Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I purchased a large pacman frog a few weeks ago, and wondered if i can substitute crickets for other forms of food whilst keeping the frog in healthy condition. Also, can they be handled?

Yes you can feed them things other than crikets and keep them healthy. For example you can give them worms, meal worms, silk and wax worms, grass hoppers, those giant catapillars, pinkies not very often.They can be handled but many people say they shouldn't. They said that if you do you should wear gloves so our toxins do not harm them when I handle mine just to check on him I don't wear gloves. Also you can feedthe frog many things I have feed mine other frogs and lizards and pinkies and almost anything the he could eat.

Also, fish are supposed to be great for them. I brought my little guys up with fish, because they won't take crickets. According to Ed, fish provide a complete diet. Everyone says "fish except goldfish" Personally I haven't found any evidence against goldfish in particular, but why risk it?

What kind of fish are good for my pacman? I got comet fish, which look like gold fish. are these bad for it?

Well comet fish are actually comet goldfish, so they ARE goldfish. Like I said, I'm not sure that goldfish are so horrible, but everyone in here swears against them. My healtiest pacman was bought about 2.5" in diameter from the counter of a fish store. They kept him in a goldfish bowl w/ no heat full of small gravel covered completely by water, and the guy said he had only fed him goldfish from when he was only an inch big. From all sources this is a TERRIBLE way to keep a pacman, but like I said he's my biggest strongest guy right now (who knows about the long term though) Obviously now I keep him in a 5 gal with two heaters, ecoearth and a water bowl; and I feed him large minnows, goldfish, goliath worms, and mice supplemented with calcium D3. People will tell you the only healthy fish are livebearers, rosy red minnows, and other expensive fish, but economically goldfish have worked for people I know (plus many frogs won't take anything smaller). I'll get yelled at for this, but I'd say if you're not going for a record long life, he'll be happy enough getting goldfish every so often, with some supplemented insects as a buffer.

Yes, that is a pretty bad way to keep a pacman:
1.If the frog swallod gravel, the risks for impaction are fairly big.
2. The frog maybe didn't get enough heat.

About goldfish, I'm not sure but I think that EdK said that they were high in saturated fats or something like that. That was the reason they were bad.
-----
CokeOfMan

Yes they are high in saturated fats. Rosey reds (aka fathead minnows), live bearers, cold water and marine fish are all low in saturated fats.

Ed

Unless you have been working with pesticides, herbicides or another item that is retained on your skin and is toxic, we don't have any toxins that can hurt the frogs via handling. The damage we can do is by abrading the protective mucous layer off the the frog. If you have to handle the frog make sure your hands are clean and wet your hands before touching the frog.

Ed

Minnows are smaller than goldfish but still a decent size, and cheap. Variety is the key if concerned about over or under supplementation (ie high saturated fats in goldfish). If no particular prey item is used as the bulk of the diet everything evens out. The same goes with mice. Not the main-stay of my frog's diet, I do feed them regularly. While young mice are lower in calcium this is balanced by the dusted crickets. The higher fat content is again, balanced by the low fat level of crickets.

If you want to get crazy you can simulate what I've done with my surinam toad. An aquatic species, they eat almost entirely fish. What I've done (more for an educational/visual value) is kept a small school of fish that are native to the northern amazon basin (many species of tetras and the like) in the enclosure. Although an educated guess (wild research is very very minimal with these guys), this would be the natural diet of these frogs, thus nutritionally balanced. I'd assume more research is available for horned frogs thus the native simulation would be made easier.

When you look at rodents and crickets on a usable energy basis, crickets and rodents are comparable fat wise.

A commercial cricket is 44% fat/kcal while a adult mouse is 47% fat and a pink (1.5 grams) is 40% fat. Domestic crickets (Gryllus spp) are as high as 54% fat/kcal.

So when comparing on a caloric basis it is technically incorrect to state that crickets are lower than rodents as a source of fat. In addition crickets are a potential major source of the fats that cause corneal lipidosis in many anurans.

Ed