Changing my Fantasy Pacman frog from a staple diet of crickets to nightcrawlers

[TeeRiddle]

Prince Charming II is currently eating about 6 - 14 crickets a day - He is a very good eater! No problems with that! Ain't he the cutest little Fantasy frog you've ever seen? I adore him . I believe he is around 4 - 5 months old.

But crickets are extremely annoying. They are:
+ Hopping everywhere and easily escape my grasp - I have a few running around my room and I am very upset about this.
+ When they get older they make a lot of noise.
+ They die very easily in my container I have for them and they stink very badly. Feces and urine everywhere on there food.
+ Incredibly hard to clean the crickets cage without one or two escaping me. VERY annoying.
+ He eats a hold bunch of them now - it is probably easier to use bigger victims!
+ My dad is actually very upset they are in the house. I tried to explain to him that they are not cockroaches but he is stubborn to his ways.

I have a few questions about nightcrawlers. I heard they are great staple diet. By the way - The ones that I have access to are undyed, no pesticides added and no additives of any sort. I spritzed there containers with de-chlorinated water to be extra sure they are not in chlorinated water.

Questions:
1) Petco tells me they make a terrible staple diet. But on this forum people rave about nightcrawlers. Anyone out there have a frog that is healthy and eating nightcrawlers?
2) How do you feed your lovely froggie a nightcrawler without the nightcrawler ducking for cover in the dirt? ( see first picture of worm hiding)
3) What is the best way of changing a staple diet from crickets to nightcrawlers?
4) Do you think my frog is too small to eat the night crawlers I picked up? (see picture of frog the size of two quarters and nightcrawler)
5)What do you think about adding calcium to the bath instead of coating the food? .


Thank you for viewing and your input! Just a tip - might help organization wise to copy paste my questions and answer after them!

Heyya,

Great looking Fantasy frog!

1) Petco tells me they make a terrible staple diet. But on this forum people rave about nightcrawlers. Anyone out there have a frog that is healthy and eating nightcrawlers?

- Nightcrawlers are a very good staple food item. I feed my Fantasy nightcrawlers and horn worms with the very occasional wax worm.

2) How do you feed your lovely froggie a nightcrawler without the nightcrawler ducking for cover in the dirt? ( see first picture of worm hiding)

- The previous posts have mentioned some good tactics for feeding the nightcrawlers to your frog, such as tong feeding or taking him out of the enclosure into a "feeding" tank.

I have used a playing card as a plate while feeding too. Just place the card in front of the frog then put the worm on the card. He will snatch it up once it wiggles around some. This helps keep the worm from picking up substrate, and keeps the dusted, slimy worm from making a mess as well.

This method works well for my Fantasy, but he is kind of shy and a bit of a lazy eater. If you have an agressive eater then it might not work so great because he may lunge after the card when you place it in and such. You want to avoid having the frog snap at the card.

3) What is the best way of changing a staple diet from crickets to nightcrawlers?

- I would offer an appropriate size piece of nightcrawler for the next feeding. Once it wiggles some he should take it pretty easily. Most seem to love the taste of the worms and once they get something they like there's no problem with them eating them. As a matter of fact, when I switched Orion over to nightcrawlers he wouldn't even touch crickets.

4) Do you think my frog is too small to eat the night crawlers I picked up? (see picture of frog the size of two quarters and nightcrawler)

- You should cut the nightcrawlers into smaller pieces. The general rule is the food item shouldn't be bigger than the distance between the frog's eyes - so maybe about an inch long or so (judging by your pictures).

5)What do you think about adding calcium to the bath instead of coating the food?

- I recommend dusting the food items with calcium every other feeding and with a multi-vitamin once a week, but not on the same day as a calcium dusting. You could use Repashy Calcium Plus which has calcium, vitamin D3, and other essential nutrients. Rep-Cal and Herptivite are good sources too. I'm not familiar with calcium baths. Maybe someone with more knowledge can answer that.


Also, I'm not sure what type of substrate you are using, it looks like coco fiber possibly, but it appears to be way too soggy. It should be moist but not swampy.

Hope this helps!