What Do Frogs Eat

Have you been given a frog or have you collected one from your garden? Now you realize that you don’t know how to feed or care for a pet of this species and although you like it a lot, you must learn what frogs eat so you don’t have any setbacks.

Frogs are carnivorous amphibians since they feed on other animals. If you want to take good care of your pet, the first thing is to learn what frogs eat. Their body is rather small, except for the adults who can become corpulent. They do not have a tail, which causes them to be classified as animals of the order of Anural(tailless).

How are the frogs:

In addition to looking plump and robust, frogs are characterized by large and prominent eyes. They are animals that live both in fresh water and on land, so it is important when caring for them to provide them with a dual natural habitat with water and dry soil according to the habitat they find in nature and a good diet.

What do you need:

• Specific preparations to feed frogs.
• Mosquitoes and flies.
• Cockroaches, beetles, crickets and spiders.
• Ants, wasps and bees.
• Small toads and tadpoles.
• Tiny fish and even eggs of other frogs.
• Vitamin-based supplement.
• Feed them 2 to 3 times a day.
• Give them Algae when they are tadpoles.
• Lettuce, spinach or potato skin.
• Fish food.
• Mosquito larvae, earthworm among others.

Instructions

1. Frogs will eat any flying or crawling insect and you should be on the lookout for some from time to time to supplement their diet and keep them in good health.
2. Feeding varies from one to the other, since some can eat two or three times a week and others feed two or three times a day, so you must also pay attention to the times they feed and at what time to give it to them.
3. You have to keep in mind that when they are babies you have to give them light meals that they can digest well and that their digestive system works normally, so you have to give them the necessary ration and not stuff them with food.
4. Be aware of giving them the necessary vitamin supplements when they are small and when they grow, since a deep knowledge about frogs will lead us to know the nutrients they need and ensure that they have the essential ones for their growth and long life.
5. In many specialized stores you can find special food for frogs such as mosquito larvae, worms, and fish, among others that you must place in the habitat that you have arranged for your frog and wait for it to feed.
6. The food of a frog in the aquarium should disappear quickly, if by chance you notice that there is still food in the terrarium, it means that you are exaggerating a lot in feeding it, so you should reduce the amount and even wait a couple of days for in case your frog is stuffed. You don’t want an obese frog!
7. Frogs have the peculiarity of not having teeth, so within their eating habits is not to chew any prey that they have hunted to ingest it, so the swallow completes the piece by drawing it towards itself through its long tongue.
8. The tongue of frogs is usually very fast, for which the insects that have been trapped by it have no chance to escape at any time, so in a matter of seconds it catches its prey and swallows it, taking several days to digest it. Therefore, you should not overfeed it.
9. Newborn frogs are tadpoles that move quickly through the water. Only when they are adults do they lose their tail and replace it with their legs, being able to spend time on land, jump and breathe through their lungs.
10. Frogs have smooth and slippery skin, their skeleton is quite thin and they have a curious defense system, and when they are in danger they expel urine that can be very poisonous and toxic for other animals as well as for humans.
11. There is a diversity of species of frogs and with different colors ranging from brown, gray or even green.
12. They adapt easily to water and land, so you should have an aquarium that has half of both environments.
13. There are poisonous species among frogs which you should know about and not have them at home, since they can kill you just by having contact with them. Some are very dangerous to humans. Be careful when buying an amphibian of these.
14. To reproduce, frogs emit specific sounds with which they call their partner. Pairing is easy and fast. After copulation they lay their eggs in the water.
15. Frogs are oviparous and their fertilization is external, occurring in two ways: when the male hooks the female by the armpits or by the groin called axillary, the first, and angular, the second.
16. Despite being unattractive and repulsive in appearance, it is one of the protectors of the environment since its way of feeding makes it capable of eliminating pests and bugs that are harmful to human crops.

Tips

• Take care that your frog eats well and has a clean and safe aquarium, in addition to feeding it safely and healthily when it begins its life cycle as a tadpole with plankton, algae and other marine plants.
• The first thing we have to do is prepare the terrarium. Try to make it glass because it is the best material to house these animals. There are two key aspects, one of them is environmental humidity and the other is fungi. Moisture must be avoided so that fungus and mold do not come out. If bacteria appear then your pet will get sick. To avoid humidity but for your frog to have good ventilation, your terrarium should have a mesh cover. But that the bars are narrow so that your animal cannot escape.
• The main food is insects; these tasty critters are the main ingredient in the diet of toads. You can give them, for example, crickets bought in pet stores or from your garden if you have them.
• If the toad is small in size, you will have to look for insects appropriate to its size, such as small crickets and aphids are appropriate. Inside its aquarium, the toad will begin to feed itself with what it can, progressively giving it a certain amount until you see how much it eats and how often. You will have to give it several times a week.
• Strengthen the health of your frog by giving it calcium and vitamins that you will find in the market, in the form of stones or powders that you can take out and cover its food with it.
• If your frog is a water frog, then its diet will be based on shrimp, leeches and other small animals such as worms or fish. Feed them between 1 and 2 times a day,  making sure that there are no remains floating and that they eat the food in 15 minutes. If there is food left over, it is because you overdid it, so reduce the amount.
• There is no general rule regarding the water surface and the dry surface that they need.  When in doubt, you should put half and half, but never just water since they can drown.
• It is very important that in the dry part they have a shelter of reduced dimensions so that, when they are inside, they almost touch some of its parts. It is as if they need a certain contact or a certain proximity to the walls of the shelter to feel comfortable.
• It is good that they detect what time of day or night they are. This can be achieved by having them in a place where they can perceive the hours of light and darkness of the day, or by lighting them with artificial light that, when in doubt, provides them with 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness.