Baby frogs food

What Do Frogs Eat? Food List & Feeding Guide

Frogs are a very popular pet, especially with new reptile hobbyists. It is also common to see wild frogs in a garden and want to feed them.

Most frogs eat a diet of only bugs, but this does not mean you can feed them any bug you find crawling around the garden! Pets and wild species have different diets from each other.

It is important to understand their diet before feeding. Many people make feeding mistakes such as feeding bugs they caught in the garden. Others feed prey that is too large, overfeed, or feed dead prey.

To avoid these mistakes, keep reading for a complete guide on what and how to feed a frog.

Table of Contents

What Do Frogs Eat?
- What Do Baby Frogs Eat?
- How Do Frogs Hunt?
- Frog Diet
Feeding Frogs
- How To Feed A Frog
- Adult Frog Feeding Schedule
- Baby Frog Feeding Schedule
Frog Food
- What Can’t Frogs Eat?
Summary

What Do Frogs Eat?

Frogs in the wild are carnivores and will eat insects (e. g. fruit flies and dragonflies), earthworms, caterpillars, beetles, crickets, grasshoppers, snails, slugs, spiders and minnows. Frogs are very opportunistic hunters. They are not really picky about their food and will eat pretty much anything that will fit into their mouths.

Small frogs eat ants, aphids, springtails, mosquito larvae and fruit flies. Larger species like the Pacman frog are also known to eat mice. Aquatic species also eat tadpoles, redworms and mosquito larvae.

Many people think frogs are insectivorous, but this is not true. An insectivore’s diets consist mostly of insects. Since they do not exclusively eat insects, they are carnivores.

Frogs are usually nocturnal hunters. They rely on the cover of darkness to keep them hidden from potential predators.

In the wild they will generally eat as often as they can. Sometimes this means eating several small prey items in a day. If they hunt a grasshopper, or small rodent, this might mean not eating for several days.

They have to find a good balance between conserving energy and using it for hunting effectively.

Frog vs Baby Frog Food List
	Baby Frog	Frog
Wild	Plant leaves and roots, mosquito larvae, water striders and other small insects	Beetles, earthworms, crickets, mosquitos, slugs, snails, ants, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, locusts, minnows, other frogs, small rodents and birds
Pet	Bloodworms, redworms, brine shrimp, pinhead crickets, wingless fruit flies	Earthworms, redworms, bloodworms, crickets, mealworms, locusts, grasshoppers, hornworms, waxworms, snails and slugs, minnows and pinky mice

What Do Baby Frogs Eat?

The diet of baby frogs is very different from adults. Food and prey they eat changes as they grow.

Most tadpoles begin their lives as herbivores and only eat plant matter like algae. As they grow they change from herbivores and become omnivores.

Babies will eat mostly ants, mosquitos, gnats, redworms, fruit flies, and other very small prey.

A challenge for feeding baby frogs is that they have very high metabolisms. This means they digest their food quickly and need to feed multiple times a day.

Growth in baby frogs requires a lot of energy. Babies are constantly on the hunt and need to feed multiple times a day. This helps them grow and increases their chances of survival.

Tadpole vs Baby Frog Food
	Tadpole	Baby Frog
Wild	Algae and other soft plant matter	Plant leaves and roots, mosquito larvae, water striders and other small insects
Pet	Algae wafers, bloodworms and fish food	Bloodworms, redworms, brine shrimp, pinhead crickets, wingless fruit flies

How Do Frogs Hunt?

There are two different hunting strategies that frogs use to catch their food.

For the most part wild frogs hide and wait to ambush their prey. They remain motionless, and when something tasty passes by them, they pounce.

Many people imagine frogs catching prey with a long, sticky tongue, as this is how frogs are animated in many cartoons. The reality, is quite close.

A frog will flip its tongue out and strike a nearby insect, which then becomes stuck to their tongue. Their tongue is coated in a sticky saliva that helps to trap prey. They then pull back their tongue into their mouth to swallow the prey. Most species only have teeth on the upper jaw, so prey is often swallowed whole rather than chewed.

Frogs that lack a long, sticky tongue will catch food with their front legs. They will grab onto prey with their front feet and stuff it into their mouths before it can wriggle free.

Frog Diet

The diet of a pet is different from what wild frogs eat. As you are deciding to feed a frog, you can be a bit more selective about what to feed in order to keep it as healthy as possible.

Adult pet frogs generally eat insects and other small bugs. Crickets, mealworms, hornworms, waxworms, flightless fruit flies, grasshoppers and pinky mice (for larger individuals) all should be a part of their diet.

They will only eat live prey. They are not scavengers, so they will not recognize dead bugs as something they can eat. You should not feed your frog wild-caught or dead bugs.

The most important thing is that the bugs should be no longer than the distance between the frog’s eyes. This usually measures between 1 to 2 cm for adults. Ideally, the bugs should be gut-loaded.

The same rules apply for feeding baby frogs as adults.

Be sure the prey is no longer than the distance between the frog’s eyes, offer them only live prey, and make sure they are gut-loaded.

