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Thread: Food!!

  1. #1
    dsmalex97
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    Default Food!!

    I got some questions for food.

    I've been trying to feed my frog earth worms, but he/she doesn't seem too enthralled by them. The second day I had the frog it ate a bunch of them, but now I can't get it to eat them anymore. It hasn't eaten since that day which would probably be close to a week now. The frog totally looks hungry and has emerged from the burrow it dug. I tried offering the worms again this morning, but doesn't look interested once again. What do you guys use as staples? I know dubia's are a good option, but I don't think any pet stores around here carry them. What is another prey item I could feed? Keep in mind this is an adult we're talking about. I'm just curious as to what the menu looks like for your frogs, and what they seem to like best, and feed most consistently on.

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  3. #2
    Founder John's Avatar
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    Default Re: Food!!

    There's an expression: "Hunger makes great sauce". It applies very well in your situation. If your frog refuses the worms it's likely become picky. These frogs are known for doing that some times. I would give it a few more days and it should come around. My suggestions for food are in my care article for this species.
    Founder of Frogforum.net (2008) and Caudata.org (2001)

  4. #3
    100+ Post Member Jimifrog's Avatar
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    Default Re: Food!!

    I have been going with nightcrawlers for all my AFB's, even the big adult I bought who was raised on mice. I haven't any problems getting them to eat anything that moves. John is right. When they get hungry, they eat. It might be a temperature problem.

  5. #4
    dsmalex97
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    Default Re: Food!!

    The hudson valley reptile expo is tomorrow, I think I might get some dubia's and start a colony. Also, how long can you keep night crawlers? I got mine from gander mtn. and they don't seem to be very active anymore. Any suggestions?

  6. #5
    Sublime
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    Default Re: Food!!

    I think night crawlers last about several weeks in the fridge, assuming they have fresh compost or soil and are refrigerated. I'm not entirely sure, you would have to check with someone else as well. Mine eats them all before I can even see how long they last so I just make several trips to Walmart. Their definitely not that active until you pop the lid and grab them with tongs , yours aren't even active when you do that? Dubias are excellent, I'm about to start mine up. Just need a few finishing touches in the bin I'm housing the colony in. Do you have crickets? Try feeding yours crickets (gut loaded) to see if you get a reaction out of him with those since those can sometimes get a feeding response from a lively cricket. Crickets are a pain in the neck though . Or just try night crawlers again in a few days as John mentioned. Mines on a cricket and night crawler staple diet, until I get this dubia thing going.

  7. #6
    BG
    Guest

    Default Re: Food!!

    Quote Originally Posted by dsmalex97 View Post
    The hudson valley reptile expo is tomorrow, I think I might get some dubia's and start a colony. Also, how long can you keep night crawlers? I got mine from gander mtn. and they don't seem to be very active anymore. Any suggestions?
    I was thinking of going to that show. You should get a little colony going,and feed off the males.

  8. #7
    dsmalex97
    Guest

    Default Re: Food!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Sublime View Post
    I think night crawlers last about several weeks in the fridge, assuming they have fresh compost or soil and are refrigerated. I'm not entirely sure, you would have to check with someone else as well. Mine eats them all before I can even see how long they last so I just make several trips to Walmart. Their definitely not that active until you pop the lid and grab them with tongs , yours aren't even active when you do that? Dubias are excellent, I'm about to start mine up. Just need a few finishing touches in the bin I'm housing the colony in. Do you have crickets? Try feeding yours crickets (gut loaded) to see if you get a reaction out of him with those since those can sometimes get a feeding response from a lively cricket. Crickets are a pain in the neck though . Or just try night crawlers again in a few days as John mentioned. Mines on a cricket and night crawler staple diet, until I get this dubia thing going.
    I absolutely hate crickets!!! LOL! I'm going to buy a nice starter group of Dubia's tomorrow hopefully at the expo by me. And they're not too active even when I take them out of the dirt...Hmmmm. I'll try getting some more and see what happens. When you guys feed rodents, do yours readily accept F/T?

  9. #8
    BG
    Guest

    Default Re: Food!!

    I don't bother with live crickets for my pixies. I tried out the food i made for them. Only one ate the ball of food. It has crickets,worms and fish.and now i got them grass hoppers to add to the recipe.

  10. #9
    Sublime
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    Default Re: Food!!

    Yeah pop the lid on the night crawlers before you buy them, I've had a few trashy ones where most of them looked almost dead. I'm not going to feed mine a f/t mouse until he's about 8 months to a year old probably. I'm not crazy about feeding frogs rodents, especially for their health. Obviously when I do feed him them it will only be one every 1-2 months. Starting with 100 dubias adult you should be able to pick out of it heavily in 3-4 months, that's the only downside... If you got extra males though that eat up your food or fight the other males definitely feed them off as George suggested. 1:10 ratio male to female, they can impregnate a lot of females. What's your setup like for the dubias you're probably getting tomorrow, what heat source?

