Housing Crickets

Crickets are an extremely important food in your frog's diet. Many frogs do not get the nutrition they absolutely need from mealworms, since mealworms are almost all exoskeleton, and most frogs aren't interested in waxworms (I know mine sure wasn't!).

Crickets are inexpensive, easy to get, available, and your frog will love them. Frogs are meant to hunt for their food, and they are unable to do that with mealworms and waxworms if they're in a little dish.

In order to keep crickets, you will have to either make or purchase a Kriket Keeper (brand).This little box is a convenient way to house crickets without them going all over the house.

Keep food and moisture in your crickets' home to keep them alive and for extra nutrients for your frog. What the crickets eat, your frog will be eating (in a sense). Feed the crickets things rich in calcium. Also purchase cricket water gel or food from the pet store for an extra supplement boost. However, if you don't want to purchase anything else for the crickets besides a cricket keeper, there is a solution involving things everyone has at home.

You will need to "gutload" your crickets at least 24 hours before feeding them to your frog. In order to gut load crickets, you will need to keep foods high in calcium in their keeper including:

• Spinach. A very calcium rich vegetable that gives calcium, water and food. Great for the frog, too.
• Carrots. These also are very high in calcium.
• Potato chunks
• Oats
• Fresh fruits and other vegetables
• Dog food. I have never tried this, but I have heard that crickets will eat it. Dog food is full of rice, grains and meat that are good for your crickets.
• Apple slices
• Dark, green leafy vegetables
• Bran
• A damp sponge for moisture
• Fish flakes

Remember, what goes into the crickets goes into your frog. If your crickets are gut loaded with calcium and other rich minerals and vitamins, it can prevent many diseases in your frog including MBD (metabollic bone disease). Also, sprinkle the cricket's food with a reptile vitamin calcium supplement.

It is possible to overfeed your crickets. Do not feed your frog dead crickets. Try to keep as much vegetable and fruit in your crickets as possible without killing them off.

Another thing I have noticed as I have lived with crickets is that they seem to be really hungry when you bring them home from the petstore. It seems like they don't get the feast at the petstore that you can give them at home. Before putting your new crickets into the Kricket Keeper, make sure the keeper is clean and has plenty (if not small portions of all) of the food listed above in the keeper. The crickets will all scatter to the different foods, and when it comes time to feed them to your frog, they will have a variety of different nutrients in them.

You might hear that hear that crickets stink, but I have never experienced this, and have been keeping crickets as long as I've been keeping pets. The smaller the cricket, the less the odor, and the quieter the chirps! Also, crickets might escape their keeper once in a while. But once they're out, they're difficult to find (much less put back into the cage!). You have to be willing to live with this if you're going to house crickets.

How many crickets to feed my frog?
This answer changes with every frog. It really depends on how large your frog is, and how big his appetite. For new frogs, try 3 crickets on the first day. If there are no crickets in the habitat the next day, stick with 3 crickets unless your frog seems to be underweight. If there are still crickets jumping around like they own the habitat, wait until they disappear, then try 2 crickets the next feeding.

For small, immature frogs, feed them every day. For adult frogs that are larger and more mature, you should be feeding them 3-5 times a week. This also all depends on how large your frog is and how overweight/underweight he is looking. Frogs (with the White's Tree Frog as an exception) usually will stop eating when they're full and go hunting again when they're hungry. White's Tree Frogs will usually eat until they pop and it's very important not to overfeed them.

Frogs are Insectivores

Many frogs are insectivores, meaning they eat living insects. Many people will not own frogs because they are insectivores and they eat live insects. However, not all frogs eat live insects. There are a few that don't eat live insects, such as the African Clawed Frog and the African Dwarf Frog.

Tree frogs that need to eat live insects can eat mealworms, waxworms, crickets and red wigglers. If you would like to own a frog that doesn't need to eat live insects, you can purchase freeze-dried crickets, mealworms and brine shrimp at the petstore in the reptile/amphibian section.

When feeding your frog, you need to have lots of variety in the frog's diet. I own a Blue Bumpy (aka Dumpy) Frog that eats live insects, and I've heard that mealworms are almost nutritionless. Alternate between mealworms and crickets for a balanced diet.

