Feeding Hissing Cockroaches to Horned Frog

[JeffreH]

The horned frogs are actually from South America, but I'm sure they often taken a plethora of different cockroach species in nature. I came across a Ceratophrys cornuta while doing some conservation work in in the Peruvian Amazon and she had burrowed under the leaf litter right near a path. That night, the most common group of insects seen were cockroaches... A variety of different species all over the vegetation and ground-floor. Wolf spiders (Lycosids) were probably the next most abundant invert that I noticed (although, I may have been biased toward finding them, because their eye-shine is easy to detect at night with a light).

The Malagasy hissing roach is a fine feeder - I'm not even all that convinced that the are that much tougher to digest, especially the nymphs. The adults I would avoid feeding because they can have some pretty impressive barbs on their legs, and they are also more heavily sclerotized (harder-boded) which might make digestion more difficult. More of a speculation, really... I think the majority of impaction problems stem from poor husbandry, immuno-compromised animals, and excessive use of poor feeders. In my opinion, there is no reason a healthy frog shouldn't be able to handle an appropriately sized beetle (the toughest of them all) but I still wouldn't feed these things in excess... It's worth noting that frogs have chitinases to combat the tough exoskeletons of their primary food source, insects. Also, the actual amount of chitin in an insect is not completely proportion to the amount of scleritin in that insect, scleritin being the protein that makes the exoskeleton 'hard'. But I digress. It is always better to err on the side of caution with these things and continue to recommend proper husbandry practices and high quality, "safe" feeders. Especially for new hobbyists.

I agree with Ryan that other species might be better overall. Adult B. dubia do not reach nearly the same size/weight as a full grown Malagasy hisser, nor do they have as impressive of barbs on their legs. There are many other feeder cockroach species that can make excellent feeders and might be more size appropriate for just about any frog. If you want to feed hissers, that's totally fine... but just stick with feeding appropriately sized nymphs