When feeding baby frogs you will want to stick with small insects. Pinhead crickets, wingless fruit flies, and bloodworms will be your best bet. It is also easy to find this prey in local pet stores.

Feeding Frogs

An important part of feeding a frog is supplements. Frogs, like many other reptile, need a calcium supplement to keep them healthy.

Reptile calcium powder is easy to find, but make sure you get one that includes vitamin D3. This will help your frog synthesize the calcium better.

You will also want to gut-load your prey before feeding.

Gut-loading simply means to feed the prey nutritious and vitamin-rich foods in order to increase its nutritional quality before feeding them to your frog. Most pet-stores do not gut-load their insects, this is something you will need to do yourself.

Once you have selected and gut-loaded the prey and purchased a calcium supplement you are ready to feed one.

How To Feed A Frog

Now that you know what you should be feeding frogs, it is time to learn how to feed one.

Knowing how to properly feed a frog will help keep it happy, healthy and enriched. It will also make meal times much safer and avoid them being injured by prey.

Take five crickets and place them into a container you can seal.
Sprinkle a little bit of calcium powder supplement into the container.
Gently shake it to thoroughly coat the insects in the calcium.
Open the enclosure.
Use tweezers or feeding tongs to drop the insects one at a time into the tank.
Watch your frog and wait until it has eaten the first insect.
After it has eaten the first insect, you can drop in the next one.
Dropping multiple insects at a time can overwhelm them, and allow some prey to escape.
The feeding session should last for 10 to 20 minutes.
Anything your frog does not eat within this time period should be removed from the tank.

You should not move the frog into a separate container for feeding. This can cause unnecessary stress, and may result in your frog refusing to eat.

Adult Frog Feeding Schedule

You will want to feed an adult frog every two to three days, although this can vary with their size. Smaller, higher-energy species should be fed every two days, and frogs larger than three inches can be fed three days.

You should feed a varied diet made up of:

Crickets
Mealworms
Grasshoppers
Locusts
Minnows
Brine shrimp
Pinky mice
Fuzzy mice (for larger species)

Avoid feeding prey that is dead or larger than the width between their eyes. Also do not feed any wild-caught bugs, fruits, vegetables or human foods. All of these can be harmful.

Crickets and mealworms are generally considered staple foods, but it is good to switch them out for other insects every so often. This helps to provide a more nutritious and varied diet.

Feed your frog approximately five insects per feeding. If your frog eats all of these within 10 minutes, it is safe to offer a few more insects. Likewise, if your frog eats slowly or does not eat all the insects you offer, you can remove them.

Baby Frog Feeding Schedule

Baby frogs are not able to eat the same prey as adults. Their smaller size limits what you can safely feed them. Most people stick to:

Pinhead crickets
Bloodworms
Wingless fruit flies

Since younger frogs have a higher growth rate, they need to be fed much more frequently than adults.

You will want to feed a baby frog twice a day, offer anywhere from five to ten insects per feeding. Again, this will vary depending on the species.

It is important to have as little contact as possible during feeding. The oils in our skin can upset the mucosal layer frogs have on their skin.

Frog Food

In order to help you feed a frog, we have compiled a comprehensive list of the best foods for frogs.

Keep in mind that you should only feed bugs and prey purchased from a pet store or from a website that sells live feeders for reptiles.

You should not feed wild or dead bugs as they can infect a frog with a parasite or disease. Pet species generally have a much lower resistance to parasites than their wild siblings.

When picking from the frog food list below try and provide variation in their diet. Just feeding one type of insect is not as nutritious as a varied diet. Wild species naturally vary their diet by hunting different prey:

Mealworms
Crickets (excellent for any size)
Hornworms (use as treats)
Waxworms (use as treats)
Wingless fruit flies
Locusts (good for prey variation)
Grasshoppers
Snails and slugs
Brine shrimp (for aquatic species)
Bloodworms (for baby frogs)
Minnows
Pinky mice
Fuzzy mice (for the African bullfrog)

Remember, when feeding frogs, avoid prey items larger than the distance between their eyes. Feeding prey that is too large could cause your frog to choke while trying to swallow the bug.

What Can’t Frogs Eat?

Frogs eat wide variety of prey, but there is also a long list of foods they cannot eat.

Unlike many lizards, Adult frogs are strictly carnivorous. This means you should not try to feed them fruits or vegetables. Feeding anything other than meat or insects could cause impaction. Impaction is a blockage in the gut which could lead to death within a few days if left untreated.

Frogs cannot have any human foods. Things humans use to season our food (e.g. butter and spices) can be very harmful to a frog. Food made for other animals could pose a choking hazard or contain harmful additives.

Finally, you should avoid feeding any bugs you catch outside or in your house. These bugs could contain parasites and diseases or expose your frog to pesticides. They can make your frog very ill.

Here is a list of foods to avoid feeding your frog:

Fruits
Vegetables
Human food
Food made for other animals (e.g. kibble)
Prey larger than the distance between the frog’s eyes
Wild-caught bugs

Summary

You now know everything you need to know about what do frogs eat.

Frogs in the wild are carnivores. They will normally eat insects, snails, slugs, worms, caterpillars, other frogs, pinky mice, fuzzy mice, and sometimes even small birds.

