Are live shrimp and crawdads safe to feed to African bullfrogs?

[Tyson]

I found a place that for a few months of the year sells them live and was wondering if these were safe to feed to African bullfrogs. Are they good for them or are they only a little bit okay for them like rats?

[ejh805]

I don't have much experience yet with African Bullfrogs, but I do have a lot of experience with live shrimp and live crawdads.
Personally, I wouldn't even try.

Crawdads are basically tiny lobsters. With very hard hard exoskeletons and sharp pincers. I can see one injuring your frog badly. And even if your frog DID successfully eat it, I imagine the exoskeleton would be difficult to digest.

Shrimp, while having much thinner, flimsier shells, do this snapping motion when frightened, grabbed, etc. I once grabbed one in a lagoon-type pool at the beach, and when it snapped, it left a large gash in my hand. Imagine what that could do to your frogs skin.

[Eel Noob]

Shrimps should be ok but I would stay away from crawdads or what we call them around here crawfish. A guy I know had first hand experience feeding crawfish to his pyxie, lets just say it didn't go well and lost his pyxie but than again his pyxie was still young.

[Wicked frogs]

I feed my pac-man frog New England ship no shell or nothing i rip the tail off and he goes nuts over it.

[ejh805]

I feed my pac-man frog New England ship no shell or nothing i rip the tail off and he goes nuts over it.

If you're set on feeding your frog live shrimp, this would probably be the best way to go about it.
Remove the shrimps defensive mechanisms.
The picture below, notice the ridges on the top of the head. Those are hard and sharp and could potentially cause injury.

[Maharg]

This sparked quite a debate over in the Pacman frog section when I posed the question then proceeded to follow through with feeding the Crawdad to my Rococo Toad. I believe its safe, IF the frog is large like my Toad in the video below. If you google diets of American Bullfrogs, countless sources will tell you that crustaceans such as crawdads are part of their natrual diet. My Rococo is doing fine. Very happy, energetic and no sign of impaction.