New frog/what to do with extra food/other things?

[sqrrlgrl]

Hi everyone! My fiancee and I got a little pac last Saturday at a reptile show after doing research for a few weeks, female as far as we know, and have been getting her settled in. Heat has been a pain to get stabilized but I just fiddled with it a little more this afternoon so I'll wait until tomorrow to give it time to settle and see if I've got it sorted before asking about that in detail. I was so stressed that she hadn't pooped yet and was going to post about that last night but she finally did! Hooray! Never thought I'd be so excited about poop. Here are a few little questions I have, mostly regarding food, and also some pictures. I will probably have lots more of both in the future. My fiancee says I'm driving her crazy by being so stressed and concerned about our little frog but I just want to do the best I can. Her name is Boca.. we figured it was fitting since they seem to just be mouths with legs.

1. What do you do about extra/excess food? We want to move her onto nightcrawlers as a staple but since she's just one little frog, what on earth do you do with a whole bunch of them! I know you have to cut them up when they're small, so do you... Just throw out the other half of the worm or whatever? I can't imagine it would still be good to put a half cut up worm back in the fridge for later.. I know you can store the whole live ones in the fridge, just curious about what you do with leftovers. Also, how long can you safely keep live worms in the fridge before they aren't nutritious anymore/die? I wish I could just buy a handful at a time so they're nice and fresh, not tubs of them.

2. We got a can of the Fluker's crickets on.. Sunday, I think, to see if she would eat them, but she passed on them. My fiancee read the can and it didn't say anything about refrigerating them after opening, so we didn't.. which I know is dumb, why wouldn't you refrigerate a canned food regardless of if it's for an animal or human, but anyways. She decided to feed her one last night, even though I was pretty concerned about it, and now I've been stressing out about it. I tossed them out just to be safe. The crickets didn't look like they'd changed texture or grown any mold or gotten slimy, they just were a little more "fragrant" than when we got them. They were stored in a room in the mid 70s in a cool and dark location with the lid firmly closed. Does it sound like she could get sick from the cricket? If so, what signs do I watch for? She snapped it right up and I haven't seen any regurgitation or anything out of the ordinary; she's currently just dug in nice and deep into her substrate and peeping out at us like normal.

3. Okay, one poop question.. the poop that came out last night was almost like a sac? It was shiny and kinda bounced back like rubber instead of squishing, like I would expect.. is that normal?

Um. I guess that's all for right now! Like I said, I'm a worrier, so I hope you all won't mind putting my mind at ease and helping me/us learn how to take care of her as best as we can. I've really enjoyed having her so far, even though I have spent so much time being anxious.I've only ever had cats and rats so this is completely new territory for me.

These pictures are from our first day or two, so excuse the bare cage and clear glass. I've got a background on the back now and have both small sides mostly covered, as well as her pond and a mix of live and fake plants to make it feel cozier. We wanted a five gallon but had to go with a ten because of cost and availability, so we're trying to make it feel more secure for her.

[jasonm96]

hey

don't feed nightcrawlers until they're large enough to eat them, use earthworms until then and you shouldn't need to cut these in half. wouldn't use as a stable diet, infact, I wouldn't use a stable diet at all. crickets, locust, roaches, superworms (when older) and pink mice should all be included. keep nightcrawlers in the fridge with some veggies.

she shouldn't get sick from the cricket, no.

the poops are like weird sausages, don't worry.

10-gallons is better than a 5-gal, easier to provide a temperature gradient. if it is indeed a female, it will be better off in a 20-gallon when adult

[sqrrlgrl]

Oh, huh! Okay, thanks for the correction about the worms and general diet makeup. I appreciate the advice and answers.

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[monster]

When your cutting the worms in half or into smaller pieces always feed the the bottom half first, if the top half isnt eaten you can put it back in the tub and it will live for another feeding. And i wouldnt feed super worms or meal worms to often, they are imfamous for causeing impaction due to the hard shell.

