Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How many crickets should I be feeding my 3 inch pacman a day?Two days ago he had a pinkie and then the day after he ate like 11 3/4 inch crickets.I am going to get him some worms and rosy reds to feed him soon also.How many do you feed yours?

thanks

I gave up feeding crickets and other things completely, and now give my HF a staple diet of nightcrawler worms. She gets three or four in a sitting, once a week. Once in a great while I'll give her a rat pinkie, if my breeder rats (bred for snake food) are being overproductive, but that is only a few times a year. I do not feed mice/rats as a regular food item because they are too fatty and had contributed to the early demise of one of my earlier pacman frogs (he developed the lipid buildup in his eyes as a result of being fed too many mice.) Then again, my frog's sparse feeding schedule is a result of her being buried most of the time. She comes out roughly once or twice a month for a nightcrawler meal and then re-buries.
If your frog is a female, chances are she's still growing. I would continue to feed a few crix every few days, but lay off the mice and avoid fish because they are high in parasites and ammonia, among other reasons. Follow my regimen and you should evd up with a baseball-sized mosnter like I have!
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2.1 Ball pythons: Goblin, Ashes, and Bela
1.0 Boa Constrictor Imperator: Apache Fog
0.1 albino Cranwell's horned frog: Bene
1.0 Tiger salamander: Slasher
1.1 breeding Clawed frogs: Mr and Mrs Piggy
1.0 black kittycat, Inky
A bunch of Oscar cichlids, one giant pleco, huge breeding lot of "fancy" (read: deformed) goldfish, and me an' the boyfriend.

I am curious as to the following statement
snip " I would continue to feed a few crix every few days, but lay off the mice and avoid fish because they are high in parasites and ammonia, among other reasons."

Why are the feeder fish high in ammonia? And what are the other reasons? In other species of anurans, fish have been shown to be a complete diet.

Additionally as I have said in other posts rodents are on a kcal basis equivalent to crickets and insect only diets can and do cause corneal lipidosis. Rodents are only a problem if fed too often. There are some indications that if the majority of the diet is earthworms that this can cause a problem with muscles (seen in bullfrogs fed only earthworms) and earthworms have to be supplemented with calcium.

Here is one picture of a frog never fed rodents that has corneal lipidosis.

Ed

My larger frogs get fuzzies or rat pups every once in a while.
But get fed a varied diet.
Fish,which by the way, the only ones high in ammonia are dead ones.
High ammonia spikes kill fish. Kills most living creatures.
I feed night crawlers, and now silkworms.
The gorge on those, but being more nutrionally complete, they can make an obese frog or nay animal.
I hardly feed crickets.
I feed superworms, and I just ordered butterworms.
And very soon I will be trying those Goliathworms.
I do dust my food items with Nekton MSA, and Nekton R.
I'll keep you all posted on how this butterworm thing works out.
By the way...I've never lost a Pacman, gave a few away.
And never had any health problems associated with high lipid content.

snip "The gorge on those, but being more nutrionally complete, they can make an obese frog or nay animal."

I am not sure that this is a correct statement. Can you elaborate on how an more nutrionally complete item can make an animal obese when compared to a less nutritionally complete item? (Think glass of coke compared to glass of juice or milk).

Ed

For a dead fish to be high in ammonia it would have to be dead for awhile and not refrigerated or frozen.

Ed

If you feed 10 crickets, and 10 silkworms...the silkworms having a higher nutritional value, which one would make an animal obese faster?
Which one would have more nutrients absorbed?

Okay, you are confusing nutritional value with calories.
Which will make you fatter when consumed on an equal weight basis? A apple or its equal weight in sugar. Both are an equivalent weight but the amount of calories are not the same. The amount of weight put on by consuming the sugar will far exceed that of a apple. The nutritional value of the sugar is basically zero but will cause obesity more quickly.
Comparing two items by numbers is not an appropriate comparision when discussing nutritional content and calories. Which has more calories, 10 M&Ms or 10 one pound Hersey Dark chocolate bars? You need to compare them on a equivalent weight basis.

On an equivalent weight basis silkmoth larva (as dried matter) have a lower caloric content than crickets and the same is true as fed ( 4.8 kcal/gm vs 4.2 kcal/gm and 1.9 kcal/gm vs 1.0 kcal/gm respectively). So if the animal consumed the same weight of crickets versus silkmoth larva the greatest weight gain should be seen with crickets. The protein of silk moth larva is slightly higher 54 (%kcal) versus 50 (%kcal) but is close enough to be comparable.

Ed

So basically, everything I've been reading about silkworms being far superior to crickets is nothing more than a sales pitch? Such as dont feed as many silkworms, because they are nutritionally complete and will make your herps fat. They are equivalent to 3-5 crickets. Ok...a bit oversimplified.
but these are some of the claims.
Ed...where do you get your nutritional info from? I find it interesting.( I have a BS in natural science ).I'd like to read up more on this.
If I'm reading what you are saying correctly...silkworms are only marginally better than crickets nutritionally?

Well I wouldn't say that it is totally inaccurate as the density of the caterpillars may be greater than the density of the cricket. This means that even if the silkworm is about the same length it may weigh more than a cricket of the same size, which means that it will be calorically more dense based on the kcal/gram numbers in the previous post. I would have to measure length and weigh the two species to see which is more dense and thus more calorically rich.
The only real difference between the two is that the silkmoths have a better calcium to phosphorus ratio in the articles I have. Becareful of the nutritional content posted on the web as it often is based on a simple bomb calorimeter run and will include indigestiable material as part of the analysis.
The reference I cited in the previous post is as follows

Donoghue, Susan, Langenberg, Julie, 1996, Nutrition In Reptile Medicine and Surgery edited by Mader, D.R. W.B. Saunders Comapany, Philadelphia.

Other articles you may be interested in reading

Bernard, Joni B., Allen, Mary E., Ullerey, Duane E., 1997, Feeding Captive Insectivorous Animals: Nutritional Aspects of Insects as Food, AZA Nutritional Advisory Group Handbook, AZA

Hunt, Amy S., Ward, Ann M., Ferguson, Gary, 2001, Effects of a high calcium diet on gut loading in varying ages of crickets (Acheta domestica) and Mealworms (Tenebrio molitor), Proceedings of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) Nutrition Advisory Group, Fort Worth

Additionally there is some really good information in Amphibian Medicine and Captive Husbandry by Krieger Press.

Ed

But the calcium levels in the silkworms are still really bad.

Ed

You obviously know a whole lot about these things, so I'm just wondering what kind of degree you have?
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CokeOfMan

Just short of a degree in biochemistry.... (I got too sick to continue and finish my senior year and too far behind in the bills to afford it. One of these days I'll finish).