You can feed a frog various insects, such as crickets, grasshoppers, and locusts, as well as mealworms, bloodworms, hornworms, waxworms, brine shrimp and minnows.

Make sure that you are only feeding prey that is no longer than the distance between their eyes. Avoid feeding human food, food made for other species, wild-caught bugs or food that is too large.

Did you find this guide helpful? Let us know in the comments!

What Do Baby Frogs Eat? – RidMyCritters.com

by Samantha

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means that at no cost to you, we may earn a small commission for qualifying purchases.

11 shares

Updated on March 10, 2022

Have you ever seen a baby frog? They look so cute, and that’s why some people choose to have them as pets.

Want to Let the Pros Handle It?

Get a free quote from top pest control companies in your area.

There are nearly 4,800 species of frogs on this earth. From all of these, baby treefrogs, baby bullfrogs, and baby Pacman frogs are more popular than any other type of little frogs.

Since there are thousands of species, it’s not possible to include all of them in just one article.

But here we try to cover all the important aspects and everything you need to know about these tiny adorable hoppers. So dive right in.

See Also: How to Get Rid of Frogs

What is a Baby Frog Called?

A baby frog is known by different names. The most common names used to describe a baby frog are a tadpole, froglet, or polliwog. These names are generally used to describe a little frog, depending on its life cycle stage.

In the first few weeks, a baby frog is called a tadpole or a polliwog. But a majority of people refer to them as tadpoles. In this stage, they have a long tail, and they live underwater.

The froglet is the stage when a baby frog is very near to becoming an adult. In this stage, as it develops lungs, limbs, teeth, and almost matures and becomes an adult, they have a small tail.

So, when the baby frogs are in the early stage of their life, you can call them as polliwog or tadpole, and when they’re just nearing to becoming an adult, you can refer to them as froglets.

When they become an adult, they’re naturally known as just frogs.

What Do Baby Frogs Look Like?

After hatching from the egg, a frog stays in the tadpole form for a few days. These tadpoles come out from the eggs in the water, and they stay underwater in their larval stage.

Slowly, these tadpoles change to an adult frog by absorbing their own tail. It is believed that they absorb their tail for the nutrients so that they can develop their lungs for breathing and the limbs for walking on the surface.

But, when a baby frog comes out from the egg, it has a small tail and underdeveloped gills.

Pictures of Baby Frogs

tadpolespolliwogfroglet

adult frog

What Do Baby Frogs Eat?

We already know that adult frogs eat insects and worms by using their strong tongue. But, what about the baby frogs? Do they also eat insects or something completely different?

These little frogs don’t eat insects like crickets and grasshoppers because they’re too small. At this stage, they don’t have teeth.

Also, if they ate insects and worms, they would have to go outside and hunt them, this could result in them being attacked by predators because of their small size and lack of defense.

As these froglets or tadpoles cannot defend themselves, they keep inside the water, feeling more secure there than the outside world.

After hatching from the egg, these tadpoles eat the yolk of the egg. After that, when they go outside, they stay well-hidden underwater for the next few weeks and survive by eating algae and other weeds.

Read Also: What Do Toads Eat?

How to Take Care of and Feed a Baby Frog

If you’re planning to have a baby frog as a pet, then you should know how to take care of it. In the early stage of their life, the baby frogs need protection and food.

So, the first thing that you have to do is provide them with a place where they can thrive and grow.

In the early stage of their lives, they are more dependent on algae and green plants and vegetables, so provide them plenty of those for their development.

Once they are out of the tadpole stage, they have similar food requirements as the adult ones like worms and insects, although their meal should be smaller in size.

Final Words

So now you know the different names of baby frogs that you can use to call them. The most common being tadpole or froglet.

Along with that, the eating habits of baby frogs are also different. They eat egg yolk and algae in the initial stage of their life, and then they move to the insects and worms.

Want to Let the Pros Handle It?

Get a free quote from top pest control companies in your area.

Whether raising a frog from tadpole to adult frog for a science project at school or simply having a pet, the baby frog stage is one of the best (and most adorable) parts.

Tags frog

What frogs eat, how to feed frogs at home

09/13/2022 Frogs and toads730

From this article you will learn:

What frogs eat in the wild;
Where to look for frog food;
What her favorite “dishes” can be grown at home;
The order of feeding these amphibians;
How frogs drink.

Frogs are carnivores that generally only eat moving objects, which means you can only feed frogs live insects!

General Feeding Guidelines for Frogs

frogs are truly all-purpose predators - they eat anything found in the wild. They will eat spiders, grasshoppers, butterflies and anything that gets in their mouth. Water frogs feed on a variety of aquatic invertebrates.

Each type of frog has its own nutritional recommendations, but in general your pet frog will eat a mixture of the following foods on the list.

Crickets

They form the basis of your pet frog's diet. This is not because they are the healthiest, but simply because they are the easiest to buy or grow at home.

Meal worms and woolworms

This is another delicious snack for frogs. Like crickets, mealworms are fairly easy to find in pet stores or raise at home. You can also buy them from fishing lure shops, but they won't come with a loaded gut.

