Reptile & Amphibian Forums

how often and how much should i give them this?? i read on an article that either too much or too little is no good for them. but can't find anywhere which says how often and how much...

hi,

you should feed them at least 3-4 times a week......dusting your feeders with the powder.
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The GodFather

3-4/week is probably too much. Assuming that you vary the diet and the feeders are fed quality food, you should only dust once a week. Check out the newest Reptiles mag for a nutrition article by our very own Ed Kowalski.
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...the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes (Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink', 1991)

if my horn frog has a little bit of bone disease now, i can prevent it from worsening right? and it will just be as healthy? it is only 1.5" now.

Okay frequency of dusting...
It depends on the frequency of feeding and the type of food being offered as well as the quantity of vitamin A, D3, phosphorus and calcium in the supplement as well as the food item (so it is not that easy a question).

Here is a general rule of thumb to follow. If feeding only once to twice a week, supplement each time you feed.
If you are feeding three times or more a week only supplement every other feeding. Now you have to remember that these are maximums and not the minimums.
The minimum has not been established (other than not at all is bad) in any amphibian that I am aware of.

As for stopping "MBD" if it is already present, it depends on the cause. If the vitamin A to D3 ratio is too high then the addition of a supplement that contains A as well as D3 will not help the frog. If there is too much phosphorus in the diet the addition of more D3 may cause calcification of the soft tissues.
It depends on what is causing it, also not a simple question or answer.

Ed

This is more complicated then I thought it will be. Anyway, what do you suggest that i feed my horned frog for its staple diet? Something which is good for my horned frog and I should feed it to my frog most of the time. Of course, I will try to vary its diet as much as I can. Really thanks alot for all help rendered.

Hi,
Greater than 90% of the diet of C. ornata and cranwelli in the wild consists of vertebrates (including birds) when total volume of prey is considered. These frogs are adapted to feed on vertebrates but are opportunistic predators and will take anything they can overpower and swallow.
I personally feed small horned frogs live (as this avoids thiaminase and other problems) fish (other than goldfish)(also fish parasites do not normally complete thier life cycle in amphibians (most complete it in birds) most of the amphibian parasites use invertebrates for this part of their life cycle) preferably a livebearer (such as mosquito fish) or a cool/cold water species or a marine species and the very rare pinkie. I tend to avoid large crickets as these have been shown to puncture the stomach lining of anurans with the ovipositors or leg spines (before the big denouncements occur I suggest looking at the picture in Amphibian Medicine and Captive Husbandry for documentation involving Bufo guttatus as well as confirmation via necropsy on my own experience). Earthworms are a good choice if they are kept in a calcium enriched substrate and are not fed as the sole diet as they have been implicated in white muscle disease in bullfrogs when fed as the sole diet.
With adults I will use rodents that have not been fed the commercial rodent chows (as this results in high levels of vitamin A) at infrequent intervals dusted with a supplememt.

Hope this gives you some ideas for feeding your frog.

Ed

thanks...

Although in the article they converted a table and placed some of the poor gutloading fruits and veggies in the article as things that are good for your crickets... At least they agreed to run a correction next month.

Ed

Np
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CokeOfMan

The exact definition of the term was not explained in the article (see Modzelewski, E.H.; Culley, D.D. Jr.; 1974, Growth responses of the bullfrog Rana catesbiana fed various live foods. Herpetologica 30(4): 396-405) but all of the muscle tissue in a frog is white muscle so I took it to mean that there were problems with the muscle tissue development and/or function. This article was written and peer reviewed before many of the metabolic disruptions in amphibians have been characterized so it probably will remain undefined until someone is willing to recreate it and decribe the syndrome in better detail (possibly naming it in the process). I'm not sure that will ever happen as it would be recreating a known problem which will require the frog to be euthanized just to describe the problem.

Ed