Reptile & Amphibian Forums

At what size can I start feeding pinhead crickets? My froglets are about 3/4 of an inch. Also at what size can they eat rice flour beetles? THANKS Shawn

and I think that the frogs don't have to be very large to eat a larvae. Those little worm things are tiny! I don't know about the pinhead crix. I only feed fruit flies, although I have fed rice flour beetle larvae before and have one culture for backup.
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phflame

Newly hatched crickets under 6 days old are about the size of a fruit fly, so work fine for small froglets. I usually order about 1500 at one time, use them first for the tiny frogs, then as they grow larger, feed the larger frogs, then last of all, the Geckos. You can just keep them in a critter keeper with some sand, pieces of egg carton and feed them cereals, bread and some fresh fruit and vegetables. (Pieces of apple, potato, orange slices will serve as a water source as well.)

I tried the rice flour beetle larvae, but it was such a bother separating them from the flour to feed, I gave this up. Does anyone have an easy way of separating them out?
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
5 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
6 D. leucomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus
4 P. terribilis
4 D. reticulatus
4 D. castaneoticus
2 D. azureus
4 P vittatus

some people will put a strip of cloth into the container after you sift out the flour, supposedly the adults will crawl out into another flour filled container, leaving only the larvae. Or you can use a small wire strainer to try to only get the larvae to strain through.

A more complicated way is to set up another flour container, strain out everything (except the microscopic eggs), leave that for 2-4 weeks, then strain that container. If you do it right, you are left with only larvae, as they haven't had enough time to mature. The trick is in the timing, so write the date on your containers. Then you repeat it again using the original container, that has both adults and larvae, straining the eggs into a new flour filled container. You want to keep the cycle going.
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phflame

That's good information, but how do you separate the larvae from the flour before feeding them to the frogs?
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
5 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
6 D. leucomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus
4 P. terribilis
4 D. reticulatus
4 D. castaneoticus
2 D. azureus
4 P vittatus

sift the flour again to separate the larvae from the frogs. You will want to get one of those little metal strainers, with the very smallest holes that you can find. It is time consuming, but can be a frog saver if you run out of the other food items.

One thing I didn't mention is that you might want to put the sifted larvae in some kind of bottle lid, so they don't disappear into your frog tank.

Plus: MAKE SURE THAT NO BEETLES GET OUT INTO YOUR REGULAR KITCHEN FLOUR (or other flour type foods)!
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phflame

What is a good temp. to culture the beetles at? And do they need light cycles? THANKS Shawn

which vary, from about 70-90 (maybe). And they don't need a special light cycle. They are pretty hardy, you have to remember that a lot of the world thinks they are a pest! "Ugh, what is that in the flour" type of thing. And pests seem to always survive.
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phflame