Pacman food "Just add water"

[never quit]

Okay, I was at the Daytona Reptile expo a few weeks ago. This Japanese guy was selling pacman frogs (wayyyyyy too expensive) but he also had this dry, ready to mix food. So, keeping an open mind, I bought a package for $ 16.00. It smells like tropical fish food and is a fine powder. It's a little tricky getting the right amount of water and mixing it correctly but after a few tries it's not too difficult.
Has anyone tried this stuff? All the ingredients are listed on the package, and there's a lot of them! I asked another guy at the expo if he had any experience with this dry food and he said his buddy used it and it seemed to work out okay.
There's a video of the Japanese guy mixing it and feeding it to his frogs....the url is pacmanfood.com
I've emailed the guy asking him about this powder but I haven't heard from him...Been over a week now.
I scanned a picture of the package so you can see the ingredients.....
I'm feeding two of my small (3") frogs exclusively on this, and they seem to really like it.
so the question for you experts out there, what's your opinion?


Hmmm.....that scanned in picture looks a bit small....I'm new to this forum, so if that doesn't work I'll try something different. Thanks Lloyd

[Deac77]

I believe Grif and ivory rep feed this

[never quit]

Hi Deac, and thanks......I'd like to hear what Grif and Ivory have to say. While I think it's a "good" food, I don't think it's the perfect all around food. The package says "you can grow a tadpole to adult frog with this pacman food only. The pacman food contains all necessary nutrients for frogs. No other supplements necessary [sic]." However, as we all know, feeding the whole animal e.g., fish, to a frog would be much more nourishing (because of the micro nutrients of the viscera and the organs) than feeding it a fish fillet. So while the pacman food may be one option, adding a varied diet of insects, worms, fish, an occasional mouse would make for a healthy and happy, not to mention long lived, frog!
My other comment, or more correctly question, is gut loading the feeder animals. That to me is an educated guess as to how much dusting or gut loading food crickets or whatever need to eat. The ultimate question is how much of the vitamins and minerals does the frog need?
Okay, this is getting beyond the scope of this reply......If you, or anyone else can comment on my questions, I'd sure like to read them.

Thanks again for your reply
Lloyd

[Lija]

Lloyd - check other threads, there're a lot of topics about this food.

[never quit]

Thanks Lija: I did a search, and sure enough, there's a lot of information about that food out there. It's interesting that everyone has the same concerns. So I'm thinking a varied diet is the best. To me, that would be nightcrawlers, crickets, pacman food and mice. I'd like to get roaches, but don't know how well they'll go over with the wife. The hornworms seem to be okay too. Have you ever given your frogs goldfish? That could be yet another item....
The problem I'm having is it seems to stress them when I hold a cricket or pinky with forcepts and wave it in front of them...There's a couple of frogs it doesn't bother but the other 3 they just sit there..Then when you drop the worm in front of them and it moves they'll eat it....It just seems they like that "natural motion" of the food item. The pixie just doesn't care, he lunges at anything.

Thanks again
Lloyd

[Namio]

While I think it's a "good" food, I don't think it's the perfect all around food. The package says "you can grow a tadpole to adult frog with this pacman food only. The pacman food contains all necessary nutrients for frogs. No other supplements necessary [sic]." However, as we all know, feeding the whole animal e.g., fish, to a frog would be much more nourishing (because of the micro nutrients of the viscera and the organs) than feeding it a fish fillet. So while the pacman food may be one option, adding a varied diet of insects, worms, fish, an occasional mouse would make for a healthy and happy, not to mention long lived, frog!

The Samurai pacman food is ALL you need to raise a frog. Mikesfrog, who breeds horned frogs, will testify that it's truly a great food source for pacmans, besides that it's on the expensive end of food options.

Like how it's advertised, you don't even need to add other supplements (vitamin and calcium) because it has them all.
While I do agree with you feeding your frog with variety of food items is always good, but honestly samurai pacman food really is all you need. Personally I choose to feed my frogs mostly nightcrawlers (70%), crickets (20%), and pacman food & molly & pinky & beef heart (10%), because it's more fun and economically sound for me than feeding samurai pacman food exclusively.

[never quit]

Thanks Namio: Interesting to hear that a professional breeder gives it a thumbs up. You do bring up an issue I've been going to look into. That is, how cost effective is the food? Now, it cost $ 16.00 for a 4 oz. pack. While that may sound expensive, we first need to determine a cost/feeding. That may be a little difficult because if you feed a variety of food items, they all have different moisture contents. What we need to do is get the analysis of, for instance, a nightcrawler. Let's assume it contains 70% moisture. And 2 of these guys weigh a total of 4.5 grams. if you remove the moisture (70%), the two worms weight is now 1.35 grams. The 4 oz. of pacman food is 113.4 grams. That's the equilvalent of 113.4/1.35 = 84 feedings or 168 nightcrawlers in one $ 16.00 pack of food. That's about ¢.10/worm. So, assuming the moisture content and weight of two nightcrawlers is correct, if you can buy worms for less than 10 cents each, then the worms are a better deal. But that's only for worms, and not crickets, pinkies and beef heart. You would have to do the math for those food items.

Thanks for your reply. I like the idea of beef heart.
Lloyd

[Deac77]

Stay away from gold fish they are awful feeders parasite ridden and almost no nutritional value mollies and guppies are fine if you breed them yourself

[Bruce]

I just bought 2 bags of the pacman food, it's awesome! I stick with a varied diet, using roaches and nightcrawlers as staples, but I may cut down on nightcrawlers and use the pacman food more often for my pyxies and my pac.

[never quit]

Thanks Deac, I've heard that. I just would have thought that since the goldfish appear healthy and such they ARE healthy....I guess not. Okay, I just dumped the 8 of them in my little pond in the back yard. So now I have to look at something different.

Thanks for your input
Lloyd

[never quit]

Hi Bruce: I've only read good things about using roaches....The problem seems to be my wife might go off the deep end if I bring roaches in the house. She doesn't say anything about the crickets, but I think there's a perception that roaches are nasty. I'll have to try some. I have some nightcrawlers from Walmart, but they don't move around much at all! I tried moving the worm in front of the frog with forcepts, but it seems the forcepts scare the frog more than anything else....Did you have a difficult time getting your frogs to take food from forcepts?

Thanks
Lloyd

[Deac77]

Nope mine always go straight for the worms just gotta get used to the tongs a for the roaches they are about 10xs cleaner than crickets! My girlfriend hated the idea of roaches but the more she dealt with crickets for her Cham she got more and more disgusted then she saw how clean my roach bins were and asked when the last time I cleaned the I told her at least a month she was amazed there was no smell at all a she asked me of she could have them since they can't climb smooth surfaces an they any fly or jump now she has her own colony for her Cham

[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]

Thanks for the comment: That's what I've always read, that the roaches are really clean compared to crickets...And, yeah, they do have a smell to them...
As far as the tongs, I'll just have to work with the frogs...

Thanks again
Lloyd

[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

[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.