fire belly food suggestions

[annaliese]

The only thing that I can get my fire bellies to eat are crickets. I know that they need another food source. However, I can not get them to eat anything else. I know that wax worms and meal worms are bad for them. The only things I have been told that are safe to feed them are crickets and earthworms. Earth worms are always too large to feed them, so I was told to cut them into chunks. The first time I did this they ate them, but I have tried several times after and they do not act interested. Is there anything else that is safe to feed them?

[maxQ]

Good Morning Annaliese, I feel your frustration. I have 5 FBT's In an Aquatic setting and they also will only eat Crickets. I dust the Crickets lightly every other week with Calcium w/D3 but It is kind of silly since having an aquatic tank it wash's off fairly quick.

Here is a Care Sheet that was posted here by John

http://www.frogforum.net/content/fir...relatives-123/

[annaliese]

Yes, its very frustrating to kelp the dust on the crickets. I also have 5 fire belly toads. They mostly have water in their tank. They also have a waterfall and a rocky shore. The crickets usually jump into the water. Sometimes to make sure they get calcium, I feed them crickets with tweezers.

[maxQ]

I feed them crickets with tweezers.

Yes I have don't that as well, sometimes Ill skip a day or two in feeding, it sounds cruel but It makes them so hungry that the crickets are eaten up before they can hot the water.

[annaliese]

I do the same. I started out feeding them everyday. However I read in several places you should skip a couple days. Some people skip as much as a week. In my opinion that is too long.

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[Ash]

Annaliese, In the aquatic portion of my firebelly tank, I also have a land portion which helps with feeding. The fbs stay in the water but will come on land when hungry. In the substrate are isopods and springtails that they snack on from time to time. I also will supplement with fruitflies and of course crickets.

In the aquatic section I have a large rock that emerges from the water and has the effect of a feeder dish. Here I feed crickets but also Small-medium dubia roach nymphs. Whereas the crickets jump into the water, the roach nymphs will just circle around the rock surface and are perfect for the fbs as not only does more dust stay on they are also higher in calcium and lower in phosphorous than crickets.

2 out of my 5 fbs will also eat feeder guppies from the water (This took time to learn). I feed them all well one day and lightly the next two before skipping 3-4 days. This keeps them non-obese lol. Due to plants in the land portion I have a low level uvb light which will trickle down to the fbs and help with D3 conversion. I have used this setup for years with no problems. It helps greatly to have a land portion for the above reasons, however if you choose to keep it mainly aquatic a rock that serves as a feeder dish, feeder insects that are smarter and more nutritious than crickets and a low output uvb (2.0) can help.

[demon amphibians]

Dubia are a great food for fire bellies but sometimes they are not active enough to catch the fire bellies attention. But blatta lateralis on the other hand are perfect. They have more meat to shell ratio then dubia, they are the perfect size and they run around causing attention. They also do not burrow or play dead. My fire bellies go crazy for them. My fire bellies seem to catch site of them quicker then they do crickets.

[Ash]

Yes Roaches have a more favorable meat to shell ratio over feeder crickets who jump to much. Each feeder insect has it's ups and downs. For firebellies in a mostly aquatic environment that I described with a "feeder bowl" shaped rock and where the toads stay in the water to eat it is perfect. I put the dubia baby-small medium roaches there and sometimes they sit for a minute or two then they run around. The firebellies seem to prefer feeding from the safety of the water and the rock caves they dwell in. They all crowd around and pick them off.

If you have a large land portion with your firebellies it may be different and I might choose the turkistan Roaches that would not hide in the substrate and run around more.

I recommended the Dubia Blaptica for Annaliese because her setup is mostly aquatic with a rocky substrate and because when I tried to feed lateralis to my firebellies they regurgitated them. Calcium dust sticking to any insect is an issue with water and Dubia and lateralis are no exception. The answer to this is to give a gutload 24-48 hours in advance of feeding them off.

I will recommend any of many varieties of roach as a supplement in conjuction with crickets because of favorable nutrition rates. I just happen to have huge seemingly never ending supply of Dubia.

[demon amphibians]

If your having problems getting dust to stick to the roaches a light mist will fix that problem. However you will some times have frogs that just dont like the taste of the dust which will leave you with only gut loading. Now my roaches are always gut loaded, that just comes with good care. And i am sure anyone who cultures them knows that. You dont need to go out and buy a gut load supplemt from a store. It is just a waste of money. If your looking for calcium, oranges and romain lettuce combined have far more calcium then what can be found in milk. Vitamin D can be found in a varity of breakfast cereals, such as cheerio's. I agree with everything Ash stated. But what I am more trying to get at is anything nutrition your frog will need as far as gut loading goes you can probably find already in your house hold. If you are looking for a specific vitamin or nutrient PM me and i will give you a list of foods your crickets and roaches would willingly except.

[Ash]

In my dealing with large commercial insect dealers they usually push the messy powders and dust. I prefer to push feeding your insects a highly nutritious food so that they are always Gutloaded as the above poster notes. The pet-stores that push messy powders and such are not selling you healthy bugs.

[annaliese]

Thanks to all of you for your help!

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[demon amphibians]

In my dealing with large commercial insect dealers they usually push the messy powders and dust. I prefer to push feeding your insects a highly nutritious food so that they are always Gutloaded as the above poster notes. The pet-stores that push messy powders and such are not selling you healthy bugs.

I understand that we have probably given the poster all the help they will ever need but i still wanted to reply to this comment. Ash you are totally right. I too sell to and network with many of the top insect breeders and they as well as myself will agree to this post. When i first started out i spoke to an employee of petco i asked what kind of veggies could i feed my insects that would contain High calcium. And they responded with "there are no veggies that contain calcium." They continued to push a some what expensive calcium dust on me in which i ended up buying. Well either this person had no clue as to what they where talking about or they lied to me and just wanting to sell me the product. I am not saying that some products out there are not beneficial to your frogs and toads because they are. But you can find greater nutrition sources in veggies. Right now i am feeding my 3 roaches species (in which i have mass quantities of) Pumpkin. Pumpkin is one of the top 10 super foods and is extremely cheap at this time of year. Blend it with Kale, Romain lettuce, cheerio's, carrots and quinoa and will be giving you frogs an unrivaled gut-loaded insect. And per quantity it is 100 times less then most dust products out there. Not to mention your insects will fare much better during breeding with this sort of diet.

[annaliese]

If I feed my crickets this, would you still recommend dust sometimes? Or not?

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[demon amphibians]

Yes sometimes will be fine. I mean it will not hurt. But there should be no need. But better to have the dust and not need it then to need it and not have it. If you have a good gut loading system and your crickets are eating the food which have the vitamins you give them then they should be getting all the nutrition they need. However crickets are very low in nutrition compared to other insects. you can gut load them with all sorts of good stuff but they will still not compare to earth worms or roaches. so with crickets i would recommend dusting but if you had dubia, or lateralis i would say not so much.

[annaliese]

Okay thank you

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