If you are like me, you don't prefer to touch or have to handle live insects of any kind. So here is my suggestion to you. Either purchase a frog that doesn't have to eat live insects, or make this easy insect container that prevents you from touching/handling live insects.

Using a yogurt container (plastic cups work great too), punch holes with a thumbtack in the sides of the top. Make them small enough so that worms/crickets cannot get out/eat their way out, but so they can still breathe. Also punch holes in a strong, tight fitting lid that even a large cricket could not get through.

Cut a large hole in the side of the container near the top. You need to plug this with a cork or rubber stopper so the insects can't get out.

Finally, when you purchase your next batch of insects at the petstore, dump them into the container and store it somewhere warm and dry. When your frog is ready to eat, unplug the cork and sprinkle a few insects in the terrarium through the hole that you cut and plug the hole back up.

Housing Crickets

Crickets need to be kept in someplace like a garage. I have heard that crickets stink, but have never experienced it. I purchase small crickets and keep them in my basement. If your frog is small, purchase small crickets and feed him 2-3 a day. You will also need to purchase gut-loading food for the crickets, such as Fluker's Cricket Calcium Fortified.

If you add this insect food to the container before adding the crickets, it stuffs the crickets' guts full of calcium that is excellent nutrition for your frog. Make sure to add this to the crickets the day before feeding your frog so they have a chance to get "fattened up."

The image to the left is Fluker's Cricket Calcium Fortified Gel. It is not food, however it is water for the crickets. If you don't want to purchase cricket food, crickets will also eat potatoes, carrots and other vegetables. Put a chunk of vegetable in your cricket container.

It is possible to kill off your crickets by overfeeding and overwatering them.

Housing Mealworms
Mealworms are much easier to house than crickets; however, they don't provide your frog with half the nutrition. Mealworms can be stored in the refrigerator where they are put into an induced hibernation. The worms will begin to wake up once they start to warm when taken out of the fridge.

Mealworms, since they can't be gut-loaded like the crickets, need to be sprinkled with calcium dust. You can take a plastic spoon and put some mealworms in a plastic ziplock bag. Add a pinch of calcium and "Shake and Bake" the mealworms.

The calcium on the worms provides the frog with a little more nutrition than he would otherwise get, but I still suggest alternating between crickets and mealworms.

How many insects to feed?
This is probably one of the most common questions ever asked about frogs! What your frog eats and how much he eats depends on the frog alone (what kind of frog he is, what he likes/dislikes). Your best bet is going to be to experiment and see how much your frog will eat.

Start by feeding your frog 3 insects the first time. If he consumes all of these without a problem, you can add 4 insects the next time. If your frog still looks hungry or underfed, boost up the number of insects in his diet. I keep mealworms and crickets at the same time to accommodate what my frog wants to eat (i.e. if he won't eat mealworms, I switch to crickets).

You will know if you're feeding your frog too much if there are still insects crawling around the terrarium 2-3 days after you fed him. And sometimes the frog might have missed a few in his hunts. I feed my frog every two days and it seems to work well.

Feeding your Frog

What do frogs eat?
Some of the more common things frogs eat include: crickets, waxworms, mealworms and bloodworms. Frogs will not eat an insect larger than they are. If you cannot find any bug in the store small enough for your pet to eat, here are some suggestions:

1. Look in your backyard for aphids and other small insects. Do a small amount of research to make sure the insect you found isn't poisonous to your frog.
2. Either trap or purchase fruit flies to feed your frog.

Whatever you choose to feed your frog should be coated in calcium. Calcium adds even more nutrition to your frog's diet. You should be able to find calcium at a petstore that sells amphibians or reptiles.

How much should my frog eat?How much your frog eats really depends on how hungry he is. When you bring your frog home, he will not want to eat for 1-2 days. Start with one worm, and if the frog eats the worm without a struggle, feed him two worms the next day and so on. However, do not allow your frog to eat any longer than 5 minutes. DO NOT overfeed your frog.

Why won't my frog eat?Usually frogs only eat food if it is alive and moving, but some species eat dead insects. If you are positive your frog will not eat his food, he is probably indicating a side-effect of an illness (check my Frog Health and Diseases article for more information about frog illnesses). Leave the food in your frog's habitat and check on your frog later. If the food is still in the terrarium, check to make sure the tank is clean. Frogs usually won't eat in a dirty environment.