Horned frog supplements

[Loz]

Hi all,

I have just purchased a baby albino horned frog and have been doing a lot of research to ensure I have a happy lil froggy.

However one thing is unclear in my mind, as most care sheets advise different things...

How often should I be supplementing my baby horned frog?

Also do the supplements need to be just for amphibians or can you use the same supplements as you would for reptiles? As I have a lot of this stuff already.

Please advise, thank in advance

[1beataway]

I would say dust the insects with calcium/vitamin powder each time you feed. The powder I use says it's for both reptiles and amphibians.

[Loz]

Thanks for the reply. I've just re-read the back of the supplements - And it says it's ok for both reps and amphibians. Silly me.

[1beataway]

Mine says it in big letters on the front. Lucky me.

What other reptiles do you have? Is this your first frog?

[Tom Highum]

Hello Loz welcome to the forum. Wow another from the UK. We would love pictures of your frog. What else do you keep?

[Loz]

Yea this is my very first frog. Between me and my boyfriend we've got a bearded dragon, a veiled chameleon, two flying geckos, 6 spiders, stick insects, leaf insects, two giant Asian matises, a yellow anaconda... and now my froggy.

I will try to upload some pics of my new addition soon, but I'm having problems with getting pics from my camera to the PC at the mo, something up with my PC I think.

[priya]

i have been using nutrobal vitamin powder for my frogs and toads as this was what the pet store told me to use, now im wondering if it will be to strong?

[John]

For a pacman frog your main concern is going to be calcium supplementation. I would dust his food about once or twice a week while he's still young - less frequently when he is older. Vitamin/mineral supplements are usually less of a concern for large frogs like this because they have more possibilities for a varied diet. Much of the advice followed by frog enthusiasts originally comes from dart frog enthusiasts - when all you feed your frogs is fruit flies (talking about dart frog keepers here) then you really do need to worry about supplements. However, when your frog can eat many other things that are readily available, it's better to make use of varied foods than rely on powdering the same food item day-in, day-out.

[Herpvet]

Hi all,

I have just purchased a baby albino horned frog and have been doing a lot of research to ensure I have a happy lil froggy.

However one thing is unclear in my mind, as most care sheets advise different things...

How often should I be supplementing my baby horned frog?

Also do the supplements need to be just for amphibians or can you use the same supplements as you would for reptiles? As I have a lot of this stuff already.

Please advise, thank in advance

Hello,

It depends on what you're feeding him. I completely agree about feeding a variety.

Captive (shop-bought) invertebrates need supplementing every feed ("a light dusting")- I generally recommend alternative days of multivitamin/calcium (eg nutrobal) and straightforward calcium carbonate powder while growing, dropping the nutrobal back to weekly for adults (calcium carbonate the other days).

Generally garden invertebrates (earthworms etc) should not need supplementation, although for a growing frog I would use multivitamin dusting about weekly.

Vertebrates in theory need no supplementation, although it depends somewhat on how they were treated prior to killing.

Having said all that, it's not an area where we have all the answers - I've seen animals that should have been fine be horribly deficient, and vice versa. Ideally serial radiographs could monitor the situation and allow some degree of titration of dosing, if you could afford to go that far : ).

Hope this helps,

Bruce.

[Loz]

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for the info Herpvet, very helpful.

Cheers