New owner, one toad

[danielleelean]

Good Morning,

I just got a new fire belly toad. I am a little confused about feeding. As for as I can tell they only eat live insects, 2-3 crickets every other day. My problem with this is how do I store crickets? I only need about 12/wk. This is such a small quantity. Do I need to pick some up every few days or what. I am beyond confused so any help would be wonderful!

Danielle

[Heatheranne]

Hi Danielle,

You can get a small plastic container called a critter keeper or any container with air holes and a right fitting lid for your crickets. You can feed your crickets premade cricket food, such as that made by Flukers, or you can feed them oranges apples, bananas, potatoes, zucchini, Cheerios, romaine lettuce, carrots. be sure to rinse all fresh fruits and veggies well, and then rinse again with dechlorinated water. Avoid tomatoes, as tomatoes are toxic to frogs. You can provide water by using water gel or they can drink from fresh fruits and vegetables. Any homemade water gel should be made with dechlorinated water.

[danielleelean]

How few crickets can i keep in there? How long will they survive? Will I need to buy new ones every week or can I keep a month supply? Or can I breed? With only needing 12/wk is it worth it to breed? Also am I correct about how much to feed Linda (the toad)?

[maxQ]

Welcome to The FF. I am not an expert like the rest of these fine folks but here is my experience with FBT's.....FBT's are the best pets and one of the easiest to keep in my opinion, they adapt to most environments quickly and are hearty. FBT's were my first toad, In fact my first FBT is what started my addiction to this wonderful hobby or bag of Crack as I call it. I went from buying one to 5,6 and 7 in a week. I don't count what I feed mine, I have two types of enclosures, one is semi aquatic and the other is soil bottom, I buy crickets about every other day, I just dump them in and they will find them, I make sure that I dump enough in for 5-6 crickets per frog and I know they will find them. I have had mine for a couple years and they are very healthy and happy, I know that, they tell me so. LOL. They love hiding in little spots, nooks and crannies so have lots of hiding places and plants as they will be much happier. I only feed mine live Crickets. I store my Crickets in a 10 Gallon Aquarium with a screen top and with some egg crate and water gel inside but you can also use Lettuce or damp cotton balls. I keep them in my garage as they tend to stink. Have fun and again welcome

[Mentat]

Hello and welcome to FF Danielle! I keep small crickets in an ExoTerra Breeding Box Small and large crickets in same type plastic box but medium size. Can easily keep 2-3 dozen crickets in there as long as you provide a piece of egg crate carton around 1/2 the size of enclosure for them.

If fed and cared for, small crickets will live until they grow to adults and eventually die. Do be aware they grow fast in hot temps so don't buy more than couple week supply. Adult crickets will live for a week or maybe 2 depending on their age when bought. Think breeding crickets is OK if needing the smaller pinheads or a huge number of them, but not for even a couple dozen a week.

For more information on correct feeding and care, please read this excellent article: Frog Forum - Fire-Bellied Toad Care and Breeding - Bombina orientalis and relatives . Do remember to size crickets same as distance between frogs eye and dust food with CA/D3 2X and vitamins 1X weekly on different days with skip day in between. Good luck !

[Heatheranne]

Danielle,
I also keep mine in a 10 gallon with a screen lid, but I feed out about 175 small crickets per week and I purchase 200-300 at a time .

[Baloo]

Holy, that's a lot of crickets :-) How many of these cute little fire bellies do you have? One of my pet stores calls them Fire Belly the other calls them Red Bellies.

[Cheesecurls]

also an alternitive, is meal worms, you can buy one container to easily culture them. if you have some spare tupperware, pour some oats in about two or three, to act as a bedding, they love it and keeps them from stinking up, drop either a potato, carrot or piece of lettuce(carrot reccomended) as well as some empty toilet paper halves. and over time, some(eventually all, some will die off) should grow into a pupi; a sort of cocoon stage for a bit and eventually beetles, soon enough the beetles will mate and produce eggs and the , just make sure you separate the pupi from the rest of the mealworms, so they can grow to be beetles and not be eaten by the other meal worms. the beetles will soon lay their eggs and the cycle will continue.

that's the meal worm approach, also i recommend feeding the mealworms with tweezers, it makes them wiggle around more, giving more incentive for the froggies to bite.

[Tongue Flicker]

Hi welcome aboard!

Giving them something to eat prevents them from cannibalizing each other and gut loads them at the same time.

Just keep their enclosure well ventilated and dry at all times (making sure they are well hydrated though) to prevent foul smells and regularly replace uneaten food items that sog easily

[Flying Dutchman]

also an alternitive, is meal worms, you can buy one container to easily culture them. if you have some spare tupperware, pour some oats in about two or three, to act as a bedding, they love it and keeps them from stinking up, drop either a potato, carrot or piece of lettuce(carrot reccomended) as well as some empty toilet paper halves. and over time, some(eventually all, some will die off) should grow into a pupi; a sort of cocoon stage for a bit and eventually beetles, soon enough the beetles will mate and produce eggs and the , just make sure you separate the pupi from the rest of the mealworms, so they can grow to be beetles and not be eaten by the other meal worms. the beetles will soon lay their eggs and the cycle will continue.

that's the meal worm approach, also i recommend feeding the mealworms with tweezers, it makes them wiggle around more, giving more incentive for the froggies to bite.

You can feed them meal worms, but only as a snack. FBT's will grow to be very fat.

[danielleelean]

Thank you for all the help. I'm going out of town for about 1wk. Can I leave them (I now have two) with 30 crickets or so? Or maybe feed them a meal worm to keep them fuller?


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[Cap10Squirty]

Thank you for all the help. I'm going out of town for about 1wk. Can I leave them (I now have two) with 30 crickets or so? Or maybe feed them a meal worm to keep them fuller?


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I would make sure that they eat before you leave and then leave some crickets in the enclosure....I've never used crickets as feeders, but I think I've read about them not being able to escape a certain type of dish? Might want to look into it, but just make sure that your toads have access to the crickets.

[danielleelean]

If you don't use crickets what do you use?


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[Cap10Squirty]

Well my animals are quite a bit bigger than fire belly toads so for insects I raise all kinds of roaches, including the larger madagascar hissers...

Crickets are fine for fire belly toads, I tried raising them myself when I had bumble bee toads and I couldn't keep them alive, so it was easier to just buy what I needed each week from the pet store.

The care article here on this site recommends feeding fire belly toads once or twice a week with crickets, mealworms, wax worms, and bean weevils as options.

[demon amphibians]

I stopped crickets all together due to all my fire bellies contracting pin worms. Not to mention my cane toads caught them too. was very expensive and trouble some to treat. Now i use lateralis in which my frogs are crazy about. They breed much faster than crickets and have a higher meat to shell ratio then even dubia. They are superior to crickets in every way. Diversity is best and i can give that to my frogs without crickets.