Pacman food "Just add water"

[Bruce]

My female pyxie wants nothing to do with them. My pac will generally only eat from them anymore, and my male pyxie (still young, about 2 months old) just doesn't care either way, he lunges at everything.

[never quit]

Hi Bruce: I have the same thing....One frog doesn't care about the forcepts and the other frogs just want nothing at all to do with them....I'll try and work with them, but if after a couple of weeks there's no change, then the frog wins and I'll have to use something different.

Thanks
Lloyd

[GrifTheGreat]

Pacman Food can be used to raise your Pacmans on without any supplementation and or other foods. It can get expensive and I prefer to feed mine a varied diet only using Pacman Food as a treat. I just don't like feeding them a ball of dough made of fish meal over live night crawlers and roaches. It is an excellent food source nonetheless.

It it becomes to expensive or you decide that you like a more natural approach where your frog gets the chance to hunt either are fine. We all have our preferences when it comes to food for them, but most of us use invertebrates like insects and night crawlers.

[never quit]

Hi Grif: Do you or do you know of anyone with personal experience of raising a pacman on only the dry food? I'd just like to know how the frog was, and the long term results of the food. That last part would be a challenge. I think you would have to do a necropsy on the frog. And, to do it correctly, you would want analyze several frogs in order to get a representative sample. However, if the frog lives 10+ years on only pacman food, I'd say it's a success.
As far as the expense.....I had an earlier post looking at nightcrawlers. Of course it assumed several key variables....I'm a supervisor in a steelmill with a six sigma black belt, so I spend a majority of my time statistically analyzing processes. And looking at the cost of various foods would be interesting. Now the issue becomes which food is most effective? It's almost beyond the scope of what we're discussing, but it needs to be, at the least, acknowledged. I posted this question on another forum and a couple of the replies were very negative. "They don't eat it in the wild" those types of comments. So I didn't think I would get an objective reply and came over to this site....Much more open minded.
Anyway, my plan is to bring in some nightcrawlers and crickets to work, weigh them on our scale in the lab. With accurate weights, and hopefully I can find some analysis of the the feeders, I can determine exactly how expensive each item is.
Yes, a varied diet just intuitively sounds better. I read a little about people feeding hornworms......Have you ever used them? If so, what's your opinion.

Thanks
Lloyd

[Lija]

now that kind of cost analysis would be really interesting

[never quit]

Hi Lija: Yep, it would be interesting!.....Especially from the standpoint that our perceptions sometimes are not even close to reality. Or, as I tell some of the people in work: "You need to base your opinions on facts, and don't base your facts on opinions."
So, after work today I went to the bait store and got a "half tube" of crickets. I think it was 36. They all looked about the same size, large adults, but what I did was put the crickets in four ziplock bags. Each bag has somewhere around 9. The idea being the average weight of each bag will give me a more accurate weight/cricket than just weighing the one bag with all the crickets, because of rounding the vaules. Actually, an important part is the standard deviation of the samples. We can then determine how variable the weight of the crickets are.
The nightcrawlers will be a different issue....I think the size is quite variable. But let's see what the numbers say.

And Thanks for your interest
Lloyd

[GrifTheGreat]

Hi Grif: Do you or do you know of anyone with personal experience of raising a pacman on only the dry food? I'd just like to know how the frog was, and the long term results of the food. That last part would be a challenge. I think you would have to do a necropsy on the frog. And, to do it correctly, you would want analyze several frogs in order to get a representative sample. However, if the frog lives 10+ years on only pacman food, I'd say it's a success.
As far as the expense.....I had an earlier post looking at nightcrawlers. Of course it assumed several key variables....I'm a supervisor in a steelmill with a six sigma black belt, so I spend a majority of my time statistically analyzing processes. And looking at the cost of various foods would be interesting. Now the issue becomes which food is most effective? It's almost beyond the scope of what we're discussing, but it needs to be, at the least, acknowledged. I posted this question on another forum and a couple of the replies were very negative. "They don't eat it in the wild" those types of comments. So I didn't think I would get an objective reply and came over to this site....Much more open minded.
Anyway, my plan is to bring in some nightcrawlers and crickets to work, weigh them on our scale in the lab. With accurate weights, and hopefully I can find some analysis of the the feeders, I can determine exactly how expensive each item is.
Yes, a varied diet just intuitively sounds better. I read a little about people feeding hornworms......Have you ever used them? If so, what's your opinion.

Thanks
Lloyd

Mike of Mike's Phat Frogs Uses Pacman Food, but doesn't only feed it. He is a breeder and uses it more than anyone else here. His screen name is MikesFrogs. Jim and Jessica Ivory also breed these frogs and don't really use the Pacman Food much at all so you should be able to get decent opinions from both of them on pros and cons of the product compared to just offering a varied diet. Their screen names are JIvoryII(Jim) and IvoryReptiles(Jessica).

Now I have used Hornworms and they are an excellent feeder, but grow so fast that if you don't have enough frogs to feed them too they will not be worth the cost depending on where you get them from. I have to order mine and the cost around $22.45 for 15 to 25 worms in a single cup. That's with shipping included from GreatLakesHornworm.com. They reach their full size of 4" in anywhere from a week and a half to two weeks if you don't refrigerate them off and on. Say in the fridge for a day out for a day or in for 2 days out for a day. Like most caterpillars all they do is eat and shed so their growth rate when kept warm at room temp and up is quite ridiculous.

They thrash about and try to bite the tongs when you pick them up, but your frogs are nit in danger and neither are you. Its more of a threat display and really gets the frog's attention. Some frogs won't accept them though as most that are feed only one type of food item are very stubborn at trying something new. These worms are also very colorful which will also entice the frogs interest. Very nutritious and extremely filling so they are best used as a treat. They can be compared to Silkworms which can also be used and are expensive. A high fat and protein diet can cause health issues Luke cloudy eyes, blindness, obesity, and kidney and liver failure so you must be cautious when offering such diets as rodents and fish which also can harbor parasites. Due to cost and the growth rate compared to how ever many frogs you own and will be offering the Hornworms to makes them a not so good food source other than an occasionally treat. They are perfect for treats so you could give one or two twice a week with no ill affects as long as the worm is of appropriate size for the frog your feeding.

[GrifTheGreat]

Another thing to consider is the nutritional value of each food item. Figuring out the cost per ounce would be relatively easy, but it doesn't account for nutrition. For instance, crickets are very low cost but they have very little nutritional value. So the food that costs the least isn't necessarily the best choice for the long term health of your frog.

[never quit]

Yes, you're EXACTLY correct. As I stated in an earlier reply "Now the issue becomes which food is most effective?" Which is what I was talking about. In thinking about this in work today, I thought of creating a coefficient ( I would need you smart guys and gals who know more about this to guide me). Then, on the analysis of the food item you could, for example, put a coefficient of 2 in front of the protein, and a (-.5) in front of the fat content. then, the food item with the highest sum values would be the best to feed. Then we need to figure out the cost.
Okay, it's getting late for me....I'm up at 3:30 for a good run, then into work.
Thanks again for your interest and feedback
Lloyd

[never quit]

Hi Grif: Thanks for getting back to me. I appreciate the information on who feeds what....I'll get in touch with Jim. I've got five frogs, and they're only about 3" max, so maybe I'll wait a bit before trying some hornworms....Besides that, those guys cost anywhere from $ .90 to $ 1.50. Of course a 4" caterpillar might have a lot of mass.