Tony did you read this? i like this, he is exactly correct abt parasites going dormant but not GONE. It dosnt take someone who is afraid of little cute frogs being eaten to see its perfectly logical to not feed them frogs. Parasites reviel them selves when the host shows any sort of stress. IE, this is why puppies and kittens are always ALWAYS born with worms, and the mothers need to be treated for worms also. The worms are dormant in the moms muscle tissue always... they are called spores. The stress of pregnancy is more than enough to bring these spores to "life" and infest the host. Yes these frogs ARE FROG EATERS in the wild, however they are also riddled with parasites thus making their life span shorter than (in general) than captive animals w controled feeding and medication. They eat frogs as a partner in keeping the ecosystem eco. They dont eat frogs to be the dominent species or to not get parasites. I think that breeding frogs to feed could be dangerous. Budgetts would do well on earth worms and captive bred guppies, (not goldfish).
Quote Originally Posted by Iratus ranunculus View Post
Neither. Good loaded question though.

I am an amphibian ecologist who has been keeping frogs since I was five. Just because you quarantine an animal does not mean it is parasite free. In fact, medicating wont kill them all, neither will freezing. This is because parasites subjected to stresses encyst, wrapping themselves in a defensive cocoon and shutting down most of their metabolism until it is safe to emerge. Medicating frogs works because it brings the population down, giving the immune system a chance to do its thing in a case where the frog has become symptomatic due to conditions causing immuno-suppression. This is a problem with even otherwise healthy captive frogs like wild-caught budgets frogs, because of increased cortisol levels as a result of simply being contained.

Wild caught green tree frogs will be loaded with parasites, and even if you load them with medication (most of which requires a vet script) you will still give your frogs parasites with every feeding. Worse, these will be parasites the budgett's frog's immune system has no evolutionary history with, or native exposure, but which themselves are really good at parasitizing frogs..

You should not feed them rodents either, for a variety of reasons. Cockroaches, yes, rodents no. But dont listen to me. Instead, people should listen to the person who didn't know that xenopus secrets some nasty skin toxins.

Also: considering my research is on predation ON frogs and tadpoles accusing me of the whole PETA thing is... yeah... shove it.



Which of course justifies population-destabilizing and horrendously cruel commercial collection and importation. Yes. We should all support that, because everyone else is doing it, and there is no possible way that we could exert pressure within the market to encourage captive breeding.