# crickets



## Guest (Jun 10, 2004)

I just had to share this because I am very excited about it...I ordered 500 1 week old crickets and they are real small so my plan was to try and feed them to my dart auratus. I just picked up 2 sub adults from Joe and I have 3 that are a bit smaller and the whole making my own ff culture was just not happening I couldnt figure it out. Everyone I spoke to told me good luck they wont eat the crickets and as soon as I dropped them into the tanks they chomped down on them  Just had to share that!!
Melis


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

They'll eat crickets - it just should not be the only thing in their diet.

Crickets are full of chitin... a very fibrous material that is often associated with prolapse.

You'll want to learn the "fruit fly thing", it's very important if you want to raise healthy frogs.

Either that or learn how to do another food source that is not so chitinious.

s


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## Christian (Mar 8, 2004)

What is chitinious, and in what insect that have this chitinious....

I really don't know what is chitinious.....


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Exosceleton. The outer "crunchy" part.

s


Christian said:


> What is chitinious, and in what insect that have this chitinious....
> 
> I really don't know what is chitinious.....


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## Guest (Jun 10, 2004)

Scott said:


> They'll eat crickets - it just should not be the only thing in their diet.
> 
> Crickets are full of chitin... a very fibrous material that is often associated with prolapse.
> 
> ...



What is prolapse?? What other insects do you suggest besides crickets?


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## mindcrash (Mar 3, 2004)

Froggurl said:


> What is prolapse?? What other insects do you suggest besides crickets?


Prolapse is problem where the frogs rectum sticks out. I know there is more to it, but thats the gist.

As for other insects, you'll want to use fruit flys. Here is the exact recipe i use and it works great, plus its easy, i just do it every saturday or sunday:

The "Power Mix"
By Chis Miller

The following was posted by Chris Miller of Littleton Co on FrogNet on May 8, 2000.

I have been using a mixture of potato flakes, sugar, and Fleischman's activated yeast for years now. But, after adding a lot of mouths to feed to my collection, I had decided I was going to have to find something that made a lot more flies per jar. With input from a lot of different sources (Dave and Erin, Tracy Hicks, Jutti,) etc , I have composed a mush that has QUADRUPLED
my fly production. I have had very little problem with mold, and the cultures seem to last for at least a month or longer.

In a pot bring the following to a boil.
2 cups water
2 cups vinegar
1/8th cup Dark molasses
1/2 can of grape juice concentrate
2-3 overripe mushed up bananas

After bringing this mixture to a boil, add the dry material

1/2 cup malt of meal
2/3 cup potato flakes
1/3 cup Brewers Yeast (the key ingredient)

Place about 2 inches of medium in each qt size jar, and sprinkle maybe an 1/8th teaspoon of activated yeast on the top. A day later, 20-30 flies are added. I have tried this medium with my hydei and melanogaster and I can't believe how many larvae are swarming the sided of the jar, I literally can't see through the glass jar, they cover every square inch of glass. For the first 10 days, I keep the cultures in cardboard boxes which are kept closed, after that, I keep them on a large shelf to help the larvae dry out.

Crickets will get expensive.

Hope that helps.


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Or you can buy one of a couple mixes available out there.

I've done that in the past... but I'll likely be making my own again soon.

s


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## pa.walt (Feb 16, 2004)

so scott what you are saying is my frogs are not healthy. i feed my frogs crickets. i have yet to see the retums sticking out.


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## Guest (Jun 11, 2004)

Ok I think I might try that because right now I am paying $10 for one ff culture and thats just ridiculous...I am 20 supproting myslef and my frogs of course  so the cheapest thing for me is the best. I found a place online that I could get 1000 cricket for $17 and that seemed like a better option that the $10 for the culture. Thanks for all your help!


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Have I seen your frogs Walt?

Do you feed your frogs *all* crickets?

I said it can be a problem, not that it is, or will be a problem. 

