i have a gray tree frog, and he doesnt seem to be eating anything, does anyone know any ways i could get him to eat? or maybe tell me how to tell if its a male or female? also what do bullfrogs eat?i am having a hard time with these frogs.
how old is the frog, where did you get it, how long have you had it, and how long has it not been eating? how do you know it's not eating? are you actually counting the crickets you put in and they are always all still there? as for bullfrogs, i think they'll eat pretty much anything (fish, large insects, even small mammals and birds - though rare). please don't tell me you took a bullfrog from the wild and are keeping it as a pet . . .
Please use more descriptive terms when you post new threads. It will help you get better replies. People rarely read threads with titles such as "HELP!", "REPLY QUICK!!", etc. and usually just skip over them to another thread which may interest them. Topic changed.
okay i will. i have had the treefrog for about 4 days, and havent been feeding crickets just insects, he or she seems to be about an inch and a half long. i caught him outside on our porch. i havent been counting because there isnt any way to tell who is eating them they share an inclosure, and the bullfrog im not sure if its a bull frog or a green frog, but it came to me it was in my tadpool. will he eat tadpoles? or horseflies that arent big? i gave him a smal crawdad to eat the book said he would eat it but im not sure yet. the bullfrog or green frog isnt big not even full grown yet i dont think ill have to check... hes probably 2 and a half inches long, i think 3 inches is full grown size though they do get bigger than that. would minnows be a good food? i really appreciat your help im worried.......this is my first time with frogs and all know is what i read i havent had expierience with them. i am going to breed crickets i think, once i get to the petstore. i will find out if its a bull frog or green frog if i can i have a book but will have to look in more thaqn one. i ask alot of questions cause i dont want to make big mistakes, when i first got my turtles it was a big learning process and now i do well with them, i just want experienced peoples opinions.
if you caught these animals in the wild, no wonder they aren't eating. please consider putting them back where you found them. wild animals can carry disease and can be impossible to properly care for in captivity. don't you think these animals deserve a whole pond and/or a whole forest to live in like they are used to instead of the tank you have them in?
Long reply I've never had any problems getting grays to eat, in fact, I have problems getting them to not lunge at the food I'm giving to another gray! For feeding Grays, use a pair of hemostats (or tweezers if you have no hemostats), grab a cricket by its back (I've found if you grab a cricket by the leg the leg may fall of, then you will have a cricket running around and you will have to get it back), and wiggle it in front of the Gray. If it's hungry, it should lunge at the cricket, and when it gets its mouth on the cricket let go of it. The same should work with other bugs. Some grays like having their food delivered right too them, and will like the food right in front of or next to their face. Grays only need about 1 apropriatly sized cricket every other day. A good size is equivilent to the width of their head. Be sure you are dusting the crickets ever couple of feedings too. A male gray will have a darkish grey neck that looks loose if it is the breeding season, females won't ever have that coloration under their neck. To tell if the other frog is a green frog or a bull frog, a green frog will have a ridge running from about the top point of his eardrum to the back leg on the same side. A Bull frog will no ridges on its back. Now... About housing them both in the same enclosure... Bad idea. If the gray is the right size, and decides to go sit on the ground for awhile for whatever reason, it falls, it saw something moving that looked like potential food, the bull/gray frog may eat it. They will eat other frogs. I've seen them do it. They aren't picky about meals. They seem to use movement as a signal to eat. Make a suitable enclosure to house both their needs will be hard. Grays need a tall encloser, I would say at least 3 Feet tall. Green/bulls need a longer encloser, bulls needing at least a 50 gallon aquarium. They Also would require a half and half set up. I haven't kept greens or bulls, but from many I've heard that they should be left until you have more experiance. Releasing it would probably be best for it. Setting up a nice enclosure for grays isn't difficult or expensive. For 20 dollars, you can go to walmart, pick up a plastic tub that is long and has a secure lid and you can see into, and some fake plant/viney things. You will be turning the plastic tub up in its side so that it has as much height as possible, so keep that in mind when drilling holes and getting branches. Drill series of holes on the sides for ventilation. If you don't have a drill, you could try yout hand at melting the holes in it. Wash them well with soap and water, and rinse them even better. Any soap residue can be fatal to the frog. Since you are newer at this, don't risk using bleach as a cleanser. Then, go outside and get a couple of branches. Two or three should work nicely, depending on the width. I like leaving some twigs sticking out from them, but take off all the leaves. Next, if you want to sterilize them, put them in your oven at 180 degrees F for 30-40 minutes. Carefull with doing this, make sure you have permission if it isn't your oven. Don't go far away while doing this either, just incase it catches on fire, but it shouldn't. I wouldn't worry to much about sterilizing them if they are coming from the same area as the gray is coming from. With the vines that you bought, figure out a way to wrap them around the branches. Sometimes you can get the vines to stay on the branches by twisting them around the branch in a spiral, sometimes running them up and down the branch will work. If needed, drill holes in the branch or hot glue them to the branch. An easy substrate is paper towels. Use ones without anything printed on them. If you have access to spaghnum moss or any similar material, that also works very well. Since most plastic tubs are fairly shakey when put up to be as tall as possible, you will