New PCF

[Moonfall]

Guess who's back? I was off on a hiatus after my PCF, Lily died. Simply too heartbroken to even consider a frog website.

She was killed by my parent being stupid, I left for 3 days, and although she was fed, no one made sure she had water. She dried up. I feel like a monster. This was a while ago, early August. After I lost her, my dad offered to get another frog as a replacement, but Lily couldn't be replaced and I didn't want another amphibian, because if someone forgot it- it would die. I never forget them, but my family isn't quite as on top of things, and sadly a life was lost because of it. I ended up with a beautiful Kenyan Sand Boa, who is growing quickly and thriving.

But, yesterday another frog happened upon me. I heard a weird sound downstairs, and thought it was one of my mice in trouble. They were fine, sleeping and unharmed, so I went back upstairs. Later, came back down to feed the mice, and my cat was watching something along the wall. I thought it was probably a spider and went to check it out, only to find a very scared and weak PCF sitting there, on my carpet. Dehydrated, weak, looked skinny, and was very red along the hind legs. I don't know where he came from. I cleaned him up, set up a kritter keeper for him, and hoped for the best. Today he looks great, and has been singing quite pleasantly. It's snowing outside, so I don't think I can release him, and so here he'll stay. He doesn't seem to mind.

And a quick question, can frogs eat freeze dried crickets as a staple? Since I have one PCF, I cannot use 250 pinheads a month, but I also can't justify buying 2$ a dozen pinheads at the pet store. There has to be a better option for feeding this guy. If not I'll order the pinheads and feed them to all of my critters, LOL.

That same stupid pet store charged 7 bucks for a box of 3 pinkies which I can buy online for 16 cents a peice. >.<

[Badger]

Frogs only see movement, so pre killed prey is unfortunately out of the question. Another option (if your parents will let you) is to culture your own dubias. Dubias are one of the best feeders available, much more nutritious. But, because they are a roach most people get turned off very quickly. These are a tropical species so there is no chance of them invading your home. There are numerous guides on breeding them, it is really simple, though it can be sorta costly initially. On Beardeddragon.org there is a guy (Username is critterfeeders) who sells dubias cheap. Usually 300 shipped is about 45 bucks, plus 15 for a tub/heat mat and boom you have a dubia colony. Good luck!

[Moonfall]

In the past, my frogs have all been willing to eat food from my hands, including halves of dead crickets when I ran out of tiny ones. I just had to wiggle them a bit.

IF he will eat them can he? There's not like, some weird difference that makes them dangerous?

And, knowing me, I would fall in love with the roaches. One of my most beloved pets was a Madagascar Cockroach named Hisser. I had him for 6 years and cried for days when he died. I'd end up starving the poor frog just because I didn't want to feed him my cute baby roaches. I have a bad enough time with crickets and almost always have one or two special ones who are being kept as pets if there are crickets at my house. I'm a sucker. That's why I have 26 pets. And I don't know how they all find me! After I cleaned the froggy up, the first thing I said was HOW DO THEY FIND ME?! I think they know I will take care of them.

[Badger]

Holy... That's a lot of pets P: And are you sure you'd fall in love with alllll of the roaches? haha. You could always breed crickets, though it smells and the chirp. Yeah, you can feed them dead ones, though usually they are lower in nutrition I believe. It's just usually easier to feed live because the frogs do all the work lol.

[Moonfall]

I would, and then I'd have them marked with names, probably in non-toxic paint, etc, or in individual tanks or something crazy like that. I don't mind the chirping, my house is LOUD. The mice on the wheel, the frog and his singing, the bird carrying on, our roosters outside, the cat fussing, etc. LOL

I always hand fed Lily anyway to make sure she ate. I'm a nervous frog mommy and crickets are MEAN little buggers. I've lost praying mantids to them before.

I'm going to look into freeze dried pinheads and then instead of doing 1 live one a day, I can do two dead ones, which should compensate for the minor loss of nutrition. And, I will have to be sure to mist him more often because he'll be getting dry food instead of nice gooey crickets and could dehydrate. For now I'm picking up some live crickets though.

Yes, it's a lot of pets and I really don't want more, but when something needing help shows up.. well. 11 of them are chickens, so that helps. Then there's cats, dog, horse, mice, rats, bird, snake, and frog.

[Badger]

Awesome. I would have that many if I could afford it lol. And I would feed more than 2 dead ones a day, I'd say 4 would be sufficient though. Do you have a water bowl in there for him/her?

[Moonfall]

Yup! It's not exactly large but enough that he can submerge himself in it, and he has been doing so. He was really dehydrated (and skinny from it) when I found him. He is a whole new frog tonight.

[Badger]

Awesome!

[Moonfall]

He gulped down a pinhead from my hand. PCFs are so incredible- adapting to captivity and human hands that way just seems remarkable to me.

So, he's eating, too. <3 I think he will make it unless there's a wound I cannot see that gets infected.

[Badger]

Good, make sure he's not losing any weight (indicative of parasites).

[Moonfall]

How do you even tell? He's huge and fat now, but having more water in his body makes him larger, less makes him "shrink". Yesterday he looked awful.

I have a gram scale (for my mice!), am I crazy to try to weigh him if I notice a change in appearance?

[artes]

Join the club Moonfall. Animals always know how to find the people with "SUCKER" tattooed on their forehead. That's how I ended up with 7 cats (all rescues) and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Edit: As for roaches, you could do what I'm going to do with my colony - earmark the parents as "pets", and call the babies "lunch".

[Badger]

Lol @artes ,and no, weighing is actually a good idea.

[Moonfall]

They are great at picking out the suckers. One of my favorite bratmonsters is out playing with me- an ex-feeder mouse. He showed his cute face in the feeder tank- he knew what he was doing. I obsessed about how he was going to die, and went back to save him the next day. Now he's running around on my brand new fancy (and not cheap, it was a gift) bathrobe. Probably going to mark it and then it'll smell like skunk butt.

Oh, and the three roosters? Yeah, they knew what they were doing, too. All of my creatures pulled the right cards, either the show up hurt/in distress card, the I'm-gonna-die-soon card, or the I'M CUTE card. I don't know how they find me. I don't. But I'm the biggest sucker ever and I -love- to have my creatures and take care of them. They're lucky I love them, the late-night vet trips, working my butt off to make money, and cage cleaning get really old sometimes.

And, okay. :3 I will see what I can do about that. I have to find the scale first, it's vanished. It has to be here somewhere. I haven't used it since August, when I had an orphaned baby deer mouse. Poor thing, she had internal stuff, opened her eyes while she looked like a week old pup, she had bloat that recurred, and she died the day after her little eyes opened.

Anyway. Off topic, sorry.