Locusts and Grasshoppers

They may be a little harder to find in pet stores or buy for frogs, but they add a much-needed variety of nutrients to your pet's diet.

Caterpillars or worms

They are getting easier to find in pet stores. Be sure to get caterpillars that are the right size for your frog, as they can get pretty big!

Bloodworms, brine shrimp and black worms

These, along with other small worms, will be the main diet of water frogs.

Mice

They are part of the diet of large frog species such as Pacman frogs and African bullfrogs. As the frog grows, start feeding it to newborn mice.

You can buy them frozen or live, but be aware that most frogs do not eat frozen. Larger frogs will eat small or even adult mice. If this does not suit you, choose a smaller frog.

Be sure to feed the frog food that is smaller than the width of the frog's head, otherwise the frog's intestines may be damaged. If possible, try to buy insects with intestines, as they are much more nutritious for your frog!

If you can't buy food with a full gut, your frog is at risk of vitamin A deficiency.

Do not feed your frog fruit or vegetables, human table waste, or wild-caught insects. Wild insects pose a serious risk of pesticide exposure, which can be very dangerous for your frog.

How much and when to feed the frog

The exact schedule and amount of frog feeding depends on its species, age and activity level. Like humans, frogs can become obese if overfed.

To keep your pet healthy and healthy, it is important to feed your frog in the right amount.

High energy frogs (eg pygmy clawed frogs) and young frogs (less than 16 weeks old) should have frequent access to food. Feed young frogs and high energy frogs every day or even twice a day. This may mean leaving some food, such as fruits or vegetables, in the tank for the insects to eat.
Medium energy frogs should be fed every other day or every other day. In general, they should be fed about five crickets per meal. Make sure you feed enough to keep the frog from eating within seconds, but don't feed so much that you see crickets the next morning!
Larger frogs should be fed less frequently. Large mouse frogs may eat infrequently - once a week or once every two weeks.

Your pet frog should have access to clean, dechlorinated water at all times. You can buy a dechlorinator at most aquarium stores.

Either create a pool of water in the tank, spray the tank regularly, or both. Frogs don't drink through their mouths, so it's important to keep them moist. They “drink” by absorbing water through their skin!

In the wild, frogs eat a wide variety of things. Feeding your pet frog should include a mixture of various insects with an intestine to ensure proper nutrition.

Plan how you will store these live insects before you bring home a new frog!

Still about home frogs

Domestic frogs - Care and maintenance

Pets - dwarf claws

9000

Eastern fiery puzata toad - Care and maintenance (prairie frogs) - maintenance and care

African bullfrog - maintenance and care

What frogs eat at home. How to feed a frog at home. Water and Aquarium Requirements

HOUSEHOLDING TOADS AND FROGS

If many people have toads and frogs made of metal and stone, and even with a coin in their mouth as a symbol that brings money and well-being, then some prefer to have live real amphibians at home. Under natural conditions, toads, and they are gray and green, lead a twilight lifestyle, always avoid bright light. Toads are very useful if they are in a summer cottage or garden plot, they exterminate harmful insects, including pests such as slugs, and in very large quantities. If there is a pond on the site, and there are no frogs, you should try to attract them by laying driftwood and shards near the pond, frogs like to hide under them. Often we cannot deny ourselves the desire to have a piece of wildlife next to us all year round, so we keep frogs and toads at home. Keeping toads at home deprives them of their freedom and natural instincts. However, toads and frogs are often settled in a living corner.

Toads are kept in high humidity and in aquaterrariums specially equipped for their keeping. They should have enough snags, pieces of bark and stones that serve as shelter for the toads, because during the daylight hours it will be impossible to see the toad, it does not come out of the shelter. The temperature of the content should be 18-20 degrees. Toads should be fed by running live insects into the terrarium, toads eat only moving insects and invertebrates. Cockroaches, bloodworms, slugs, flies and earthworms are good food for toads. A toad needs 3-4 grams of food per day.

The skin of toads is rather bumpy due to the many venom glands, the largest glands are behind the eyes. These glands are the most dangerous, they can give out a poisonous secret at a distance of up to one meter. If you take a toad in your hands, the glands located on the body and legs work, you can feel this liquid, it has an unpleasant odor and a bitter taste. In the old days it was believed that they appeared precisely from this secret allocated by the toad.

Keeping frogs in a home zoo does not differ much from keeping toads. Frogs can live in terrariums with a pond, at a temperature of 18-20 degrees, or in aquariums with created islands or stones protruding from the water, on which frogs can periodically crawl out. Only now the frogs need to create a very high humidity. If the humidity is low, the frog's skin dries out quickly, which can lead to its death. The food for frogs is the same as for feeding toads, only tubifex is to be excluded. Frogs should be kept in aquariums without fish, because fish can be excellent food for them. Keeping frogs as domestic amphibians is an occupation only for rare exotic lovers. The most popular frog for the home aquarium is the clawed frog. The homeland of such a frog is Africa, in nature, frogs live in reservoirs with stagnant water and often move overland in search of another reservoir, but they cannot live without water. The bottom of the aquarium or aquaterrarium should be covered not with sand, but with fine gravel, frogs dig in it, and the water becomes cloudy. From plants for an aquarium with frogs, it is better to use large aquatic plants with a powerful stem, otherwise the frog can damage them by simply breaking them, and it is better to place plants floating on the surface, they can also serve as islands of land for frogs.

