Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is my Horned Frog in September 2004.

This is my Horned Frog in February 2005. Pretty amazing isn't it. It is eating adult mice now.

Is it a male or female?I am guessing female but just to make sure...

Here is a semi recent picture of him or her (I haven't figured out it's sex yet) eating a mouse.

That is impressing. What are you feeding and how much? I bought mine in august and it is only 2 inches from nose to vent, it was about one inch when i bought it. He doesn't eat that well and is battling a roundworm infection, so he hasn't grown well. Is your's a female?
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~Crissy
3 Female African Clawed Frogs: Nemo, Casper, Pebbles
2 Male African Clawed Frogs: Amtrak, One-Eyed Jack
3 African Toads: Fiona, Shrek, Pickles
1 Pac Man Frog: Freddie
1 Ragdoll cat: Carman

It is probably a female, I say this for two reasons - It's getting pretty big, and I have never heard it croak. I don't know how long it takes for them to reach sexual maturity, but it's around 5 or 6 months old now. I fed it large crickets sometimes when it was young, but mostly just large mealworms (I dusted them every other feeding or so). Then when it was around 3 months old, I switched to super worms, switching it up with crickets every so often. For the past month or two it has been eating adult mice. I feed it a mouse every week and a half to two weeks or so to make sure it digests it all the way.

Horned Frogs are awesome.

Oh, I just remembered, it has probably eaten a dozen or so crappie minnows and goldfish in its life time.

How many meal worms/super worms are you feeding at a time? Mine seems to like the mealies more than crickets. I fed him a pinkie a few months ago and he seemed to like it. I have some baby rats right now so i may try feeding him more of those. I feed my toads about 10 every couple of days with a dozen crickets.

Thanks
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~Crissy
3 Female African Clawed Frogs: Nemo, Casper, Pebbles
2 Male African Clawed Frogs: Amtrak, One-Eyed Jack
3 African Toads: Fiona, Shrek, Pickles
1 Pac Man Frog: Freddie
1 Ragdoll cat: Carman

Usually I would feed her around six superworms, usually she would stop eating them by then. She doesn't eat food off of tongs, so I just put a plastic lid in the tank and drop the superworms on it.

I'll have to try to get him to eat more fish, worms, and mice. Maybe he will grow, the crickets haven't helped much. Mine won't eat near the tongs either. I put food in a small flat dish.

Thanx
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~Crissy
3 Female African Clawed Frogs: Nemo, Casper, Pebbles
2 Male African Clawed Frogs: Amtrak, One-Eyed Jack
3 African Toads: Fiona, Shrek, Pickles
1 Pac Man Frog: Freddie
1 Ragdoll cat: Carman

If you are feeding rodents that often make sure to add a D3 supplement to the rodent to offset the high vitamin A levels.

In frogs large enough to eat large rodents I tend to feed them every two to three weeks when offering rodents as rodents are more calorically dense so it is easier to overfeed them.

Ed

I usually dont feed mice more frequently than every two weeks. I will increase the duration though. It hasn't eaten in the past three weeks or so. I will get some D3 and supplement the mice. Thanks for the tips EdK, I always appreciate your advice, you really seem to know what you are doing.

Matt

Can you please post a link to your source of info for the D3 supplementation and it's link to Vitamin A? I've never heard of supplementing rodents when fed to reptiles. Is there a difference with amphibs?

See Amphibian Medicine and Captive Husbandry, 2001, Krieger Press for the recommendation to supplement with D3.
For the initial documentation of the vitamin A content of the commercial rodents see
Dierenfeld, Ellen S.; Alcorn, Heather L.; Jacobson, Krista L.; 2002, Nutrient Composition of Whole Vertebrate Prey (Excluding Fish) Fed in Zoos, NAG publications,

Dondoghue, Susan; Langenberg, Julie; 1996; Nutrition In Reptile Medicine and Surgery eds by D.R. Mader, W.B. Saunders Co, Philadelphia

There are a couple of other sources but the bibliographys contained in these will list them and allow you to track them down.

With respect to your question with reptiles, most lizards do get supplementation with the food items and snakes can manufacture D3 at need so there isn't any compition for uptake.

Does this help?

Ed

Sorry missed part of the response

Commercial rodents are really high in vitamin A (both because they need it dietarily and because they are efficient converters of betacarotene). Vitamin A, D3 and E all compete for uptake in the digestive tract, unless you are supplementing the frog with UVB then the frog will become deficient with respect to D3. This can result in secondary hyperparathyroidism one of the diseases commonly called "MBD". THis is why, when feeding a rodent heavy diet, it is better to supplement with D3.

Ed

You should only be feeding your PacMan frog mice every once in a great while, if at all. This frog looks like he's been eating them quite often (i.e. obese).