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New to frogs, food question.

1390 Views 13 Replies 12 Participants Last post by  ZookeeperDoug, 
T
Hello i am new to these boards and looking at getting into the poison dart frog hobby.My biggest concern is food.How hard and how much of a hassle is it to do the whole culturing fruit fly thing.And i have read a some post where all they used to feed them years ago was crickets.Are there any certain species of darts that are big enough to strictly eat on crickets.Thanks!
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hypostatic
I've kept leopard geckos before acquiring my azureus, and I have to say, I prefer FFs 100 to 1 when compared to crickets. My cricket cultures always got really nasty and smelly, with crickets eating each other all over the place.

I don't think culturing FFs is that much of a hassle, or too hard (hey even I can do it!). It's basically as easy as getting a jar with ventilation where the flies can't escape, putting some food in, putting some stuff for them to crawl on, and waiting for them to reproduce so you can feed them out and have a constant food supply.

I think they used to feed pinhead crickets, which can grow up to be big nasty crickets that munch on your frogs. I've heard that terribilis can handle crickets, although I'm not sure if they can handle full-grown crickets
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brod322
When you first start working with cultures it can be tricky just due to the lack of experience. But you soon get the hang of it and what works for you. Now I spend maybe 15 min starting new cultures every week and a half or two. I also tried breeding crickets because petstores around me don't sell crickets small enough for my darts. And it was more trouble than it was worth. It the food supply is the deciding factor on if u should get darts or not don't worry in a month or two you will have it down.
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fieldnstream
Fruit flies are the best feeder I have dealt with. Crickets stank, mealworms always found a way to hide and turn into beetles, silkworms were expensive and hard to keep alive, waxworms were hard to keep at the perfect temp, roaches were roaches (enough said). It only takes a few mins a week to make up a few new cultures and you don't have to buy new feeders all the time. It does take a little trial and error to figure out the best way to culture, but once you get it you are good. Oh yeah, the media smells like cookies, which is pretty glorious. Don't let worries about ff culturing prevent you from getting darts!
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E
Triggerfreak said:
Hello i am new to these boards and looking at getting into the poison dart frog hobby.My biggest concern is food.How hard and how much of a hassle is it to do the whole culturing fruit fly thing.And i have read a some post where all they used to feed them years ago was crickets.Are there any certain species of darts that are big enough to strictly eat on crickets.Thanks!
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If you want to use crickets, appropriate sized crickets are a perfectly acceptable staple. I kept darts on a diet of virtually nothing but crickets for more than 15 years.
Most people culture fruit flies as this is less expensive and provides a more stable food supply of a specific size.

Ed
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Z
I am also new to darts. If I can culture FF's, trust me, anyone can.

I have only worked with two of the available media out there. Josh's and Repashy Superfly. If you follow the instructions and measurments exactly, your cultures will turn out fine.
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V
fruit flys over crickets any time any place. One culture can feed many frogs. Cheaper, less smelly, it aint rocket science.
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zBrinks
Here's a helpful video on how to culture fruit flies:

Like everyone has said, it's super easy, especially with a commercial media.
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oneshot
Fruit Flies are very easy once you get the hang of it. After you've made a bunch, it's effortless.

I'm actually getting rid of anything that I can't feed with FF's. They're just so easy, and you don't have to go to the pet store every week.
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WONTON SALLY
Zoomie said:
I am also new to darts. If I can culture FF's, trust me, anyone can.

I have only worked with two of the available media out there. Josh's and Repashy Superfly. If you follow the instructions and measurments exactly, your cultures will turn out fine.
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any difference between the two media as far as numbers in fly's you've noticed?
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WONTON SALLY
also temps are key in getting higher numbers of FF's to reproduce more 75-80F is the sweet spot in my experience.
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N
once you start making cultures and get the hang of it you'll find it easy.
kept at correct temperatures they should produce large yields of flies.

fruit fly cultures is the most efficient way of providing food for the frogs while remaining inexpensive. crickets for frogs will get very expensive.

as a breeder of frogs and several geckos i can tell you the cost is very minimal for fruit fly cultures compared to when you are dealing with crickets.

crickets mortality rate have always concerned me as does the clean up maintainance and smells associated with keeping crickets.

i've actually moved to dubia roaches in place of crickets for most cricket eating reptiles now plus they don't have the chitin content of crickets. but they won't work for frogs. sorry i got off topic. higly nutritious culture mediums and practice and you should produce many flies at a minimum cost.
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addicted2darts said:
i've actually moved to dubia roaches in place of crickets for most cricket eating reptiles now plus they don't have the chitin content of crickets. but they won't work for frogs. sorry i got off topic. higly nutritious culture mediums and practice and you should produce many flies at a minimum cost.
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I'm always surprised that people want to move thier animals to a lower chitin diet when it is important to the animals as a source of fiber, protien. I'm very suspicious of the claims that dubia actually have a lower chitin content than crickets until I see the actual analysis.. but on topic, the digestiability of chitin was underestimated for years and it is actually much more digestiable than previously thought. As an example of growth see The effects of prey species on food conversion efficiency and growth of an insectivorous lizard - Rich - 2008 - Zoo Biology - Wiley Online Library (the abstract is available for free) in which a high chitin insect shows much better growth than a insect believed to have less chitin...

Ed
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Z
Don't let the culturing flies thing worry you. It really isn't all that dificult. Follow the basic steps described in the many tutorials here and you'll be just fine. Even hydei are not all that hard and my tinctorius are fat and happy on them.
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