In an aquarium with frogs, you need to constantly change the water, or install filters, frogs release a lot of organic matter, and the water quickly becomes cloudy and dirty. Compressors can be omitted, as frogs breathe when leaving the water on the islands. From above, the aquarium should be covered with glass or a grate; frogs can easily jump out of it.

If you have a pair of frogs, they can reproduce by laying eggs. Aquarium clawed frogs can be observed laying eggs 3-4 times a year. Tadpoles emerge from the eggs, and then, after about two months, frogs develop from them. Tadpoles and frogs can be fed fish food. Frogs in an aquarium can live up to 15 years.

There are many types of frogs, but some of them are very dangerous. These are toad frogs and spadefoot frogs. It is better not to keep them at home. Frogs imported from America are even more poisonous and dangerous. The poison secreted by toads and frogs will not cause serious poisoning in humans, but getting on the mucous membranes can lead to inflammation, redness and irritation. Skin areas should be thoroughly rinsed with water immediately after exposure to the poison.

Frogs are mostly green, gray and white, with a yellow belly, but cannot be colored. Be careful, colored frogs are imported from China, these are artificially colored frogs.

A long time ago, when there were no people on Earth yet, and only trees grew and grasses turned green, birds soared in the sky and various animals jumped and jumped, the Heavenly Ruler sent down an unprecedented drought. Dried up, lakes, rivers and ponds. The birds fell dead to the ground. Lifeless animals lay in the mountains and forests.

Then a small earthen toad gathered ants, wasps, animals and birds and led them to the palace to the Heavenly Sovereign, and having defeated his army, set the condition to the Almighty: "As soon as I give my voice, you will immediately send rain to the Earth." Since then, this has been the custom in the world: if you hear the singing of an earthen toad, wait for rain.

This legend is common among the peoples of Vietnam and Thailand, and the prototype of the courageous toad was, apparently, the black-rubbed toad (Bufo melanostictus), which is widespread in Southeast Asia. It is interesting to note that in the folklore of many peoples of Africa and Asia, these amphibians personify wisdom, resourcefulness and, oddly enough, courage.

The family of True toads (Bufonidae) includes more than 300 species distributed on all continents, excluding Australia and Antarctica. They inhabited waterless deserts, forests and highlands, and the common toad (Bufo bufo) was found on Veliky Island in the White Sea beyond the Arctic Circle.

There are 6 species of toads in our country, divided into two groups: gray and green. The first group includes gray or common (B. bufo), Caucasian (B. verrucosissimus) and Far Eastern (B. gargarizans), and the second - reed (B. calamita), green (B. viridis) and Mongolian (B. raddei) toads.

All domestic representatives of the family are characterized by a dense rounded body with short thick limbs and a large head. The skin is usually dry to the touch, often covered with numerous bumps of various sizes. Behind large and expressive eyes with horizontal pupils are the parotid glands - parotids, by which toads are easily distinguished from other amphibians of our country.

Toads are very popular inhabitants of terrariums. Unpretentious to the conditions of detention, they lived in captivity up to 36 years. A horizontal type terrarium with gravel or expanded clay soil, a small cuvette with water and shelter from an inverted ceramic pot - these are all the requirements for "living space".

All toads have an excellent appetite. Their menu includes any little thing that they are able to swallow, in captivity these are usually earthworms, slugs, cockroaches, crickets, zophobos larvae and flour beetles, which are easy to breed or can be bought at a large pet store. Large individuals are happy to eat mice and small rats, frogs and quail chicks. Most toads catch only moving food, and they grab small prey with a sticky tongue, and large prey with their jaws.

Small toads, especially young ones, are best fed every day or every other day, large ones - 2 times a week. To prevent the toad breakfast from spreading around your apartment, a strip of medical vaseline or a thick ointment is applied to the walls of the terrarium and the feeder around the perimeter. Most of the forage insects climbing the walls cannot overcome this simple barrier.

Large toads can be kept directly on the floor of a residential or industrial building. In its corner, a drinking bowl and an incandescent lamp are installed for heating in the cold season. Feeding objects are set in feeders from which they cannot get out. Usually, well-bred toads "defeat" in the pool, which is very convenient, because cleaning up after the pet comes down to changing the water. In the terrariums of domestic amateurs, the green and gray toads, as well as the aga toad (B. marinus), are most often kept.

The gray or common toad is a large amphibian with a massive broad body. The maximum body length is up to 200 mm, usually not more than 130 mm. The species inhabits northwestern Africa, almost all of Europe and western Siberia. The gray toad prefers forest landscapes, gets along well with humans and is quite common in parks, gardens, and orchards.

Quickly gets used to the conditions of the terrarium and, with the right maintenance, pleases its owners for many years. The optimum temperature for keeping this species is 16-25°C.