need a few pieces of styrafoam or small blocks of wood, or anything similar. You will have to perfet this part youself, but as a guide line, what your using should be about an inch tall; two pieces in the back underneath, and one in front by the cover. To set up the rest of the enclosure, but down the substrate, put in the sticks (if you have trouble keeping them in place use a little clay or playdoh, but only use it on the bottom of the stick so you can cover it up with the subtrate.), and put in a dish with water in it. DO NOT USE TAP WATER. Tap=Baaaaaaaad. Buy a gallon of spring water at the grocery store. It's cheap. If you have any leftover vines, you can attatch them to the enclosure by drilling another hole in the enclosure, and taking a leaf of of a part of it, and sticking the "stem" the leaf was on into the hole. If the hole is too big it won't stay. After that, all you have to do is put on the cover! Make sure it is on very securely, if not, the gray will excape. They are very good at that. Do a light misting of the enclosure in the morning, like a morning dew type thing. For temperatures, room temperatures should be fine (around 75F) If it gets over 85, put them into your basement or something untill it gets a little cooler. Try to keep it similar to whats outside in the shade. I'll try to get a picture of my enclosure I use up later today for you to use as a reference. Any questions, feel free to ask. I hope I didn't confuse you too much. If you doubt you will be able to do this, or refuse to, release the gray and do not torture it with a small enclosure. If you cannot get the gray to eat soon release it. Sometimes they just don't thrive. I think I've touched on everything I wanted to touch on for now. ~Spoony
thank you so much!!!!i can do that i have already set it up branches and things like that. i think he may very well be eating i load their cage with bugs and by morning the only one s left are the ones that drown and stop moving:} the only reason i have them sharing an enclosure is because the frog {which is a green frog} isnt big enough to eat him, and my sister wanted him. i will soon let him go though. my treefrog seems to change colors hes light gray to white and gray in the daytime and at night hes green to dark green, i read they do that is it true? i got to the petstore today got gutload,crickets a top for my other aquarium and a net for my tadpoles. i am going to ask more questions though you seem well educated, i am raising tadpoles and recently 2 of them have turned into frog form, and they are tree frogs i think they make be gray treefrogs since i got them under the bush the treefrogs were in, is there any way to tell? thank you sooo much it is a big help.
Grays changing color is normal. I still suggest feeding it with a pair of tweezers, Grays just don't seem to know when they have eaten enough. I think it's more entertaining to feed them with tweezers too. If you are just going to throw in crickets, just throw in a small amount every few days. If the tadpoles are completely metamorphasized, they should have the line under their eye that is found on all grays. If they are still tadpoles, the following pictures are what they would look like. (these pictures are borrowed from http://dataserver.calacademy.org/herpetolo...ex.htm#hylidae) If you don't think they look like those tadpoles, you can go to http://dataserver.calacademy.org/herpetolo...998/2/index.htm and try to key it out. Good luck. Spoony
what line exactly i think i read something about that but dont remember exactly what i read, what does it look liuke color, vertical,horizontal? thanks again.
Here is a picture, showing right were the line is. The color of the line will vary. It can go anywhere from an offwhite, to a bright green. With nothing better to do this morning, I took a few pictures of my grays and made this little chartyishy type thing up. Some of the pictures are kind of blurry, but you can still get the idea of the different colors. This one has blue outlines where the lines are, to help you figure out where the lines are. Here is the same picture again, without the lines. Hope this helps.
thanks a bunch!! i think at least one of them is a gray. except the tads werent reddish i dont think.
well i let the green frog go in our spring and set up the aquarium with branches ect.. and SHE is eating now... she will not eat with my hand too close so i set them on thy branch shes on and she nails them. all three of the tads are grays too, i havent sexed them yet, at least one is a female. i am soon getting a bigger aquarium for them but i will look at the plastic tub thing, that would be great. thanks again spoony!
You won't be able to sex them until they are about 3 years old, and sexually mature. The black/gray color under their throat only comes around during breeding season. Males are also the only ones that call. Good luck
well its been a while but heres an update. i let that gray go it was a female. i have one trefrog from the tads i was talking about and have recently had a new bunch of tads delivered to me and they turned out to be grays too so now i have 2 50 or so gal. tub, and i got a 10 gal aquarium. a five and a half too, and all my small treefrogs are in the 10 gal. for now im gonna be making my own custom made aquarium 4 ft. long and about 2 ft. high for them. so im hoping that will suit them okay for a while. i have two fairly small toads in one of the 50 gal. sterilite tub with air holes melteed into it,works great and its so much more affordable,one of the toads name is sage and the other is willow. now i figured out about the sex thing because what i thought was a female is developing gray spotting like thwe males, on her throught so im not sure,im still callin her precious and sweetheart...lol. i also have 2 other frogs/or toads or both im not sure yet and they are no names and doing well. my smallest gray is called runt, she dont mind though lol. i also have avery small this year hatchling fence lizard that something took her tail off so im trying to watch and see if hell be okay. they are all eating well and look healthy and seem content so i think im doing something right. ill see if i can post pics tonight.
Instead of 4' long and 2' high, how about 2' wide and 4' high? Or 3'x3'? Instead of having an opening on top, you could have an opening on the front side. They would utalize the verticle space more than horizontal space.
