alternative to crickets

[Larry Wardog]

The "It is." was in reply to Trout Hunter saying this in reply to one of my responses: "It sounds like a great place for amphibians populations to thrive!".

With regard to experience, I've got over 50 years of studying Reptiles and Amphibians academically, long-term observation and husbandry of mostly American and Fowler's Toads but also Turtles, Tortoises, Newts, Salamanders, Anoles, one Spectacled Cayman and more recently, for the past 10 years, Gray Tree Frogs (H.versicolor and H.chrysoscelis). Never had any problem with diseases, parasites, or the prey doing harm to the Toads. Their robust health and long lives were due to them having conditions and diet as close to what they would experience in the wild as can be simulated in a closed, artificial habitat minus drastic weather changes and predators and the stress they experience from living under the threat of predation.

The only individuals (Gray Tree Frogs) I now have in captivity are mal-formed and ones of otherwise diminished survivability. The perfectly functional ones will do their kind and the environment, and by extension the human population the most good by being encouraged to propagate and expand their communities which I do with my compound, and left to be wild and occupy their ecological niche in the immediate and surrounding acreage.

When I began practicing Toad husbandry as a child, I started by feeding them mealworms almost exclusively as that was the only feeder insect available at that time in my local pet store. They started to lose interest in them after some time so I began to use a wide variety of wild-harvested insects and spiders all small enough to be food for Toads their size of course. I never hand-fed them and they had to stalk their prey so after ten years I let them go in the same acreage where I now have my compound and kept a record of their survival thereafter. They lived another 3 to 5 years depending on which one was being documented and after that I didn't see them around.

Diseases and parasites among Reptile/Amphibian populations has everything to do with environmental stressors of human origin which weaken the animals resistence to all such problems, destruction of habitat, and the tragic increase in commercial trade in baby or juvenile individuals, not feeding them a variety of wild-harvested prey.

Do you have anything published?

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[KP]

No, my academic studies have been elective at the university level and independent.
Academic study of nature in general is interesting and rewarding and very informative but as any field biologist will tell you there's no substitute for observation in the wild for extended periods of time especially when the specie being observed is primarilly nocturnal. At my compound I've had the benefit of what amounts to years of field observation of the many species that live here and have learned things that one wouldn't find out by academic study alone.

I don't tend to want to keep animals captive as I did as a kid and into my 30's but moving back to the compound got me back to my root studies in the local wildlife and seeing an occasional mal-formed Gray Tree Frog out of several hundred froglets made me decide to take them in and see how well they could do when they'd otherwise be snacks for a variety of predators if left to strike out with their siblings. It's been great so far and since I began upgrading the compound to maximize the initial crop of all the Amphibians here I've hand-counted over 10,000 Toadlets or as I like to call them "Microtoads" and over 1,000 Gray Tree Froglets or as I call them "Micromints" successfully launched into the area in and around the compound. Over the last few years the local population of Gray Tree Frogs that participate in the yearly spawning chorus has increased beyond what I would have though the immediate acreage could support but they have also increased in areas as far as half a mile from the compound and beyond, so they have plenty of room to expand and the rainy years have been kind to them as well.