Stuff from the Chinese market?

[Teh Frog Whisperer]

My dad and I visited a Chinese market today, which was quite the interesting field trip, and I saw a bunch of whole smelt and shrimp and llive crawfish and stuff. My question is, would a live crawdad or thawed shrimp/smelt be okay for my Budgett's frog? I figure a crawdad or shrimp would probably be a pretty nutritious whole prey item, but I guess I'm concerned about how my frog's system would deal with the hard shell and stuff. And I'm wondering about the salt content of the shrimp or smelt. Any thoughts?

[nirotorin]

Well the shrimp has the problem of having come from saltwater, but that's never been a problem for people who feed their freshwater fish brine shrimp. So idunno possibly ok.

I'm guessing the crawfish would be too much shell to digest. Maybe if it was freshly molted it would be ok. I've seen adult snapping turtles **** out a lot of undigested crawfish pieces. So...

I know a guy who feeds all his chameleons self cloning crawfish, but those are smaller and thinner shelled than the ones people eat.

[Mentat]

Strange, thought answered this post yesterday. In general it's not a good idea feeding SW organisms to those that have no natural contact with ocean. Could feed fresh water origin prawns and crayfish as treats; but had to kill and peel first. Crustacean exoskeleton is way harder than adult dubias and even those can cause constipation. Some crustaceans even have sharp pincers and "horns" that could damage the frogs digestive system .

[Teh Frog Whisperer]

Yeah, I thought about it for a while and decided it's just not worth the trouble/risk.