First Post, First Frog, Help Please!

[Tyrion]

Hello!
I've lived here in a suburb between Baltimore and D.C. for the last 25 years. I've never heard or seen a wild frog in my neck of the woods until two nights ago when I opened my backdoor to find a baby green frog with a white belly clinging to the handle. I am not in the habit of taking in 'healthy' animals, but due to the recent hurricane and weeks of massive flooding I figure this poor thing is well away from home. I've never cared for a frog/toad before. He/she is almost the size of a quarter.

The very next morning I woke up early to get him some flightless fruit flies, but they all crawled out the mesh on his lid rather quickly (tips?). I saw him eat ONE. Today I 'hand' fed him some flies, and the poor thing ate TWELVE! I gave him ample time to digest between each. If I fed him now I feel like he would eat 12 more. I am worried of overfeeding or underfeeding him! My dog will eat until he pukes, so I'm keeping him in mind... but that's a dog.

I've read a LOT of tutorials. He's in a 10gal tank, and my wife is picking up a UV lamp on her way home tonight. I mainly wonder about feeding. Is it wise to just keep feeding him until he busts? Or will he know better? And what is busting for a baby frog half an inch long? I know some baby animals eat crazy amounts like triple their body weight in a day. I swore he ate his weight in flies today!

I'm sorry for sounding like a clueless idiot. I care for all types of mammals, just never a frog/toad, and I really think this guy needs some help.

[kteacher]

Hi, I hope someone answers you, because I am in the same boat. Every night we keep finding tree frogs on our back door screen, I took 6 to school since i'm a k teacher. I have no idea what I am doing - where did you get the flies and the fruit flies, I found a dead one today in my classroom and I through that into the tank. HELP ME TOO!!!!

[Poly]

Hi Tyrion! Welcome to the forum!

I think you are right when you say that from is "well away from home".

I am not sure on what species of frog you have, but you did mention that it was "clinging" to the handle, so my best guess would be that it is a "Green Tree Frog", some photos will surely help! All of us at FrogForum love photos

To get it to eat the fruit flies without them escaping, place it in a large, flat container, (likre a small storage bin), then drop some flies in, they won't be able to escape because of the sides of the container, and the frog will be able to catch them much eaiser. The frog will stop when it's full, no need to worry about it overfeeding as of now, as it is still a froglet.

As for the container, a 10 Gallon is perfect for now, may want to give it some branches and plants to climb on. Make sure to mist daily, and keep a small, shallow bowl of water for it to "soak" in, forgs absorb water through their skin, so you will not actually see it "drink". As for substrate, use eco-earth, as it does not have any chemicals in it that will hurt your frog, regular soil, in most cases has some form of chemical in it.


You do not need a UV Warming lamp, frogs do not need to "bask" in light as reptiles do, the only need for the light is to implement a daylight cycle (leave it on for 12 hours, turn it off for 12 hours), but this is optional, is it not 100% needed. Keep the tempurature between 75F and 85F. You may need a warming mat for this, and if so, place it UNDER the tank, not against the glass, because if it is a tree forg, and sticks to the glass where the pad is, it could burn it's self.


As for the twelve flies, it most likely just hungury, I took in a very skinny baby toad, and fed it 9 pill bugs, close to it's wieght in food, after that, it went back to eating normal meal sizes.


Hope everything works out for you!

~Royce

[Poly]

Hi, I hope someone answers you, because I am in the same boat. Every night we keep finding tree frogs on our back door screen, I took 6 to school since i'm a k teacher. I have no idea what I am doing - where did you get the flies and the fruit flies, I found a dead one today in my classroom and I through that into the tank. HELP ME TOO!!!!

Fightless Fruit Fly cultures, can be bought at almost any pet stores, frogs food has to be moving, they will not eat dead food items.

[Tyrion]

Hi Kteacher, I found the flightless fruit flies at Petco in a vial for $6. The tube is full of this blue gel that the flies eat and breed in, so in theory it should keep replenishing itself with flies for 15 weeks (so says the label). I heard of these pinhead crickets (correct me if I'm wrong) that the baby frogs eat as well, but they are mostly available at bait shops? The reason I suggest these is because you have several baby frogs and don't have time to hand feed them. The crickets probably won't escape like the fruit flies do, so you can just dump them in.

My frog didn't really have the strength to hunt. He would eye the fly longing but do nothing, so I tossed the flies in water, fished them out with a coconut fiber and put it in front of him to eat, and he ate ate ate. I hope he has more strength tomorrow.

[Poly]

Pin Head crickets are a great food for small frogs, and should (not sure in your area) be avaliable at pet stores. You can also feed them small pieces of cut up wriggling worms, they love them!

[Tyrion]

Great feedback Royce, thank you! About keeping the flies from escaping, I'm still a little confused what you mean. They climb glass when it's wet or dry, I can't picture the container you described. Do I drop this container into the frogs home, and let him find his way into it to feed? The flies walk out of his tank like it's nothing.

Also, I think you're right, he does look like a tree frog and is awesome!

[Heatheranne]

Welcome Tyrion

[BG]

Welcome to the forum Tyrion. Its a wonderful thing what you doing here. We have been getting alot of threads on wondering frogs on the east cost. Especially from Jersey. Theres even a guy selling green or gray cause the picture he had on craigslist was a green gray tree frog for sale as many as you like. There maybe there's a connection here.lol