I have occasionally fed crix in the past - it adds a bit of variety. I just don't think it's a good idea to *only* feed crix.

s


pa.walt said:


> so scott what you are saying is my frogs are not healthy. i feed my frogs crickets. i have yet to see the retums sticking out.


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## pa.walt (Feb 16, 2004)

froggurl just go to the next white plains reptile/herp show. i think the next one is in july or later this month. i'm sure you will find cheaper flys than $10. since you do have flys just use one of the fly medium recipes out there and start a culture. there are some easy recipes and some complicated ones.
as for the containers my one friend use to sell them in "snapple" bottles.


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## Derek Benson (Feb 19, 2004)

I'm not sure if I agree with you Scott. I feed all of my frogs (non-dart) crickets. And have for as lnog as I've kept them. They aren't the giant black ones with a tough exoskeleton. Young brown crickets are about as soft as a wax worm. The brown juvenile crickets are what I feed. When they develop their "wings" they are put into the breeder tank and not fed. Could you please tell us more on this issue.


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Derek,

How many Dart Frogs do you keep?

Most of the treefrogs (not all) are larger than PDFs. I do not know if this is an advantage or not... but it would seem to me it would be (in regards to digesting crix).

I've only ever read about two causes of prolapse: 1) parasites 2) too much fiber (ie chitin) in their diet.

I just do not recommend it as 100% of the diet (or even 50%) for Poison Dart Frogs.

Then again - I've never had to deal with a prolapsed frog.

s


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## Guest (Jun 11, 2004)

pa.walt said:


> froggurl just go to the next white plains reptile/herp show. i think the next one is in july or later this month. i'm sure you will find cheaper flys than $10. since you do have flys just use one of the fly medium recipes out there and start a culture. there are some easy recipes and some complicated ones.
> as for the containers my one friend use to sell them in "snapple" bottles.


Yeah...I plan on going as long as I dont have to work my boss tends to let me know last minute :evil:


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## Christian (Mar 8, 2004)

So criket or not recommanded for dart frog??????

In nature they eat ant... and I thing that they body are much more hard that really tiny criquet....


So I use 50% of criquet and 50% ff....

So.... I am a bad person with they frog or not.????????

I don't have dart but mantella so.....


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## Derek Benson (Feb 19, 2004)

> Derek,
> 
> How many Dart Frogs do you keep?


Where did this come from? I have 3 dart frogs, all of which eat crickets and fruit flies. Aren't you supposed to add variety to their diets by offering fruit flies, crickets, termites, etc?


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## Ryan (Feb 18, 2004)

So far i have had no problems with crickets! The babies havent developed much of an exoskeleton so its not that biig of a problem.


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## Guest (Jun 14, 2004)

*what*

what are potatoe flakes?


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## Derek Benson (Feb 19, 2004)

Flakes of Potato used in homemade fruit fly media recipes.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

*Petco*

Wait, Froggurl, where are you located? I didn't waste money buying expensive medium and expensive shipping for cultures. I just went to Petco and bought a fresh culture for $5. You really don't get enough out of them, so I made homemade medium and used old water bottles for containers. We buy bulk packages of bottled water, but I don't pay for it. I cut a large square on the side of bottled water and tape a piece of paper towel for good air circulation. I'm sure you could probably order fruit fly containers for a cheap price too. I put a few tablespoons of homemade medium and stuff the bottles with plastic from shopping bags, ziploc bags, etc, in place of excelsior moss. It works well, the larvae crawl up and cover it when they will pupate. Plus, brewer's yeast for max production. I then leave it in a warm place in the basement in indirect lighting, and wait about a week, and I will get hundreds of them. In fact, I have WAY too many, and if you ever saw Kole, you would notice he is by far the fattest tinc you ever saw. He looks like a blueberry when he climbs the glass :lol:


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## Ryan (Feb 18, 2004)

Petco cultures stink whenever i buy them, because the flies fly! I never buy their cultures anymore.


