Soldier Fly Larvae for WTFs? Lauric Acid?

[irThumper]

Well...... I brought some home tonight. Some of them were quite small and lighter colored, the rest were about twice the size of the little ones and black. I decided to try them on Shirley and Honey, who fasted last night but looked so expectant this morning that I gave them just a few small crickets. Tonight they looked expectant again so decided to try some of these Soldier fly larvae. I used just the very small light colored ones and did not jab a hole in them. Dropped one in front of Shirley and NAB! Down the hatch it went. Dropped one in front of Honey and NAB..... blllllllllehhhh. His tongue dropped out, jaw agape, and I could have sworn he was having a metabolic fit! But nope, they get plenty of calcium, Vit D3 and other vits... he drew his tongue in and the grub was still on there so swallowed it, even though I think he didn't want to. I tossed Shirley another, CHOMP! GULP! Threw another at Honey, and he grabbed it, and the same thing happened-- slack jawed with tongue hanging out. This time the grub rolled off and he didn't make another go at it. Gave three more to Shirley who happily ate them all, for a total of 4-5 I believe. Guess we'll see if there's any undigested worm carcasses in the tank tomorrow! As for Honey, I know he's perfectly fine because I gave him a few little crickets to make up for the sucky bugs and LUNGE! POW! SNAP! GULP! ....lol. So we have one frog who, apparently, loves the things, and another who thinks they are gross-- would be the frog who needs the lauric acid the most, as Honey was the first to show the cocci symptoms, *rolls eyes* figures! So I guess we'll see what comes of the Soldier fly larvae after the fact... *coff*

[irThumper]

12 noon and there is some poo, the normal unformed stuff, but no passed whole Soldier fly larvae to be seen! Now, it will be interesting to see how Shirley does after this, having had a nosh of these lauric acid filled little bugs. I'm hoping she will get some benefit and it will help with the cocci, seeing I'm not getting the right med amount into them...

[elly]

Glad it went semi-well. Bonk did almost the same thing when he got his first small dubia. It stuck to the underside of his tongue like peanut butter, but he eventually got it in. I might have to try the larvae sometime but I have a feeling he'd react to them like Honey did.

[irThumper]

Glad it went semi-well. Bonk did almost the same thing when he got his first small dubia. It stuck to the underside of his tongue like peanut butter, but he eventually got it in. I might have to try the larvae sometime but I have a feeling he'd react to them like Honey did.

Yeah he acted totally disgusted, lol. But when it comes to crickets, and even wax worms, no prob!

I'm really contemplating trying a more "naturalistic" type of feeding regime... I want to pick two or three different insects, not overly large, to feed to the frogs every day, even separate the meals into a bug or two morning and night. I know people say feeding a frog three times a week is fine, but these captive frogs stuff themselves (usually out of a bowl or by hand) then sleep off a big load... they also wind up getting no exercise and getting impacted or having super big poo loaded with indigestible bug bits, and then can prolapse... Frogs in the wild are generally not fat; they stay on the move searching out their prey (if it doesn't just happen to be ambling past them) so they get exercise. Unless they are lucky and wind up on a nest of insects they aren't generally stuffing down tons of bugs all in one brief setting either. Our local PCFs would sit on the drain pipe near the light all night long, and it would take them hours to get a full meal (if they did) from all the little leaf hoppers or small moths that they would be lucky to catch. I just wish there was more info available on the feeding habits of WTFs in the wild, but strangely there doesn't seem to be, so all i can do is go by what I saw our local tree frogs doing.

[Crunchy Frog]

Update on my experience with these worms. I removed the dish of uneaten worms from the other tank yesterday. I didn't think any of them had been eaten, but it looks like I was wrong about that. I just found one of them sliming its way around on the glass near the top of the tank, very close to where one of the little frogs was hanging out.

The only way I can imagine it could have gotten there is if the frog pooped it ou alive. These worms are not slimy (unless they've passed through a digestive tract), and they couldn't even crawl out of the tiny glass dishes they were in, let alone climb up to the top of the tank.

I'm really pretty grossed out right now.

I'm glad things seem to have gone better with your frogs.

[irThumper]

Update on my experience with these worms. I removed the dish of uneaten worms from the other tank yesterday. I didn't think any of them had been eaten, but it looks like I was wrong about that. I just found one of them sliming its way around on the glass near the top of the tank, very close to where one of the little frogs was hanging out.

The only way I can imagine it could have gotten there is if the frog pooped it ou alive. These worms are not slimy (unless they've passed through a digestive tract), and they couldn't even crawl out of the tiny glass dishes they were in, let alone climb up to the top of the tank.

I'm really pretty grossed out right now.

I'm glad things seem to have gone better with your frogs.

YUCK! How old/big are your froggles? Did you use small SF larvae or larger? Dark or pale tan? I didn't even feed the black (larger) ones, as they rattled around in the little plastic cup they came in and sounded hard to me, I didn't want to feed anything hard.

[Crunchy Frog]

They were the small, pale tan ones. The one that I think passed the live one is the smallest of my frogs, and is really pretty little. He's the one who had one of his eyes sucked out by a leech when he was a tadpole, and seems to be growing more slowly than the others, though he eats well, and always looks fat.

the story about the tadpoles and the leeches is a long one. I was planning on posting it in my intro thread, which I still haven't gotten around to writing yet.

I wonder if smaller frogs have a harder time with these worms than bigger ones. My guys are all still pretty small.

[irThumper]

They were the small, pale tan ones. The one that I think passed the live one is the smallest of my frogs, and is really pretty little. He's the one who had one of his eyes sucked out by a leech when he was a tadpole, and seems to be growing more slowly than the others, though he eats well, and always looks fat.

the story about the tadpoles and the leeches is a long one. I was planning on posting it in my intro thread, which I still haven't gotten around to writing yet.

I wonder if smaller frogs have a harder time with these worms than bigger ones. My guys are all still pretty small.

Dang... I definitely want to hear that story! Poor little guy, he's a real survivor! It could very well be so since WTFs are much bigger than GTFs, or WTFs could have a faster metabolism, stronger digestive juices, or could be warmer temps (what's yours?) helping digestion... I'd probably nix them from your guys diet all together. You could try again when they are full grown, but if you get the same results then no sense in wasting your money on the things

[irThumper]

...and the freakin Soldier-Calci-Phoenix worm things are NOT worth the time, effort and money. Leave them to the Beardies, and whatever lizards are able to digest them. They do indeed SUCK for frogs, as has previously been said. It took 24 hours, but right after I gave Shirley her medicated wax worm, 2 more un-medicated (they're real small) and about 4 small crickets, the UNDIGESTED soldier fly larvae wound up deposited in a slimy pile on top of the frogs' inverted flower pot saucer... I'm glad the thing is glazed! I took it out and poked through the pile with a skewer and there they were, all five of them, about the same darn way they went in. Now, they were deader than bricks, and the very small ones seemed like they could have started to digest-- perhaps had I jabbed them with the pin they would have digested. If Honey-Lime actually liked them as much as Shirl I might consider getting a few more and trying the jab trick, but I only wanted to try them for the possible benefit toward treating cocci, so if everyone can't/won't eat them then to heck with it. I'm glad I only spent $1.00 on these things, the last 5 can go down the toilet as far as I'm concerned!

You were right everyone! And now I have my own proof to go along with yours... that and I filmed mine, ew, lol