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Post by bullfrog on Jul 18, 2024 0:26:21 GMT -5
Bullfrog.... How is your Frog Project going? By now I thought you would have been breeding..... Two… croaked. The first one, the one that started off sickly, is doing great. I haven’t bothered to start any more. |
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Post by illinoisfisherman on Jul 18, 2024 9:41:47 GMT -5
I learned something new today from this thread. I never knew frogs would eat mammals. 👍
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Post by johnnybandit on Jul 18, 2024 19:54:16 GMT -5
I learned something new today from this thread. I never knew frogs would eat mammals. 👍 Not uncommon sir!
They will eat birds as well.....
Frogs and toads are quite gluttonous... Some species specialize in their diets...
For most species, if it will fit in their mouth or they think it will fit in their mouth, they will eat it....
Many of the larger species are quite aggressive and not afraid to fight......
They also engage in cannibalism.... Never attempt to house a frog or toad in a cage with another frog or toad that is not about the same size... because one is getting eaten...
Not a good idea to house them together anyway because they tend to be territorial.
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Post by bullfrog on Jul 18, 2024 21:23:52 GMT -5
Well get this. I am about to shower up and go to bed. But before I did I went out to go catch a frog for my pacman to eat. Got her a green treefrog and came in to feed her.
And just like that, I found her dead.
So I’m now 0 for 3. A few months ago I was talking to a petstore owner that found she has to raise several pacmans to get one that survives long-term. I think captive breeding has ruined their genetics.
If I try again, I may raise the next one the old fashioned way and raise it in shallow water instead of substrate. That’s how pacmans were raised in the 80s.
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Post by tonyroma on Jul 18, 2024 21:58:16 GMT -5
Sorry your frog croaked.
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Post by illinoisfisherman on Jul 18, 2024 22:33:39 GMT -5
Sorry about that.
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Post by johnnybandit on Jul 18, 2024 23:22:19 GMT -5
Well get this. I am about to shower up and go to bed. But before I did I went out to go catch a frog for my pacman to eat. Got her a green treefrog and came in to feed her. And just like that, I found her dead. So I’m now 0 for 3. A few months ago I was talking to a petstore owner that found she has to raise several pacmans to get one that survives long-term. I think captive breeding has ruined their genetics. If I try again, I may raise the next one the old fashioned way and raise it in shallow water instead of substrate. That’s how pacmans were raised in the 80s.
Sorry to hear this.... And if you want me to be completely frank and honest..... I was concerned when you started feeding your frogs, native frogs.... Leopard frogs and green tree frogs..... I had concern that you were going to introduce bacterial, parasitic and possibly viral diseases to your frogs.... Especially parasitic and bacterial issues that native species carry and no longer causes them any issue.... But your non native captive frogs had zero defense against.....
A rule I learned over 40 years ago... Never feed captive reptiles or amphibians, especially exotic species... Wild caught reptiles or amphibians... you will introduce parasites.... That will kill them.
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Post by bullfrog on Jul 19, 2024 3:24:12 GMT -5
Well get this. I am about to shower up and go to bed. But before I did I went out to go catch a frog for my pacman to eat. Got her a green treefrog and came in to feed her. And just like that, I found her dead. So I’m now 0 for 3. A few months ago I was talking to a petstore owner that found she has to raise several pacmans to get one that survives long-term. I think captive breeding has ruined their genetics. If I try again, I may raise the next one the old fashioned way and raise it in shallow water instead of substrate. That’s how pacmans were raised in the 80s.
Sorry to hear this.... And if you want me to be completely frank and honest..... I was concerned when you started feeding your frogs, native frogs.... Leopard frogs and green tree frogs..... I had concern that you were going to introduce bacterial, parasitic and possibly viral diseases to your frogs.... Especially parasitic and bacterial issues that native species carry and no longer causes them any issue.... But your non native captive frogs had zero defense against.....
A rule I learned over 40 years ago... Never feed captive reptiles or amphibians, especially exotic species... Wild caught reptiles or amphibians... you will introduce parasites.... That will kill them.
Its possible. But, I view them like my chickens. If they can’t handle microbes or parasites,they’re too weak. My first pacman frog was a tank. It lived for 10 years and I fed it whatever I wanted from the wild. It was likely wild-caught. Every single pacman frog I’ve owned since was probably captive bred and did not live more than a year. And I kept those by the book. While the first one lived in a bowl of water and gravel. Most received only food from the pet store. Only these last 3 got wild amphibians. All the others got petstore crickets and mice and they all died the same. Spread out over 20 years. The common denominator overall wasn’t whether I fed wild amphibians to them, but was that they were captive bred and I followed care guides. I can’t help them being captive bred. I think they all are these days. But I’m throwing out the care guide. I’ve decided that I’m going to try again with 2. One is going to live in a pool of gravel water. The other is going to live in a mature, humid, plant terrarium. I want to see which one does best. I hadn’t changed the dirt in this one’s terrarium in several months. I didn’t want to disturb the plants. Someone once told me that neglecting to change their dirt often will cause them to suddenly die when the waste content of the dirt gets to a certain point. The only I kept it water got his bowl washed regularly. |
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Post by swampdog on Jul 19, 2024 7:52:10 GMT -5
I think both you and JB are onto something. I wonder if you also could heat the soil up in a drier to sanitize it. Many times soil will be contaminated. I know some gardeners that replace their raised bed soil every couple of years.