[sqrrlgrl]

Sigh. We finally got heating fully stabilized after the first week (day between 80-82, nights 76-77) and everything seemed to be going fine. We got some earthworms to feed her last week and when she snapped at the worm, she got a mouthful of coco substrate instead. She refused food for a few days, understandably, but after a warm bath two days ago or so she passed the substrate. We figured she'd be hungry after that but she's just not interested in food, it seems. We've tried earthworms and waxworms with no success, sometimes with her even turning away from the tongs when I rub the food on her to get her to bite. I'm going to grab some canned crickets tomorrow since she enjoyed the last one she had, but I'm just getting frustrated/confused at this point. I know that they'll eventually eat but it's probably been at least a week since her last nutritious meal and with her being small, I don't want her to go too long without food. I've been trying to feed her every night for the last three nights or so, so maybe a) because she got put into a bath and b) we've been trying to feed multiple nights in a row, she's stressed and not interested. I guess I'll give her the night off tomorrow but I'm just kind of tired. We've had her for 17 days, which I guess isn't that long, but it feels like forever after struggling to get the heat fixed and now after the substrate eating/subsequent food refusal. I hope it will get easier soon.

[Kapow]

I'm no expert and i'll never pretend to be, but all my frogs can be stubborn and refuse food for a day or so for no real reason that I can see! Also sometimes my pacman (and one of my whites tree frogs) will refuse to tong feed, so it doesnt give me much of a choice other than to let it roam around, but if I let it sit for a few minutes and keep my eye on it, i'll see a ball of yellow start to chase the cricket around.

Also I never worried too much about temp..but my ambient room temperatures are more than enough to keep him happy from what I can tell (about 72) and at night it drops to MAYBE 65 but we have a room heater for the extra cold nights, and there is an area of the pacman frogs tank that stays about 80ish from the tiny under the tank heater I stuck to the back of the tank



also if i rub the food against his mouth I can sometimes get him to bite it but I think it just stresses him out more than anything he will turn away or like...push it away with his little hand? lol its kind of cute but sad. :/ You could try transferring the frog to an empty container (could be a tupperware the frog probably wont care) to try and feed in..but this doesn't always work, the same white's tree frog that wont tong feed won't eat outside of his enclosure either...hes a picky guy..

and im not an expert just throwing out some things you can try!

I highly recommend trying live crickets...they're a staple food for a reason My pacman also likes hornworms a lot as a treat...we play tug of war with them a little bit

[sqrrlgrl]

We actually did transfer her to a Tupperware tonight, lined with warm water soaked paper towels so that it wouldn't feel cold and uncomfortable, and plopped down a half a worm in front of her and she snapped it up! I was mostly worried because she's still little, maybe only 1.75-2 inches, and I know they need a lot of energy to grow so the lack of food concerned me. Is it ok to feed in a tub like that all the time, though? I know handling them is stressful, so I feel like taking her out two or three or even four times a week to plop her in a container wouldn't make her too happy.. But I think she ate so quickly because the worm was flopping around in front of her, which I'm not really comfortable doing in her enclosure because the worm would just get covered in Eco earth and I know they'll pass it but I don't want her eating unnecessary substrate. I hope next time we can just go back to tong feeding in her enclosure so I don't have to handle her again, but we will see. I'm just happy she ate.

[Kapow]

i don't think the frog will mind too much if that's what you have to do to feed her, it seems like a lot of people suggested it when I was researching for my own stubborn frog that didn't want to eat...now he's a savage and has bit my finger once

but im not an expert at all maybe someone will come in here and slap my hand for giving you bad advice! glad your frog ate though!

[AKFROG]

Don't feed "her" mice, rats or goldfish. Worse thing you can feed Horned Frogs. Stick with crickets, roaches, earthworms(not red wrigglers) and cut up night crawlers. Night crawlers will survive for a while cut up.

[sqrrlgrl]

Yup, no plans to. She's on earthworms right now.

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[jasonm96]

Don't feed "her" mice, rats or goldfish. Worse thing you can feed Horned Frogs. Stick with crickets, roaches, earthworms(not red wrigglers) and cut up night crawlers. Night crawlers will survive for a while cut up.

Not true. The problem was when people ONLY fed pink mice or fish, which led to an oversupply of vitamin D and too much fat and other issues. If you were to just feed crickets then I'm sure problems in nutrition would also occur, even with supplementation. Everything in moderation is key! It's just not healthy to feed one or two foods. Pink mice can, and probably should be used as part of a varied diet. Horned frogs do not just eat insects in the wild and actually feed on a lot whole foods including other frogs, which are more nutrional than insects. Be sure to dip pinkies in calcium as the bones are not properly formed yet, but their organs are nutrient rich.