  11. #10
    Sublime
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    Default Re: Food!!

    Quote Originally Posted by BG View Post
    I don't bother with live crickets for my pixies. I tried out the food i made for them. Only one ate the ball of food. It has crickets,worms and fish.and now i got them grass hoppers to add to the recipe.
    Crickets die so fast! Pisses me off when you're trying to take some out to feed and they die from trauma, not hardy critters at all. You said you were buying that frozen food from Jehmco.com or whatever right? I'd like to try that out sometime, give my pixie some variety besides the normal crickets and night crawlers. That's a good recipe haha, just not so much for picky eaters that don't get a feeding response unless it's lively . If you wave it in front of their face with tongs and their hungry I'm sure they'll take a go at it (Assuming their used to being tong fed, then it's a whole different story), I need to try it.

  12. #11
    BG
    Guest

    Default Re: Food!!

    Don't forget to put oranges in the bin. It speeds up breeding., You don't need water if you give them oranges. You can feed them old fish food,cat food.

  13. #12
    BG
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    Default Re: Food!!

    All my pets eat the dubia,i mean everybody!! That the staple,and the rest food i mention sparingly!

  14. #13
    Sublime
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    Default Re: Food!!

    Quote Originally Posted by BG View Post
    Don't forget to put oranges in the bin. It speeds up breeding., You don't need water if you give them oranges. You can feed them old fish food,cat food.
    Yeah I'm getting oranges for them definitely, everyone I heard use them tells you it helps greatly with breeding. My bin got up to like 105-110F, so I got to go buy a rheostat tomorrow to bring it down to about 95F, dammit. Oh well, that's good that I'll have one for the winter time, etc. You have a colony right? How long did it take before you could pick out of yours? I want to get this process going quick.

  15. #14
    BG
    Guest

    Default Re: Food!!

    Mark, to tell you the truth, with the oranges and hot climate. I was ready in two weeks. I started out with 200 mix. Now i have 5000, and im feeding with no stress.

  16. #15
    BG
    Guest

    Default Re: Food!!

    I had an issue with dead roaches. They would rot and bring maggots. I did some research,and have no more problems. Theres this beetle that eat the dead roaches and now the bottom is clean.

  17. #16
    Sublime
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    Default Re: Food!!

    Quote Originally Posted by BG View Post
    Mark, to tell you the truth, with the oranges and hot climate. I was ready in two weeks. I started out with 200 mix. Now i have 5000, and im feeding with no stress.
    Yes! Two weeks is great! With the 200 mixed too, that's good. I thought you would probably need 200 'Adults' to get ready in at least a month, but mixed that's even better. 5000, that's a great colony. You going to try to sell some off? You're probably just going to be buried with the amount of roaches producing or get more bins to separate, unless you want to get more frogs . You could always sell them to me? Haha.

    Quote Originally Posted by BG View Post
    I had an issue with dead roaches. They would rot and bring maggots. I did some research,and have no more problems. Theres this beetle that eat the dead roaches and now the bottom is clean.
    Oh yeah? How were they dying on you? Were they insufficiently molting and dying from humidity being too low, end of their life, or mold growth? That's awesome that you got a cleanup beetle, I never would of thought of that, but with a bit of research anythings possible. Every time I buy crickets from my local reptile shop they always have this little black beetle in the egg flats with the crickets they give me. I'm wondering if this is the same thing you're talking about. Clears up the mystery if it is.



  18. #17
    MonsterPyxie
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    Default Re: Food!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Sublime View Post
    Yeah I'm getting oranges for them definitely, everyone I heard use them tells you it helps greatly with breeding. My bin got up to like 105-110F, so I got to go buy a rheostat tomorrow to bring it down to about 95F, dammit. Oh well, that's good that I'll have one for the winter time, etc. You have a colony right? How long did it take before you could pick out of yours? I want to get this process going quick.
    Mark,

    Heres an Idea im doing now with mine.

    if the bottom of your bin is at 105-110, prop some egg crate standing up in the bin. then put a temperature probe at the top of the egg crate.

    when I did this I found I was getting 100-105 at the bottom, but about 85-90 at the top. The roaches where all in the middle/bottom area of the egg crate, so they must love the heat!


    Now that I am heating the entire room to 95 degrees, thats less of a option, as it seems the temperature in the entire bin is around 95. gotta do more testing.


    BTW don't screw up like I did and keep there humidity too low. I got a outdoor temperature/humidity gauge at walmart for $2 that your supposed to hang on a wall (im not spending $10-$15 on a "reptile" gauge) and I check it a couple times a day now. when I first put it in there my humidity was 30%. now that im keeping it between 50-60% humidity, the roaches are going NUTS!!!! They are eating 3x's as much as they where, and I see new babies almost every day!