I don’t want one of those big carnivore frogs but am interested in the science. I love to keep learning.
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Post by Crkr 23 on Jul 19, 2024 7:57:56 GMT -5
I have a friend that grew great tomatoes in 5 gal buckets. Part of his soil prep was pouring boiling water through the soil in the buckets, might work in sterilizing the terrarium soil.
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Post by bullfrog on Jul 19, 2024 8:58:27 GMT -5
If I sterilized the soil, that would basically mean I couldn’t keep one in a well-established planted tank with its own ecosystem. And maybe I cannot. About the time I got my second and all my subsequent pacman frogs, I was in the aquarium hobby and I kept more elaborate fish tank setups. Eventually I got into keeping coral reef saltwater tanks. I’m used to keeping small critters and fish in naturalistic setups with their own nitrogen cycles and cleanup crews. Another reason I was hesitant to change the soil in the frog’s tank was because it was rich in life that’s otherwise beneficial to have such as springtails and other small animals that stop mold from growing.
My childhood pacman frog was literally in a bowl of water with gravel. I kept the water just deep enough for it to rest buried in the gravel with its eyes above the water. Gravel is supposed to kill them if they swallow it. But mine would get a mouth full of gravel when he’d hunt and just spit it back out if he missed and poop it out if he caught the prey and swallowed it all. Maybe they need gizzard stones like some birds and reptiles? It seemed to thrive that way, although they’re thought to live more like toads than frogs insofar as they hunt and stay buried on land. But I am aware of some literature that indicates they’re often found in the water of shallow pools in their native range. For as popular as they are as pets, they’ve been studied very little in the wild.
The theory behind the issue with captive breeding is this; in the wild, most froglets die before reaching breeding age. Like fish, they spawn by the thousands and most are destined to just be food for other animals. Only the strongest survive to reproduce. But the pet trade removes natural selection from the equation. There is a profit motive to having as many froglets as possible survive to sell to pet stores. Thus many weak ones that couldn’t cut it in the wild become breeders in captivity.
Pathogen evolution is measured in singular years. The issue wouldn’t simply be that captive pacmans can’t handle North American sicknesses. They likely couldn’t handle disease from their native habitat either. The captive animals are too far removed. They’ve been truly domesticated.
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Post by bullfrog on Jul 19, 2024 9:05:08 GMT -5
Someone, it may have been Johnny, recommended that yes, other frogs are the best food for them, but its better to breed your own feeder frogs, or alternatively buy frog legs from the store and freeze them to kill parasites.
I don’t want to pamper my frog. I want it to be tough like my original frog was. But I can’t go to South America and get one right out of the wild either. I can’t bring myself to give up. I want to Make Pacman Frogs Great Again. But I may have to surrender and pamper some with sterile food and tanks to get them to breeding age. To kickstart natural selection, I need thousands of froglets.
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Post by bullfrog on Jul 19, 2024 9:06:15 GMT -5
 Here was poor Dana. |
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Post by bullfrog on Jul 19, 2024 9:17:38 GMT -5
Oh… wait. Didn’t I speculate in this thread that I can’t explain why pacmans haven’t been established in Florida where north Florida’s climate is almost a perfect match from where they come from in South America?
Maybe there is a pathogen here they can’t handle. I think all of my pacmans have had at least a few crickets from outside. I think there was maybe one that only ever got petstore or bait shop crickets because I lived in town and I didn’t trust insects from the yard to not have pesticides.
Most of my subsequent frogs have had vitamin supplements dusted on their food. The first frog after my original frog was kept unheated as my first was, and I figured that was what killed it. I had another one I didn’t heat and I figured that one also died because it got too cold with food in its belly. All the rest I’ve kept properly heated.
They just all seem weak. Not hardy. My first frog was an Ornata. All the rest were Cranwells, except of these last 3, one was an Ornata. It was doing awesome. No sign of issues. Then I just randomly found it dead just like I found Dana yesterday.
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Post by cyclist on Jul 19, 2024 9:37:56 GMT -5
You feed them native frogs? GTFs are getting out competed by Cuban tree frogs and are not doing well in many places.
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