Need some help....Impaction

[Heatheranne]

Dubia roaches are actually really nutritious and much more than crickets. Crickets also pose impaction risks. The best thing to do is to vary their diet. A balanced diet will help to keep things moving through normally. Monitoring your frog, their feces, and their belly fullness can prevent many problems.

If your baby has a right sided belly lump, then he is full and needs to poop. It would be wise to not feed that day and wait for him to go. When we have full bellies we get bloated and crampy in which our body warns us we need to have a bowel movement. Not too many people would want to eat until resolved. Our pacs do the same, most of the time. Bad thing is, as predatory amphibians, movement of their food is when they strike so they may occasionally eat even when they're too full. I'm sure everyone already knows this, just thought I'd mention.

Roaches are fine to feed. Their "meat" to shell ratio is much higher than a cricket. Do dubias pose an impaction risk? Yep, but no more than a cricket. And if you're worried about constipation, then you can feed the freshly molted ones. They are soft and squishy .

My frogs' diets are rotated with crickets, dubias, and night crawlers. I gut load both the crickets and the dubias, and of course use mvi and calcium/vita D supplements. I also do weekly to biweekly honey soaks and regular soaks every couple days. I just set them in their water bowls. They often stay in for a bit and seem to like it.

You should start a random post about what people feed their pacs just to get some comparisons .

[Hoppity100]

Thanks for writing with your viewpoint. Yeah, the cricket thing is bothersome when I see the large boney ones with those folded up legs that resemble sticks. That is just as bad. I am not fond of giving mine crickets unless they are small and young. Whether roaches and crickets have nutrients is not what I question so much, its their size and structure. I would not offer someone peanut brittle if they had no teeth, likewise a ribeye steak. I don't see what's wrong with dusting roaches in fiber powder first, maybe that would help the frog. I'm still trying to help frogs/toads when they can't. Maybe their meat is good, no question, its their size, frogs can't chew like we can, shells would be slower to digest and have a better chance of impacting, constipating, blockage.

I don't eat food that is too big, too hard, or if I can't chew it first. People chew then swallow. Frogs just gulp and swallow. Even flies bred indoors seem more reasonable to give. I like your honey and soaking idea. When you have inactivity, curled up intestines like they are in our bellies, and something too big to fit, its like trying to squueze an idaho potato down your kitchen drain. I've had digestive complaints same as frogs and its not painful. I know to avoid it next time I eat. I still feel for a frog/toad that has to experience several days of cramping, pain, buldging abdomen. This is not fun.

[MatthewM1]

They may not chew or completely digest the chitin but it does get broken down in their digestive tract to an extent. It's not like they are passing a whole shell that looks like a roach with the insides sucked out of it

[Hoppity100]

Thanks for explaining, ...any parts of a shell I question though. I mean, I can't picture one being digested with any ease. Gosh, it must hurt to an extent being passed. Next time I swallow an eggplant or avocado whole, I'll let you know how I'm doing. Before I do that, I'll write first. I'm looking out for frogs, not telling anyone what to do, but to reconsider feeding these roaches. Roaches are normally so hard the only way to kill them is with a hammer,.. that's if you can catch them first. I ran over a roach once with my car and that thing kept crawling! I think they are the last bugs to survive a nuclear tragedy. They also resemble peanuts, actually too much. I still eat peanuts, but now that I think about it, a roach with salt would be too easy to mistake for a peanut. Gotta sign off and visit the pet store..I need a new gravel vac for my fish tank. Later...

[MatthewM1]

Frogs digestive tracks have adapted and evolved over thousands of years to digest whole prey, and ours have not. a human eating a whole avocado is nothing like a frog eating a whole roach. And from my understanding dubia exoskeletons are softer than many other species of roach

[Hoppity100]

Could be, yes frogs in the wild eat all sorts of insects. Its the impaction I've been concerned about and other people who agree about shell, chitin, boney parts from large crickets, too. Read about consequences of impaction and waiting around to see if frog poos. I think the owners are waiting around to see if frog lives.

[Hoppity100]

I hope dubia skeletons are softer, apparently they are popular to feed. What about digesting the roach whole including chitin? That stuff is hard like our fingernails, ....I never would have thought this was so risky, until I read about people watching their frogs deal with an "impaction." Now I wonder if same people know about constipation vs impaction vs bowel obstruction vs proplapse vs perforation vs infection vs gangrene? Wanted to mention something this important. People have found these roaches are easy to maintain and breed, but, that's beside the point.

