# Crickets for Dart frogs



## Guest (Apr 19, 2006)

It seems like a lot of people feed their Dart frogs fruit flies. Is it alright to feed them crickets ?


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

Depends on the species. Most darts will only take newly hatched crickets. Terribilis will take much larger crickets, upwards to 3/4" according to the stuff I've read.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

My terribilis love full grown crickets... 

I can not stand crickets though, just a pain to deal with. I keep a few around to feed my tree frogs, but if it was not for them I would just buy them from time to for a snack for the frogs.

On a side note some people swear by them and use them all the time, but like Mike said very young ones.


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## pa.walt (Feb 16, 2004)

i feed my frogs pinheads,7 days,10 days.
to me flys are a pain because they always climb up to the top of the tank and seems like you have to put alot flys to feed.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Crickets, before/while I developed a serious allergy to them, were what I fed out as my staple instead of FFs (but had to stop culturing them for obvious reasons). IMO, I think some frogs seem to prefer their habits, and might even do a little better froglet/health wise (again, IMO) than frogs on FF staples, but I also have always fed out a lot of variety compared to the average frogger, so that probibly helped to.

As mentioned before, size depends on the frog. Froglets, thumbnail adults, and even some of the larger dendrobates go pretty much only for freshly hatched pinheads. Larger Tinc group frogs will eat 1 week crix no problem (put azureus generally seem to prefer smaller pinheads), and epipedobates, allobates, and phyllobates can do well on staple sizes up around 2 weeks. Larger epipedobates (bassleri, silverstonei) and larger phyllobates (bicolor, terribilis, auros) will eat moster sizes from half to 2/3 grown (epis) to full grown (the phyllos *can* but its recomended they eat smaller - something more maxing out the size of the distance between their eyes, just cuz they CAN doesn't mean they SHOULD).

Thats one of the things I love about crickets, you can grow them to the size your frog prefers where FFs you have to "adjust" size by feeding them a different species!

FYI - usually you have to breed your own crickets to get pinheads of appropriate sizes. "Pinheads" shipped by many cricket retailers are either 1-2 weeks old (often too big for what you bought them for!) or don't ship well (pinheads need a steady environment the first couple weeks to do well). I do this by grabbing a couple dozen adult winged crickets from the pet store, keeping them for a couple days to a week to let them breed, then feed the adults to my dragon :twisted: 10-14 days later you've got pinheads!


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

I've tossed around the idea of culturing crickets in my tanks. My idea was to take an empty butter continer (Contry Crock size), poke a few holes in the roof, flip it upside down and add some adults. Take them out a few days/ a week later and wait for nymphs. I always had problems with keeping them warm enough and moist enough to do their first shed. After that I was fine with them. I might add that to the endless list of things I want to test out.


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## pa.walt (Feb 16, 2004)

the way i did my pins was get a few adults let them lay in vermiculite. the container i used are the clear ones you buy frogs in. they have the holes in the side of the container. i also keep mine on my lights but not where the ballast is because it does get hot. it takes a bit longer because the lights go off. when they do hatch they just crawl out the side holes in the container. 
i guess you could even use it as a vacation feeder. get a opaque container and just leave in the tank to feed out.


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## Enlightened Rogue (Mar 21, 2006)

My Leucs. love pinheads. I usually alternate 2-3 weeks fruit flys then the crickets. John


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