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

Petco cultures have worked for me, but I mostly use them just in a pinch, or if I want to start up a new set of cultures. It's too expensive to ship the cultures most of the time, so I buy the medium seperately (it's dry goods and can go normal ground shipping) and then get my starter culture from the pet store. BTW, Petsmart sells D. hydei, so my hydei cultures orginally came from there.


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## Ryan (Feb 18, 2004)

i got mel from them in a green container, i once got heidei wich were great. But the mel is wet sucked.


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

The problem with crickets is that (provided they don't die) they quickly grow to a size where the frogs can't eat them. I've seen plenty of posts here and on frognet about crickets that escaped being eaten and grew to maturity in the tank. If you don't feed them out fast enough or the frogs don't eat them all (and you don't have something bigger that eats crickets), it can be a real problem because you've wasted your money, and huge crickets can stress the frogs out.


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## Ed Martin (Mar 25, 2004)

Here is a picture of a p.terribilis with a prolapse. Prolapses can be caused 
by a number of things and impaction of food and non-food items is one cause.

http://www.martin-spot.com/our_frogs/im ... olapse.jpg

This frog was diagnosed with having a calcium deficiency that caused the
prolapse. But there may have been other contributing factors, such as too
large of food items. 

Many of the larger breeders and hobbyists feed crickets with no ill effects
but crickets are expensive in the long run, especially when you only have a few "dart sized" frogs to feed. If you can pick them up 1,000 pinheads costs $10 - $12, but in 2 weeks those pinheads are getting big enough that the might be too big for your darts. So unless you have a decent number of frogs, or something else to eat the larger crickets you might end up getting stuck with crickets that are too large. I feed pinhead crickets to my dart frogs, the 3 - 5 week old crickets to my b. orientalis and leopard geckos and the adult crickets to my bearded dragons. But I raise a lot of FF's as a staple for the darts. You could use the big crickets as breeders, but it is at least twice as hard and 10x more noisy than raising fruit flies. It is so much cheaper to raise flies, I suggest that you give it a try again. The recipes and techniques mentioned on this site will allow you to raise the flies for pennies in old mayo jars, water bottles, etc. There are some good recipies and techniques posted in this thread and on this site

Ed


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

*hydei at petsmart?*

Really? Hydei at Petsmart? Does it actually say? If I can avoid paying shipping (since I'm good at homemade cultures) I definitely want a hydei culture around.


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

Around here at least, Petsmart gets their FFs from Timberline Fisheries Co. They come in plastic vials with foam stoppers and are packaged on an open card that shows small reptiles and amphibians (including a PDF or mantella of some kind). The vials have a sticker on them that plainly said Drosophilia hydei sturdivant (flightless). It is very obvious that the flies are hydei, being several times bigger than melanogaster and having the longer generation time. Timberline offers both D. melanogaster and D. hydei vials on their web site, but AFAIK Petsmart only stocks hydei. You can get them off Timberline's web site for $7.50 per vial ($6 if you buy 2 or more) plus shipping, but since you can buy them for $5 at Petsmart, it's cheaper to just buy them at the store. 

The vials are apparently not a big seller in most areas, so the vials may have hung on the rack for quite some time. They have bright blue medium (due to the mold inhibitor Timberline uses), so look for ones that have medium that is slightly moist with no mold. Don't worry if you see a lot of dead adult flies in the vial if the medium still looks good, they will have laid eggs in the medium. Here's Timberline's web page on FFs:

http://www.timberlinefisheries.com/fruit_fly.html


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

*timberline*

I would like to comment, Timberline is a great place to order live food. I used to order bulk food for my African clawed frogs (which I froze), and they have great pricing...all except for the flies. Compared to what you pay for from specialty fruit fly places like Ed's Fly meat. I haven't ordered from Timberline in a while. Food ordering is still quite expensive.


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