My red bellies don't share their food

[heyjude2200]

Hi, I'm new to this forum & a relatively new frog owner. I've learned everything about keeping them & setting up the environment off the web, but I'm becoming concerned about their eating habits--I have 7 frogs total, and I've had them for about 5 months. However 2 of them are much more aggressive about eating and are becoming visibly larger than the others. Also, because there are 7 of them, it's hard for me to discern if everyone is getting their share when I put the crickets in. Should I separate the larger ones when I feed them, or separate them permanently?

Also, a couple of them are darker with less obvious spotting on their backs, they were somewhat darker when I got them, but now more so. I do put some calcium on the crickets & also frog vitamins about once a month, but I'm wondering if their coloring is something I should be concerned about.

Thanks
Heyjude

[John]

I know how posted this 2 weeks ago and didn't get any responses - sorry for that. It may be because you threw everyone with "red bellies". I assume you're referring to Fire-Bellied Toads. Some frogs (particularly females) are more aggressive eaters than the males, so that likely explains what you're seeing. I would feed them together, just make sure there are enough crickets available that everyone gets a couple.

The back color is not something you can really do anything about. What you've described doesn't sound abnormal to me. On the supplement front, I think you've got a good routine going but I would probably increase the frequency of supplementation to about once every 1-2 weeks.

[heyjude2200]

Thanks, John, that's all very helpful. I find that I worry about them getting proper nutrition like I did with my children when they were young.

Sorry about red-belly v. fire-belly--actually, don't be surprised if you see other mistakes like that in my language--I fell last fall & it resulted in a severe concussion. I'm still working on regaining all of my mental functioning--they tell me it will come back...

By the way, this is an awesome site.

Jude