snip "not, crickets should be the majority of the diet for a horned frog. I feed mine crickets, and mealwroms on occasion. Even more rarely I feed them earthworms, and even more rarely I feed them pinky mice."endsnip



Even though over 95% natural diet by volume of wild horned frogs consists of vertebrates including rodents, reptiles, birds and other frogs?



Typically the majority of the nematode load carried by earthworms are either harmless freeliving soil nematodes (ingested when the worm at the soil) or are specific parasites for earthworms and do not infect other animals. We routinely use earthworms all the time at work as a food source not only for amphibians but a number of mammals without issue. We screen at a minimum twice a year for parasites and heve parasite loads turn up in animals that are fed only crickets as often as they do when fed worms.

If the technician who is conducting the fecal check is unfamilar with the fact that the nematode eggs from the earthworm will pass through the frog (or other consuming animal) they will report a false positive for parasites.



Ed

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