Chomper - C. cranwelli

[Sylphie]

- Honey, let's go to reptile expo, we need to buy mices for our snakes, but don't worry, we will not buy any animals as I only need three snakes for breeding, and we don't have place for new lizards.

*half hour later after we bought snake food we are looking around what people are having on their tables*

- Look, on few tables there are these frogs you always wanted, maybe you want early Christamas present?

- YES.




Well, that's the story of Chomper, she/he is a small, captive breed, two months old C. cranwelli <3 There was also a lovely mint brother/sister but since it was smaller the breeder told us that it would be better to buy another one from the same clutch (I'm really glad that there are still good people that will tell you that the animal you want may be a little problematic!).

We have experience with snakes and lizards but this little guy is our very first frog, so I'm looking forward to learning more about them!

[monster]

Hello and Congrats on the new friend. If hes your first if you cover 3 sides of his enclosure it will help him settle for you faster, and sometimes they wont eat for the first couple nights so if this happens don't worry its pretty normal. Try to keep his heat somewhere in between 80f and 85f, I find my guys like it around 82f. At night you can let it drop a few degrees and this should make him wakeup and want to eat. For the humidity somewhere in between 70% and 80% is good, I keep mine at 75%. Make sure he gets a calcium and D3 vitamin and multivitamin but not on the same night, being so small these vitamins will be very crucial to health and growth. For his water dish and expanding his substrate you want to use spring or tap water treated with some kind of declorinator. For misting you can use R/O or distilled, this way you don't get that calcium buildup from the hard water on the glass.

[Sylphie]

Thank you Cory! For now he's in a small plastic tub on paper towels as I don't want to scare him with too big enclosure (I'm not sure if this can happen with frogs, but it's very popular problem with young snakes so I'm doing it, haha!). In future I'd like to do more naturalistic enclosure for him (or her... for now I'm going with a boy). Our home is all the time around 80-82F, so I'm not using any additional heating in his enclosure (with all the reptiles it's easier to just keep the home at one temperature and only heat additionally the most exotic ones like ball pythons or bearded dragons.). As for feeding we tried to give him a pinky mice yesterday as the breeder told us that he should eat without problems but I guess he was stressed and didn't want to even look at it. I think I will go with the snake route, few days of leaving him totally alone (beside misting) and then we'll try to feed him. As for water we also have chinese pond turtle so some dechlorinated water is always available.

Would the same vitamins and calcium used for bearded dragons be good for this guy? We're using Repticalcium and Reptivite for them so it would be cool to just use the same for our frog.

[monster]

He will be ok in the tub on paper towel but once he poops if all looks good I would put him in something with some cocofibre so he can bury himself, this will help him feel secure. And yes you are right that some of these little guys get stressed over big enclosures where as some are fine. What I do with mine is I start with a 10 gallon and divide it in half, as they grow I gradually move the divider giving them more space until eventually its the full ten gallons. They grow like weeds so they tend to out grow enclosures fast so it doesn't take long for them to be comfortable in full 10 gallons. You are lucky you don't need additional heat, you shouldn't have to hard of time keeping humidity since you don't have an extra heat source to burn off the moisture. For the vitamins I'm not familiar with the Repticalcium but if it has D3 in it you should be fine, but if it doesn't you will need a vitamin that does have both. The Reptivite should be fine though.

[Sylphie]

Thank you for all the tips! Yes, we have calcium with d3, so it should be okay. How can I best give it to him, just sprinkle the mice/roaches with it? Our dragons just eat the vitamins/calcium mixed with some water from bowls, but it woul not work for a frog. And second question, would a dried moss bought in reptile store be okay to add to his tube? I was thinking it could be good at holding some humidity, of course we will add cocofibre too... I just want to make sure that he eats and poops fine firstly. And the breeder was keeping his babies in sterile tubes too so I did not wanted to stress him more with a new substrate that he totally doesn't know.

[monster]

Hi again, ya when giving him his roaches and pinkies you just sprinkle the vitamin right on the food. For the pinkies I just dip there butt in the vitamin instead of covering the whole thing. For the moss its up to you butt if he happens to eat any while feeding it is high impaction risk. if you plan to feed by tongs the moss risk decreases a lot, its more for when they are hunting on their own. They aren't the most gracefull eaters and are very eager so they tend to miss sometimes causing them to pick up substrate.