Hello from an "accidental" frog keeper

[daveo]

Hello,

My name is Dave. I live in south eastern Wisconsin and the other day my kids came in my house with a frog they had found in our front yard. Now please keep in mind that the day time temperatures here have been around 45 for a high and much colder at night. I would have thought any native frogs would be buried and hibernating by now, but here this guy was. He was very pretty and I had never seen such short legs on a bull frog before, so I did some research and found out it is an albino Argentinian Horned frog, or a Pacman frog (Ceratophrys ornata). I knew he had to have been someones pet so I put him in a 10 gallon aquarium with an 8 watt heater on the bottom, I put a bowl of water in there and when he/she got warm I offered some crickets. He ate them right away. That is my story and now I have many Pacman frog questions. I will post them in the appropriate forum.

aTdHvAaNnKcSe

DaveO

[Heatheranne]

Welcome to the forum .

If he is not a pacman, refer to the other care sheets. I only have a pacman & red eyed tree frogs so I am only of assistance to you if he is one of these . Others here will have suggestions for you though. I have learned bunches from them .

If he's a pacman...
There is a pacman care sheet here that will be very helpful. Start there .

The basic home set up is easy. They basically need coco fiber substrate, a water bowl to soak in only as deep as his chin filled with dechlorinated water, something to hide in or under like a safe or fake plant, a heat source (preferably a side wall heater so he doesn't get burnt) on one side of his tank, a misting bottle filled with dechlorinated water, a hydrometer for measuring the humidity, a temperature gauge to measure temp in his home, and food (crickets, red wiggled worms, the rare pinkie baby mouse if desired) coated every other day in flukers or other calcium/vitamin D powder. They are nocturnal and will want to eat at night. It sounds like a lot, but after the initial set-up, their homes are super easy to maintain.

Cleaning the house varies by opinion and you may get some different answers. I mist morning and evening, and more often if the humidity falls. I check the humidity and temp when I mist. I rinse and change the water bowl water daily whether it appears soiled or not and again if it is soiled (my pac usual soaks and soils his water right after he eats), so I change it when he hops out. I change his substrate monthly. Some people do this every 6 weeks. And I scoop out his old burrowed area and throw it away to remove urine when he starts a new location to burrow and shift the substrate to fill in the old hole. I sometimes lift and turn his substrate to keep it aerated and to prevent fungus. I remove any dead crickets and feces daily when I am ready to feed him. I can have his home cleaned in 5 minutes or so each evening.

I love my pacman frog! He is really fun to watch eat! And I love how he burrows down to his eyes during the day whe he sleeps .

I hope you enjoy your new frog!

Do you have any pictures of your new frog and his home?

[tgampper]

Hi Dave and welcome to Frog Forum!