# Benefits of Repashy Formic-Cal Plus



## Tinc Tank (Jun 29, 2019)

Does anybody know of any benefits of formic acid to dart frogs or if they accumulate it? Formicine ants form the largest part of the diet of poison dart frogs in the wild. Some articles say they accumulate the formic acid as a poison but I don't think that is necessarily true. Others say it is beneficial to the accumulation of the actual poisons.

One potentially useful source I found was a study in pigs where it was found that "Calcium formate has a growth-promoting effect in weanling pigs challenged with E. coli K88" (see The influence of fat protection of calcium formate on growth and intestinal defence in Escherichia coli K88-challenged weanling pigs). Another study found that calcium formate "can serve as an alternative calcium source in broiler diets and may significantly improve skeletal development" (see Effects of dietary calcium formate inclusion on broiler performance, skeletal development, and gut maturation). However, I am not sure if the benefits were just because the calcium was in an organic mineral form. In that case, the fact that formic acid was in there would be irrelevant because calcium citrate could induce the same effect.

Any references to scientific literature focused more on poison dart frogs would be greatly appreciated. If it is in fact beneficial, maybe Repashy Formic-Cal Plus would be of some benefit after all.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

would the frogs even eat it? Dart frogs don't eat most of our native ants. I've tried, and they spit them out.


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## macg (Apr 19, 2018)

Rain_Frog said:


> would the frogs even eat it? Dart frogs don't eat most of our native ants. I've tried, and they spit them out.


That's very interesting.


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## Tinc Tank (Jun 29, 2019)

Rain_Frog said:


> would the frogs even eat it? Dart frogs don't eat most of our native ants. I've tried, and they spit them out.


Some people have added it to their rotation so apparently the dart frogs accept it. So far I have found no mention of a palatability issue.

See this thread:
https://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/179282-repashy-calcium-formate.html


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Rain_Frog said:


> would the frogs even eat it? Dart frogs don't eat most of our native ants. I've tried, and they spit them out.


I'm not intending any sort of implication about the formic acid question, but: the food type preferences of a range of captive herp species are often an artifact of captivity, and can be biased against natural food sources. 

The preference for FFs is likely a learned preference (i.e. that's the only familiar food item), and the process of weaning captive herps onto an unfamiliar -- even if natural -- food can be lengthy. 

The preference for human-provided food choices is sometimes even artificially selected, either unwittingly (i.e. those froglets that had some genetic predisposition to require a certain unprovided dietary element simply 'failed to thrive') or in some cases purposefully (I have read of lines of normally lizard-feeding snakes that readily feed on rodents as hatchlings, as earlier generations of that line that did not feed on rodents at hatching were allowed to die).


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Yeah, but I think a lot of what our frogs will eat is based on many years of people trying different things of what our frogs will accept as food in the hobby. There's a lot of ant species out there, and at least the ones I've offered, have been rejected by any frog-- mantella or dart frog-- that I've offered it to them. 

The other thing too, stick something like a termite in front of a mantella cowani and you'll see a different feeding reaction, even with captive bred frogs, than solely fruit flies despite the fact they were raised on it. The same problem is apparent with Mantella nigricans. 

I was not aware of people using formical though to feed their dart frogs.


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## macg (Apr 19, 2018)

I'm going to resurrect this to see if there are any new experiences with formic acid.


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