In the cold season, the common toad needs a period of cooling, the so-called "wintering". To do this, pets are cold-aged for 2 weeks, and then they are placed in containers with a wet substrate (sphagnum moss or, more hygienically, foam rubber). "Wintering" is best done at a temperature of 5-8 ° C, every week it is necessary to moisten the substrate and visually assess the condition of the toads.

If your plans do not include breeding, then a 2-3 week cooling period in an overwintering container on the bottom shelf of a household refrigerator will suffice.

The exit of toads from "wintering" is carried out gradually, raising the temperature to room temperature within 3-5 days. Well for these purposes, thermal boxes and household thermal bags have proven themselves, the temperature in which slowly equalizes with the temperature of the room.

The green toad is a medium-sized amphibian with a maximum body length of up to 120 mm. It inhabits a variety of landscapes over a vast territory from France and North Africa in the west to Altai and Pakistan in the east. This species lives in the forest, forest-steppe, steppe and desert zones at an altitude of up to 3000 m. The green toad, unlike the gray one, is more dry and thermophilic.

In captivity, green toads are kept under the same conditions as the previous species, but "wintering" should be carried out at a temperature of 8-10 degrees. It should be remembered that green toads are great climbers and are ready to sneak out at the first opportunity from an uncovered terrarium.

The aga toad is one of the largest amphibians in the world. The body length of females of large morphs can reach more than 250 mm. Initially, this species inhabited a variety of landscapes in South America, but then, in order to control rodents, it was settled in other tropical regions of the world. In Australia, the number of aga has increased so much that local small animals are under threat.

The toad is probably one of the most spectacular amphibians in the collection of Russian terrarium keepers. A huge head with large parotid glands (parotid glands), powerful paws, bumpy brick-colored skin with a simple pattern, and most importantly, size - make an indelible impression on those who see these toads for the first time.

Aghas have a Nordic character, they quickly get used to a person and are easy to pick up. Young individuals of this species in captivity in large quantities eat small food animals - insects, worms, mollusks. Adult Aghas hunt mice, rats and chickens with passion. According to the testimony of many terrariumists, these toads are well trained to take motionless food from the feeder: pieces of lean meat, fish, and even dog meat food.

In order to avoid the development of diseases associated with metabolic disorders, vitamin and mineral supplements must be included in the feed for toads. We usually add trivit and calcium glycerophosphate when feeding large bloodworms, zophobos larvae and flour beetles. Regular exposure to ultraviolet radiation using soft UV sources, such as cosmetic lamps, is essential when rearing young toads. Such a solarium is carried out 2-3 times a week for 10-15 minutes.

Currently, terrarium studies in our country are finding more and more admirers, and toads have always been and will be the most suitable objects for keeping a house. Beginners and already experienced amateurs are attracted by their interesting behavior, meek disposition and unpretentiousness. Anyone who has ever kept these animals at home will remember their modest charm for a long time.

A. Kidov

Aquarium and lake frogs differ significantly not only in behavior, domestic frogs are not used to getting their own food and require increased attention and care. One of the first questions a breeder faces is what to feed a frog at home? If lake frogs in natural conditions feed on mosquitoes, flies and other insects, then aquarium sissies will not tolerate such a diet and require a completely different approach to nutrition.

What is fed to domestic frogs

Nowadays, modern pet stores offer a variety of nutritious foods with various additives. These feeds are balanced and contain all the necessary vitamins and microelements for proper frog nutrition. If the breeder wants to make up the diet for the pets himself, it will be useful for him to know some rules.

Aquarium frogs should never be overfed. Overeating can lead to bloating and death of the pet. How many times a day to feed a domestic frog depends on the age and type of reptile. Usually:

small representatives are fed every day,
adult frogs once every two to three days.

Bloodworms and prawns are good food. Occasionally, you can offer live small fish or guppies. White and clawed frogs eat bloodworms well. For them, this is one of their favorite treats, which gives great pleasure.

Bloodworms are best placed in a terrarium in a flat feeder filled with water. Do not throw any kind of food into the aquarium itself - this pollutes the water. It is not enough to feed frogs only with bloodworms; such pets require a balanced diet, including both live food and various additives to it.

For larger frogs, sliced meat and fish are suitable. Your pets will not immediately get used to such a delicacy, be patient and in a couple of weeks the frogs will be happy to eat such food.

Food additives

Frogs in the aquarium should receive not only food, but also vitamin and mineral supplements. They can be bought at pet stores. But the problem is that for amphibians there is no clearly defined norm for adding fortified feed, so the portion has to be calculated approximately, “by eye”.

It should be remembered that an excess of the dose of vitamins, especially such as fat-soluble "A", "O", "E", can sometimes lead to the death of pets.

Feeding the frog at home should also be foods containing calcium, it is especially important to observe this rule in relation to young amphibians. The frequency of calcium supplementation depends on age:

young birds should be offered this supplement every day,
older - once a week.

As products that contain calcium in their basis, we can distinguish:

crushed white school chalk,
limestone,
ground raw chicken egg shells.

Do not forget also that calcium is well absorbed by the body only in combination with vitamin D3, to promote its production is used.

