Quote Originally Posted by wildfire View Post
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.