Stubborn Pacman

[Lecroixe]

My Keropi generally won't eat if I have to resort to rubbing it along his face. However I do cut my long nightcrawlers down into 2-3 segments and try to drop them right in front of him. Today I went to feed him (Approx. two and a half days since last feeding), just kinda floated the squiggly worm in front of him above him about an three inches before just immediately dropping it on the surface for him, he just bolted for it with his face and snatched the worm piece. He was hungry, I could tell :3

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On a side note, I don't think I've read anywhere but:
Now I know that a lot of people say that food should be no bigger than the width of their eyes, but does food of any larger sizes pose any health threats or dangerous conditions? Keropi does sometimes recede his eyes into his body when I guess he swallows for about a second or two while he does his big gulp but I usually give him a few minutes in between each worm piece to let him fully swallow each piece.

[Murphy]

My Keropi generally won't eat if I have to resort to rubbing it along his face. However I do cut my long nightcrawlers down into 2-3 segments and try to drop them right in front of him. Today I went to feed him (Approx. two and a half days since last feeding), just kinda floated the squiggly worm in front of him above him about an three inches before just immediately dropping it on the surface for him, he just bolted for it with his face and snatched the worm piece. He was hungry, I could tell :3

----
On a side note, I don't think I've read anywhere but:
Now I know that a lot of people say that food should be no bigger than the width of their eyes, but does food of any larger sizes pose any health threats or dangerous conditions? Keropi does sometimes recede his eyes into his body when I guess he swallows for about a second or two while he does his big gulp but I usually give him a few minutes in between each worm piece to let him fully swallow each piece.

Thats how all frogs swallow. They recede their eyes to push the food down.

[Mentat]

...On a side note, I don't think I've read anywhere but: Now I know that a lot of people say that food should be no bigger than the width of their eyes, but does food of any larger sizes pose any health threats or dangerous conditions? Keropi does sometimes recede his eyes into his body when I guess he swallows for about a second or two while he does his big gulp but I usually give him a few minutes in between each worm piece to let him fully swallow each piece.

The rule about food not being bigger than the "distance between the frog's eyes" applies mostly to insects due to their harder part bodies like the head being an impaction issue. When it comes to softer foods like earthworms, it depends more on the mouth/stomach size. For Pacman frogs, babies should get mouth sized pieces; juveniles 2-3 in. can handle body length pieces; and adults 3.5 to 4 in. and up can handle whole night crawlers with no issues. Good luck !

[Lecroixe]

Thats how all frogs swallow. They recede their eyes to push the food down.

Haha, I found out about that just the other day when I was doing more internet searching for curiosity. I think it's kind of adorable that they do that. I always thought he was trying to savor each meal.

The rule about food not being bigger than the "distance between the frog's eyes" applies mostly to insects due to their harder part bodies like the head being an impaction issue. When it comes to softer foods like earthworms, it depends more on the mouth/stomach size. For Pacman frogs, babies should get mouth sized pieces; juveniles 2-3 in. can handle body length pieces; and adults 3.5 to 4 in. and up can handle whole night crawlers with no issues. Good luck !

Sweet. Thanks for clearing that up! Keropi is definitely in the juvenile stage; I can feed him a whole worm and maybe a half more if necessary. He'll usually turn away when I try to give him the second half of a second worm so I generally just feed him one worm, cut into two or three pieces, at a time until he gets a little bigger. I'm also glad many have considered nightcrawlers to be a good staple; I rather have worms wriggling around in my garage in a worst case scenario than have to bring roaches or crickets into the house haha.

[limnologist]

My Keropi generally won't eat if I have to resort to rubbing it along his face. However I do cut my long nightcrawlers down into 2-3 segments and try to drop them right in front of him. Today I went to feed him (Approx. two and a half days since last feeding), just kinda floated the squiggly worm in front of him above him about an three inches before just immediately dropping it on the surface for him, he just bolted for it with his face and snatched the worm piece. He was hungry, I could tell :3

----
On a side note, I don't think I've read anywhere but:
Now I know that a lot of people say that food should be no bigger than the width of their eyes, but does food of any larger sizes pose any health threats or dangerous conditions? Keropi does sometimes recede his eyes into his body when I guess he swallows for about a second or two while he does his big gulp but I usually give him a few minutes in between each worm piece to let him fully swallow each piece.

People who warn not to allow frogs to eat such large food usually have, in-bred, artificially kept, weak frogs. Naturally, pacman frogs are capable of eating prey items a little over half their size. the reason his eyes recede is because he is using the muscle underneath them to push the food down his throat.

[limnologist]

My male brown Cranwelli once ate a garter snake that was exactly 18 inches long. the frog himself was only 5 inches long. He didnt eat for a while after that haha :P

[Lija]

..... I shouldn't probably reply as i dont think i have anything nice to say......
You never feed your frog food items that are too big, ever, not if you care about the frog anyway. Nothing funny about it, it can cause too many problems that might cause death, including inability to digest, impaction, inverted stomach.

[Hypnotic]

While I'm honestly guilty of feeding my frogs worms twice their size, I would never do this with a vertebrate for the reasons Lija mentioned above.
Honestly, these frogs should be able to digest big prey items if all conditions are right, but even then there are exceptions, and I'd rather not be taking risks when it comes to this.
While I overlook the eye rule for mice and other feeders for adults (seriously, if everyone followed that rule, no frog would be eating mice, dubias or worms unless cut up into tiny chunks) I do believe it depends on the prey animal and how easy it digests.
Worms I feed twice the size, my adults all get full grown dubias, the young ones get eye size +-, when it comes to mice, I look at the frogs mouth so it can easely enter and never go beyound the frog's length vs mouse length.

[Lija]

Of course you can do that with mice if not too many, say to give one adult mouse to full grown frog , no problems here, worms no problems either, they are easily digested. Im talking about healthy frogs that would take it on their own.
Babies are different story here.
Common sense is needed and if for experienced keeper it is ok to bend rules, for not-so-much experienced keeper it is better to follow them and that is why i always advise that is better to be safe then sorry.
With a garter snake or any snake for that matter... It is no for many reasons, ethical included. It is very hard to digest prey, long item. Frog cant bite a piece of it when he cant fit anymore but will swallow until is done with very high possibility of having big problems soon after.

[Thevacantface]

While the risk might be somewhat low in feeding large prey items, it's still a highly avoidable risk. You don't let a toddler play with a plastic grocery bag unsupervised, one 1 in a thousand will put it over their head and suffocate, but do you risk it being your kid? The rule applies mostly to younger frogs, and for prey that may not digest easily, but should still be generally followed for the majority of food items. My 2.5" guys eat full night crawlers often, and sometimes want a second one, or will easily eat 3 large dubia nymphs and have no problems. I did feed them crickets that were a bit large when they were tiny, and they did get kind of backed up, so yeah, be careful.

[Hypnotic]

I can give you a funny example of this. Of my entire collection (12) I have had 1 impacted frog. I fed him normal size food items and had him on eco-earth, yet he was impacted and it took several honey baths to help him poop it out tiny chunk by chunk.
Now, I have 2 females that are exactly 4.3" both. 2 weeks ago I fed all my frogs adult locusts, both my adult females (wich are the biggest in my collection) were backed up and required a honeybath to poop it out. While the small ones (as small as 2.7" males) did not have a single problem. This shows that size doesn't matter, it can happen to any frog but size does play an important role when feeding extremely large feeders, because they massively increase the risk.