What do you do?

[wildfire]

I am curious what everyone does with there frogs when they go on vacation and how long do you think you can leave a frog for?


I went on a 19 day canoe trip this summer, and I did not have anyone to take care of my 2 whites tree frogs for that long. I contacted my vet and she recomended a pet sitter she uses for her reptiles. Well need less to say I paid a fortune and was not happy. When I got the frogs back, there cage was dirty and the crickets were nasty. She never cleaned cricket carrier or fed the crickets is what it looked like. Yuck! Maybe I am just expecting to much. Just curious to what others do?

[Tony]

I don't go on vacations and am not comfortable leaving my frog room unattended for more than one night.

[Rocko]

19 days seems a bit much for me to trust someone else to care for things, but I do think there are a few ways to be away for a little while. 1st if your frogs are close to adults, they only need to be fed every 2-3 days anyway so I can see that being a reasonable amount of time without attentive care. Second, for me at least and perhaps this is the case for you as well, a reputable pet store in town, who actually bred the frogs I purchased, offers to feed and care for them for a small fee plus food. I could see that working for perhaps a week or so.

[Greenlove]

I don't take vacations as I have too many animals to care for. If I had to leave town for more than a few days, I would ask a TRUSTED family member or friend to take care of my animals. I would also leave DETAILED instructions on how to take care of the pets AND the insects that they eat.

[Jace]

Though I have never been away from my frogs and geckos for longer than 5-6 days. When I left, I did exactly as Greenlove suggested-I had a trusted friend take care of everything. Even though she hates most insects in general, she fed crickets to frogs/toads, and even changed the food in my cockroach setups. The changed waters and put fresh food in for all the feeder animals. I guess I just won the jackpot with that friendship!!

[poison beauties]

Thats the cost of the hobby. The only frogs I could walk away from for a month without feeding are dart frogs and thats because in a healthy maintained viv they can live off of the micro fauna just fine. Larger frogs dont get that benefit.

Michael

[SethD]

I am curious what everyone does with there frogs when they go on vacation and how long do you think you can leave a frog for?


I went on a 19 day canoe trip this summer, and I did not have anyone to take care of my 2 whites tree frogs for that long. I contacted my vet and she recomended a pet sitter she uses for her reptiles. Well need less to say I paid a fortune and was not happy. When I got the frogs back, there cage was dirty and the crickets were nasty. She never cleaned cricket carrier or fed the crickets is what it looked like. Yuck! Maybe I am just expecting to much. Just curious to what others do?

Well it depends on how you set things up. I have left my frog collection for as long as three weeks without issues but am more comfortable with two weeks and try to limit vacations to that length. Most any type of adult frog that is well fed and healthy will do perfectly fine fasting for two weeks, and many types are fine for even longer. For example one male rococo toad I obtained in January when some fresh imports were coming in refused to eat(unusual for this type of toad). He looked ok otherwise so I left him alone to see if he would come around like the others. Several months later he still refused to eat and I figured I would loose him so I tried force feeding. That didn't go particularly well as he fought it very hard and regurgitated what he was fed. I decided that wasn't going to work. He eventually started looking pretty skinny and about the middle of October he decided he was ready to eat on his own. He has been eating fine since. That is close to ten months of fasting where I am quite sure he ate nothing. Now that is an extreme case, and when he didn't eat for that long I was expecting to loose him, I was surprised he decided to start eating after that much time, but it does show that some frogs can do fine without food for a long time. Of course a smaller more delicate amphibian wouldn't last nearly as long but it does illustrate the point. What is the most important consideration when leaving your collection for a while is ensuring that the species in question stays moist enough that you don't get frog raisins while not being so wet you have bacterial issues. Also making sure you don't have heat spikes due to power outages which would likely be fatal. Your setup must also be designed to handle a certain amount of waste naturally, most of mine incorporate live plants and a loamy or sandy substrate which allows beneficial bacteria to break down waste as long as the system isn't overloaded. Obviously leaving your frogs for any length of time is not the sort of thing you would want to try if you have a paper towel substrate for your whites or something like that. Personally, if I were you for the time you describe and the species you mention I would see if I could find a friend or neighbor to check in on them once a week or so and to change the water bowl(which needs to hold enough water to ensure there is no chance of complete evaporation). Other than that I wouldn't worry about it. That said I do have a pretty good idea of how to set things up and what I can get away with and what I can't. If your unsure it never hurts to have someone else look after them while your away, assuming you can find someone competent to do so.

[bshmerlie]

Here's what I do when I go on vacation for up to 10 days. I have a zoomed Hygrotherm which turns on and off my side mounted heat mat and my zoo Med repti-fogger based on the temps and humidity I have it programmed for. I know based on tests while I'm at home the water in the repti-fogger will last for 10 days if I set it 55% humidity. I could go longer if I wanted to lower it or if I had someone come by to refill the water at that point. I've got a pretty large water section in my tank that would take much longed to run dry and I observe how much water I add to it and adjust accordingly before I leave. I feed them heavily before I leave to fatten them up. Then I use a cricket mound with about 30 crickets in it and some carrots and water gel at the bottom. The crickets will slowly come out over a few days and if they run out the frogs can chomp on woodlice that's in the tank as cleaners. I've only left for up to ten days but I could probably go longer with just one visit at the 10 day mark to add more water to the humidifier and more crickets to the mound.