultures), but I recently fed one woodlouse to my largest frog (due to fly shortage) and he:

a) either tried to spit it out or had trouble swallowing it (difficult to tell - I saw him open his mouth and sort of lurch with it on his tongue)
b) spent the next 10 min with it presumably alive inside him, spooked beyond all belief, jumping randomly, not interested in other prey and adjusting his abdomen as if he was uncomfortable or trying to subdue prey.

He appears to be fine now, although it gave me a heart attack at the time. This makes me think it might not be safe to put woodlice in my tank - what if one of the smaller frogs (who like to hide in the leaf litter during the day) got hold of a big woodlouse and choked or its carapace hurt its stomach? The one I fed my largest frog was the same size as or smaller than the blowflies I've fed him. I know people do use woodlice in vivs and I've read they can be eaten, so are they usually okay to eat and my boy just had a bad time by chance or is there more I should know/should I be careful...? etc.

If anyone has advice that'd be great ;.;