  19. #18
    Sublime
    Guest

    Default Re: Food!!

    Quote Originally Posted by MonsterPyxie View Post
    Mark,

    Heres an Idea im doing now with mine.

    if the bottom of your bin is at 105-110, prop some egg crate standing up in the bin. then put a temperature probe at the top of the egg crate.

    when I did this I found I was getting 100-105 at the bottom, but about 85-90 at the top. The roaches where all in the middle/bottom area of the egg crate, so they must love the heat!


    Now that I am heating the entire room to 95 degrees, thats less of a option, as it seems the temperature in the entire bin is around 95. gotta do more testing.


    BTW don't screw up like I did and keep there humidity too low. I got a outdoor temperature/humidity gauge at walmart for $2 that your supposed to hang on a wall (im not spending $10-$15 on a "reptile" gauge) and I check it a couple times a day now. when I first put it in there my humidity was 30%. now that im keeping it between 50-60% humidity, the roaches are going NUTS!!!! They are eating 3x's as much as they where, and I see new babies almost every day!
    Yeah I'm going to prop them up vertically stacked so when they poop the frass falls to the floor, they can thermo-regulate by moving up or down as you mentioned, and the new babies eat the poop. Yeah that makes sense, I also want to have it hotter than usual because people seem to fail at getting them to breed fast enough and it's usually because of low heat, I'm going to make sure it's pretty hot in there haha (Around the same temps you were telling me). 30% for dubia roaches isn't that low, they like moderate humidity 20-60%. That's great that there going crazy now with the higher humidity, I'll definitely have to take your advice on that one. I'm going to have to buy one of those humidity gauges you got at Walmart the next time I go. My mom wont let me keep the dubias in the house (Unfortunately roaches are associated with the word dirty, crickets are worse yet people still seem to not mind them wtf?), which is a downside, but I'll keep them in the garage and hopefully the humidity stays up to par. I hope the dish full of water gel crystals raises the humidity in the bin by the hot air drawing moisture from them because I don't really have any other way to keep the humidity up in their bin once I keep them out in the garage. I bought a zoo-med rheostat to adjust the temperature on the zoo-med under tank heater in case it gets too hot. Shouldn't get any hotter than 105-110F like I was saying though.

    That's cool you got your colony thriving though, you'll have to update me with some pics in a couple months of how they're doin'. I can't wait to get my colony going, I hate crickets so much... There's a local reptile shop I called up and they had dubias, 50 large count for $8.99 so I'm going to pick up all of them that they have and probably start out with a colony of 150-200 today . So stoked. Thanks for the advice!

  20. #19
    Sublime
    Guest

    Default Re: Food!!

    By the way I'm using a infrared thermometer gun I bought on Amazon for $16.19! It's marked down like 78%, it's normally $71.99. This one is just basic with all the main stuff you'll ever need. Plus it has like 100 5 star reviews on it so I knew it was a good deal reviewing all the comments people wrote about it. If you're interested in buying it check it out. It has a laser sight you can turn on for more precise readings, blue light that lights up the led screen, auto shut off/low batter indicator.

    Amazon.com: HDE Temperature Gun Infrared Thermometer w/ Laser Sight: Home Improvement

  21. #20
    MonsterPyxie
    Guest

    Default Re: Food!!

    good to hear mark. Another thing I think is helping is I removed a lot of "hides" of theres. I had 4-5 paper towel rolls in there, plus a giant roll I got from a picture i got online. I removed all these forcing the roaches to bundle up more and hide on the egg crate.

    doing this they are packed in pretty tight with each other now, and I think its helping the breeding. As in its just easier for the roaches to find each other? if that makes sense.

    I also use a infrared temp gun, but mine was $65 and is meant for general use. not reptile specific. I originally bought it for my mustang to read temperatures of the headers, and tune the motor, but now I only seem to use it for my critters, haha, go figure.

    95 degrees and 50-60% humidity is working well for me. Just keep a close eye on temps. On warm days the temp can climb up to 100 (I dont think these guys would mind 105-110 even) and on colder days we are getting now, I've seen as low as 87. So when your keeping them in your garage just keep a close eye on how the temps change due to the weather.

    Also insulate them from the concrete floor. My temps kinda sucked at the bottom of the tub until I got them up off the floor. I have a old floor rug that is thick, folded in half, under my tub, which stops the heat being pulled out of the tub and dispersed into the ground.

    If your using a heating pad, It will help it not to cycle on/off so much trying to keep the heat from being put into the floor rather then the tub. I wouldn't really feel alright using a rug, so try to prop them up on some wood blocks or something. Also a inch or so away from the cold wall will help too. (unless the wall gets sun in the afternoon, then the wall could radiate some heat for you to the tub.)


    just rambling, trying to help people out

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