Is it possible to feed a frog live food

What else is fed to domestic frogs? With the onset of warm days, terrarium owners find live food in nature for their pets. Amphibians willingly eat aphids, cicadas, filly caught far from the roads.

Live insects are caught with a net. The circumference of the hoop should be within 40-50 cm, and the length of the bag should be three times longer so that the caught insects cannot jump out of it. The bag can be sewn by yourself from dense matter. Coarse calico or canvas will do. Gauze is no good. The net handle is best made from 50 to 70 cm, a longer one will quickly tire your hand.

Aquarium amphibians really enjoy collecting live food, but you can collect it only in the absence of precipitation in warm weather on dry grass. It is easier to catch insects like this: walking through a clearing, a meadow, make movements with a net like a figure eight, capturing the upper parts of plants with it. If the catch got into the net, it should be poured into a jar that is not closed tightly, but with a mesh lid.

Eating invertebrates is beneficial for aquarium frogs. Thanks to this feed, you can not carry out additional fortification.

Be careful

Do not collect live food near areas with heavy traffic. Insects collected near highways, factories or factories can contain a large amount of toxins, which will adversely affect the health of the frogs, and may even lead to the death of pets.

When releasing collected invertebrates into a terrarium, be sure to sort them out and remove poisonous ones - they can be identified by their bright color.

For the purpose of additional vitaminization of frogs, insects should first be released into a jar with a mixture of vitamins and calcium, close it tightly and shake a couple of times, and then quickly feed it to reptiles. So that the insects released into the aquarium do not run away, it is better to place them in a feeder. It is easy to remove food residues from it.

Feeders with an interesting design have recently come on the market. They look like a hollow stone, into which it is convenient to pour powdered additives and place live insects. All the contents are mixed together, and the feeder with a hole freed from the cork is lowered into the terrarium. From it, one by one, insects are selected. It is not difficult for frogs to get used to the feeder and guard at the hole to eat live insects. Do not forget that uneaten crickets and cockroaches can scatter throughout the aquarium and destroy ornamental plants.

Feed the frog in your home aquarium regularly and responsibly, and then your pets will live a long happy life for your joy.

Like this article? Take it to your wall, support the project!

Frogs, leading an aquatic lifestyle, have long taken a strong place in amateur aquariums. And the touching little frogs, which are now sold in almost every pet store, cause an irresistible desire among people who are inexperienced in aquaristics to buy, as they say, "there are those two white ones and this gray one. " But no matter how cute they are, let's first figure out what kind of frogs they are, what conditions they need and with whom they can live in the same aquarium.

Two types of frogs are currently kept in aquariums: the smooth clawed frog (Xenopus laevis), which has been bred in captivity for many years, and the dwarf frog, Hymenochirus (Hymenochirus boettgeri), which has become popular recently. Adult frogs of these species vary greatly in size, appearance, behavior, and content. Frogs in pet stores are often kept in the same aquarium and when selling, they do not always focus on their species.

Clawed frog.

So, if aquarium frogs are white or pinkish, with red eyes, then regardless of size they are clawed. The albino clawed frog was artificially bred at the Moscow Institute of Developmental Biology for laboratory experiments.

If a small frog is grayish, brownish or olive in color with dark spots, then to determine the species, you should pay attention to the length and thickness of its limbs, the presence of webbing between the fingers of the front paws and the pointedness of the muzzle. Wild-colored clawed frogs are more dense, they have thicker legs with bandages, like babies, a rounded muzzle, and there are no webbing on the fingers.

Hymenochirus, on the other hand, has membranes, long and slender legs, and a pointed muzzle. The size of an adult hymenochirus, as a rule, does not exceed 4 cm, while the clawed frog grows up to 10–12 cm.

These frogs also behave in different ways. They are active, strong and completely shameless. But they are clearly visible, they have large expressive faces and they have a habit of hanging beautifully in the thickness of the aquarium water.

Hymenochirus are calmer, quieter, slower and more delicate. They slowly crawl along the bottom, climbing on underwater objects and periodically freezing for a long time. As one amateur aptly put it, pygmy frogs resemble "meditating scuba divers." They almost do not damage plants, do not disturb fish (they simply do not have such an opportunity due to the size of their body and mouth), pollute the aquarium a little.

In a large aquarium, they are almost invisible, because they constantly hide on the bottom or in thickets of plants, and if active fish live nearby, then hymenochiruses may not keep up with food.

Aquarium frogs: maintenance and care

Both species are not too demanding in terms of keeping conditions. For clawed frogs, an aquarium of 20-30 liters per couple is enough, while it needs to be filled with water by half or a third. The aquarium should be closed with a lid or net. The soil is a large pebble. The aquarium is equipped with a compressor or a small internal filter, you can use a waterfall filter, but there should not be a strong current. There is no need for bright lighting.

The water temperature is about 22-25°C, xenopuses are practically indifferent to the chemical parameters of water. The exception is the content of chlorine and fluorine in the water, so it is recommended to defend it before adding it to the aquarium for at least 2-3 days. They change the water once or twice a week for 20-25%, a number of authors recommend changing less often, as it becomes cloudy.