[DeeDub]

I hope dubia skeletons are softer, apparently they are popular to feed. What about digesting the roach whole including chitin? That stuff is hard like our fingernails, ....I never would have thought this was so risky, until I read about people watching their frogs deal with an "impaction." Now I wonder if same people know about constipation vs impaction vs bowel obstruction vs proplapse vs perforation vs infection vs gangrene? Wanted to mention something this important. People have found these roaches are easy to maintain and breed, but, that's beside the point.

Hey, on a serious note.

I can see you might actually be concerned about this. I feed primarily dubia roaches and earth worms to my Pyxies and Ornate. This impaction I have come to realize probably wasn't even an impaction. It was constipation. That is a good point.

The only parts that don't digest that I regularly identify in feces is the one peice of large chitin that protects the head. Once in a while I will see a leg, or a head, but other than that it all turns into frog turd.

[Hoppity100]

Well, softer is better. What happens to the remains of this shell while in intestines? Yep, I'm making sure I have fiber powder here.

[DeeDub]

Well, softer is better. What happens to the remains of this shell while in intestines? Yep, I'm making sure I have fiber powder here.

Any fiber powder you use will be incompatible with the digestive tract and further complicate any digestive issues. A frog's digestive system is not made to break down vegetable matter i.e. spagetti<<<<<< Teaching

[Hoppity100]

Oh, forgot to mention how thin a bowel wall is and if its made thinner by repeated impactions then frog will die from that. He will have perforation, peritonitis, then death.

[DeeDub]

Thanks for explaining, ...any parts of a shell I question though. I mean, I can't picture one being digested with any ease. Gosh, it must hurt to an extent being passed. Next time I swallow an eggplant or avocado whole, I'll let you know how I'm doing. Before I do that, I'll write first. I'm looking out for frogs, not telling anyone what to do, but to reconsider feeding these roaches. Roaches are normally so hard the only way to kill them is with a hammer,.. that's if you can catch them first. I ran over a roach once with my car and that thing kept crawling! I think they are the last bugs to survive a nuclear tragedy. They also resemble peanuts, actually too much. I still eat peanuts, but now that I think about it, a roach with salt would be too easy to mistake for a peanut. Gotta sign off and visit the pet store..I need a new gravel vac for my fish tank. Later...

The whole idea of roaches or crickets being detrimental is moronic. Why are we even having this debate? These frogs are not fragile little creatures. They are super hearty and can deal with alot. That doesn't mean we test thier limits. I am all for babying them. I enjoy doing it. All of your "imagine me swallowing a water mellon, eggplant, corn cob" analogies have nothing to do with these frogs. Read what someone else is telling you. Maybe you will learn something. They are designed to eat prey that is large; they are designed to eat chitinous insects; they don't eat spagetti or prunes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BTW, who the h e l l kills roaches with a hammer? Have you ever seen a roach you idiot?

Hoppity, you are not qualified to give anyone advice. That is clearly evident in almost everything you post on any thread on this forum. You say you want to help other people. Stop giving subjective, nonobjective, illogical advice. I can't beleive the c r a p that I read on this forum that you have posted (that goes for the most part unanswered by those in the know). Your "Help" is one of the most detrimental things a new owner or potential owner could read. I don't know if you intentionally post things to be controversial (trolling) or are really just not very smart.

Bad husbandry practices getting propagated by blow hard, psuedo expert, internet cowboys like you are the biggest health risk to our captive frogs. Stop passing your B.S. conjecture to others. Why haven't the Mods taught this guy/girl some sense? Isn't that your role here? I know we need to be civil, cooperative, supportive, nice etc. but to what extent? If we are going to pick our battles to remain civil, then lets start with this issue. STOP LETTING PEOPLE GIVE OUT RETARDED ADVICE!!! You can't limit what people can say, just don't let them go on and on without a reply from you. PLEASE KEEP US ON TRACK! CORRECT POOR HUSBANDRY ADVICE GIVEN OUT BY OTHERS! I know that Husbandry practices vary, and that there will be some opinion related practices, but for the most part a little reminding nudge (slap) from the Mods in the right direction will solve most issues.

Now I digress....give me my punishment for injecting a little common sense into this 'debate' above...lol Or don't and realize that a little tough love can go a long way to reaching much needed clarity in a debate oriented, opinion riddled social media site such as this.