[Guest]

I am just curious:

Are there any species of dart frog that are big enough to feed on 1/4" to 3/8" crickets as their main food source? (obviously supplimented with other food as available)

I was just wondering if there were a way to avoid culturing fruit flies. There is a great, privately owned pet store just down the street which has a very reliable supply of baby crickets.

I will go the fruit fly route if necessary, I am just looking at all my options.

 

[Guest]

short answer is no.

You could buy adult terriblis, and maybe even adult azureus/tincs. If you ever wanted to breed them no.

 

[Arklier]

During his speech the night before NWFF, Patrick Nabors said he feeds all his frogs exclusively on pinhead crickets. He also raises his own, since it would be too expensive and time consuming any other way. So it is possible to raise darts on crickets, just not crickets the size of the ones mentioned.

 

[Guest]

Hmmm. Thanks, folks.

Raising my own crickets would be fine, in the warmer months. But I would hate to have to do it indoors, because they STINK!!

Ok. No big deal. I just thought I'd ask. I suppose I will have to deal with the FF's.

The main problem with the FF thing, is my fiance (wife in 4 weeks) is pretty much totally opposed to having any escaped fruit flies around the house. What are the chances of keeping them contained to my (eventual) frog room?

 

[geckguy]

If you have solid glass lids most of the flies should stay in the tanks. I have couple frogger friends who feed most of their frogs crickets, because feeding 30+ pairs of frogs would be tons of fly cultures, so you can feed most frogs crickets almost exclusively, they actually seem to make the frogs grow quicker than flies.

 

[Derek Benson]

In my opinion, escapee fruit flies are not a problem. I will see the ocasional one is a spider web, but no live ones, like I do crickets. I found a colony in my tortoise light fixture and one under a power strip. Talk about annoying when it's in your bed room.

 

[pa.walt]

the sizes you mentioned i feed to my frogs. my thumb nail i feed pins & 1/8 inch. 1/4 inch is not really that big. terribilis i was told eat a pretty good size cricket, 3/8 or bigger. to me flys are too much of a bother. i do have one advantage i have a friend who owns a store so he gets crickets every week. about breeding the crickets, they are more of a problem at times than just going out buying them. but i have bred my own crickets. to me they didn't smell. it took about as long for the crickets to hatch as it does for my flys to hatch which i use seldom. and the adults you can just let them die or give them to the store where you bought them from if they sell i like 15 for $1.00.
as far as chirping i have imitator and luecs and both of them chirp so if i have adult crickets it doesn't bother me.
walt

 

[Dancing frogs]

kind of off the original topic but...I was raising crix last winter...worked well...didn't stink(any more than the ff's that is!) , and I actually found their calls to be sort of relaxing. A couple of months later, some escapees came of age under the fridge, and began calling...drove me bananas! I don't know why, but the ones that were where they were supposed to be didn't bother me, but the escapees were a whole nother thing.
Am I a control freak

 

[KeroKero]

Crickets smelling

I've seen bicolors eat small house geckos, they will take the small crix many stores sell but I wouldn't keep them on that diet. I'd imagine terribilis would do the same thing. I've had adult tricolors take two week old crix no problem... but its not something I would do all the time. Again, I'd imagine some of the other epipeds would eat large food items like that as well.

PDFs eat whatever they can fit in their mouths that doesn't bite back too hard... just because they COULD doesn't mean they SHOULD. I don't think any of these guys could consistantly go on the store bought crickets.

Crickets can smell and produce a lot of 'dust' that many people, me included, are allergic to. I've actually developed a severe allergy over the years, now when I work with them I look like I'm going into surgery, face dust mask, my lab goggles from chemistry, and many times rubber gloves. The key to these guys not smelling is keeping them clean mostly, which with really large amounts can be a real chore. Dead ones need to be removed right away, as well as spoiled food and water sources (I don't use fruit that often as it spoils too quickly).