Only hard-leaved plants may be planted, always in pots, otherwise they will be dug up immediately. Some lovers of these animals act as follows: they put a pot with a houseplant with hanging shoots next to the aquarium, and place these shoots in the aquarium. In this case, the aquarium becomes green, and the roots of the plant remain intact.

For hymenochiruses, the volume of the aquarium can be even smaller, 1-2 liters of water for such a frog is enough.

A cap is required - hymenochiruses, especially wild-caught ones, often try to escape.

They require a minimum water temperature of 24°C. A filter or compressor is desirable, but it should not be too powerful to leave areas of still, stagnant water in the aquarium.

At the bottom, it is necessary to equip small shelters under which these quivering creatures can hide. Plants are very desirable, it is good if they form dense thickets in places. It is also better to plant them in pots. It is necessary to equip the aquarium with lighting, since hymenochiruses sometimes like to rise among the thickets to the surface and bask under the lamp, sticking their head and upper body out of the water.

Feeding

Decorative aquarium frogs - both xenopuses and hymenochiruses - are preferred.

For claws, these can be mealworms, earthworms, crickets, bloodworms, fry and tadpoles. You can give pieces of liver, meat, fish, shrimp with tweezers.

Clawed frogs should not be fed tubifex, pork, fatty beef.

Hymenochirus are fed small bloodworms, live daphnia or fish. Dry and immobile frog food is usually ignored. Food for adult xenopus and hymenochirus should be given twice a week.

Feeding behavior of representatives of these two species of frogs also differs. Spurs have an excellent sense of smell, in addition, they have a very developed sense of touch (the receptors are pits located on the sides of the frog and resemble the lateral line of fish). Therefore, frogs are good at detecting smells and the slightest movements of water, quickly find food and greedily pounce on it.

Hymenochirus, on the other hand, usually need to bring food directly to the nose. You can teach them to feed in a certain place or according to a certain signal (for example, tapping with tweezers), but they will take a long time to get to the food, as if thinking along the way whether it is worth doing this at all.

Xenopus are extremely voracious and therefore prone to obesity, respectively, the amount of food they eat must be strictly controlled - a healthy frog must remain flat.

As for the clawed frog, knowing the peculiarities of its behavior, one can answer unequivocally - it has nothing to do in an aquarium with fish.

She will swallow everything that fits in her mouth, wipe out most of the plants, dig up the soil, raising the dregs, and move carefully placed scenery.

In addition, she does not like fresh water with a good current, and most fish will not like the swamp she is used to.

The only advantage of living together between fish and clawed frogs is that the frogs' skin mucus contains antimicrobial substances that can have a curative effect on sick fish. But at the current level of development of aquarium pharmacology, this can hardly be considered a serious argument. If you really want to do without chemistry, it is much easier to place a sick fish in a small container, where the frog had been for some time before.

Some aquarists advise keeping xenopus with , as they do well in old water and breathe atmospheric air. But why do it? A separate small aquarium with frogs will take up very little space, and everyone will be fine as a result.

Things are not so scary with hymenochiruses. It is believed that they get along well with calm, not too large, non-predatory fish. They will not violate the beauty of the aquarium either. However, in a large aquarium, hymenochiruses spend a lot of time in shelters, so it is almost impossible to observe them, and it can be quite difficult to control the process of feeding them.

Diseases of frogs

Aquarium frogs may experience the following health problems:

In the treatment of frogs, preparations for tropical aquarium fish are usually used, choosing them according to the causative agent of the disease (anthelmintic, antifungal or antibacterial). Sick frogs are isolated. With dropsy, a puncture of the skin is often effective.

It should be known that individuals usually fall ill if they live in unsuitable conditions for them, are prone to obesity or experience prolonged severe stress.

And finally, some interesting facts about clawed frogs:

the clawed frog was the first vertebrate to be cloned;
at the beginning of the 20th century, clawed frogs were used to diagnose short-term pregnancy: if a frog is injected with the urine of a pregnant woman, it starts spawning under the influence of chorionic gonadotropin;
the clawed frog does not have a tongue, therefore, when eating prey, it helps itself with its front paws, and it cannot bend its fingers, it keeps them stretched out, as if eating with Chinese chopsticks;
When clawed frogs accidentally entered the waters of the tropical United States, they destroyed native frog species there, so clawed frogs are banned in some states and restricted in others.

Fortunately, keeping frogs is allowed in our country, so everyone can get these undemanding funny animals at home, watch and care for them, getting a lot of positive emotions and acquiring the skills of keeping an aquarium. The latter will definitely come in handy in the future, because usually everything is just beginning with frogs.

Interview with a specialist: how to properly care for and feed freshwater aquarium frogs:

Aquatic frogs have long occupied a strong place in amateur aquariums. And the touching little frogs, which are now sold in almost every pet store, cause an irresistible desire among people who are inexperienced in aquaristics to buy, as they say, "there are those two white ones and this gray one." But no matter how cute they are, let's first figure out what kind of frogs they are, what conditions they need and with whom they can live in the same aquarium.