# Possible alternatives for raising obligate egg-feeders



## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

UPDATE: 11/2/2004
To date I have morphed 8 blue jeans froglets, all on the eggs of other dart frogs. I also morphed my second "surrogate" froglet, a blue jeans raised by almirnate. I have lost 1 I believe due to mites, 1 spindly and 1 that is still alive but looks like it may have something wrong with it. In this same time period the parents have raised 2, one of which was spindly. The first "artificial" froglet (8/17/2004) from the picture below is still growing and looking very good.

UPDATE: 8/17/2004
My first three attempts at raising BJ tads on eggs of other dendros resulted in dead tads after around 12-15 days. This is the fourth attempt and what I did different this time is that I used mainly infertile eggs instead of harvesting fertile clutches as I had been doing. It is possible that this is just a coincidence but I'm raising a few more so we'll see what the success rate is. The infertile eggs came from a variety of other darts including Auratus, tinctorious, truncatus, reticulatus and even some pumilio. Some fertilized yolks were fed but the majority were "bad" eggs. Looks good so far, we'll see how he fares in the long run.

This is an ongoing article I'm working on regarding possible alternatives to raising obligate egg-feeders. The first experiments are using bastimentos pumilio to raise blue jeans pumilio tadpoles. The initial results are contained in the following link.

http://www.robbster.com/RobbHome/FrogPa ... ab=Pumilio


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Very interesting, keep us updated.



rmelancon said:


> This is an ongoing article I'm working on regarding possible alternatives to raising obligate egg-feeders. The first experiments are using bastimentos pumilio to raise blue jeans pumilio tadpoles. The initial results are contained in the following link.
> 
> http://www.robbster.com/RobbHome/FrogPa ... ab=Pumilio


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## Derek Benson (Feb 19, 2004)

Similar to what the Brown-Headed Cow Bird does in the wild.


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

delete


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

Rob,

I know you posted this a while ago, but what frog is in the picture?

Melis



rmelancon said:


> This is an ongoing article I'm working on regarding possible alternatives to raising obligate egg-feeders. The first experiments are using bastimentos pumilio to raise blue jeans pumilio tadpoles. The initial results are contained in the following link.
> 
> http://www.robbster.com/RobbHome/FrogPa ... ab=Pumilio
> 
> ...


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

This is basically an update on my original post. The frog in the picture is a blue jeans pumilio that just morphed out that was raised entirely on the eggs of other darts.


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

Ok, I was a little confused. At first look, it looks like an adult carrying a tad...but I think that is actually it's tail (left side).

The metalic legs are really interesting, I don't remember that feature on any of the blue jeans we morphed out (raised by the parents). Do you have any pictures to compare the coloring of the legs?



rmelancon said:


> This is basically an update on my original post. The frog in the picture is a blue jeans pumilio that just morphed out that was raised entirely on the eggs of other darts.


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

There are pix of the adults and of a juvi raised by the adults at:
http://www.robbster.com/RobbHome/Frogpage/TabTop.asp?Tab=Photos&Secondary=Pumilio

The "metallicness" may just be from the flash and just from being so close or "macro". And yes that is the last of the tail that hasn't been absorbed yet.


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## Guest (Aug 17, 2004)

Hey Rob,

How many times have you tried replacing or adding a BJ tad to a morphing Basti tad? I only saw the 1 time when it morphed out with SLS. 
Keep us updated.


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

Unfortunately my bastis haven't been producing good clutches lately so I haven't been able to try any more. A friend of mine Brian Corey recently tried replacing a morphing Bri Bri with a different tad (don't remember what morph) and the adults didn't raise it. Once I get them going again I'll be able to try some more things. I have put a couple of bj tads in with the bad basti clutches thinking they may transport it but they didn't. Once I get some good clutches I'm going to pursue this route some more. There are still a lot of different things to try.


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

*your cup trees*

Your cup trees are a hoot! I noticed they are nested - how do you attach them to your 'tree'.


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

They are just siliconed on. The inside cup is so that I can remove it, clean it out etc. The cups have worked really well for me and certainly facilitate the kinds of things I'm working on with these guys.


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## Homer (Feb 15, 2004)

Robb,

I don't know how I missed this post the first time around, but I appreciate you posting it. I think it's a great read and shows a lot of good ideas being implemented with a lot of hard work. I will be interested in seeing how your experiment continues to progress. Thanks again!


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

Thanks, hopefully now with all the pumilio coming in there will be more people trying different things and we can all benefit and find ways to keep some of the harder morphs from disappearing again.


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## bradadams (Jun 3, 2004)

Robb,

How do you go about collecting infertile eggs as opposed to fertile eggs?


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

I make the males wear protection.

Seriously though, I just pick out the eggs that are duds. It's pretty easy to tell the good ones from the bad ones. Some clutches I get one or two, others I don't get any. I've never gotten fertile clutches from my galacs so they are a pretty consistent supply. If you happen to catch a female laying eggs you could get them before the male fertilizes but that would take a lot of time waiting around. It helps (obviously) if you have lots of pairs of frogs.


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

New updates added to original post on 11/2/2004


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## mindcrash (Mar 3, 2004)

This is awesome Rob, really interesting stuff.


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