Frog Obesity

[Mucky_Waters]

Because our pond is inside a courtyard there is little range land for our frogs to forage and hunt on, so we have taken to feeding our frogs manually. We sometimes feed them store bought crickets and meal worms, and sometimes worms from the garden, and this year we have an abundance of grasshoppers in the garden this year, so that has been heavily on the menu. Our smaller frogs are pretty timid, but the larger two frogs are not shy at all, they come right over to us and take the bugs right out of our hands and consequently are much easier to feed, and therein lies the problem.
I'm starting to wonder if we may be killing them with kindness.
I know that there are those that might say to just stop feeding them. It sounds simple enough, but we still have to feed the other smaller frogs that aren't quite as easy to feed, and quite a bit thinner btw, and it's hard to ignore the frogs directly in front of you begging for food while trying to feed the ones that hop away when they see you. Left standing with a grasshopper in your hand you tend to put it in the first open mouth you see.
Do frogs suffer the same sort of problems with obesity that humans do? Do they make exercise bikes for frogs?

 

[JohnHuff]

What's his BMI?

 

[Dave 54]

M'mmm an interesting problem Randy the answer to that would be to reduce the size of the meal your giving the two tubby frogs.
Or you could go on http://www.amazonbooks.com and buy a frogs and amphibian health book

Dave

 

[fishin4cars]

Dave, that was what I was going to post too. Randy, that fellow looks plain and simply put, OVER WEIGHT! LOL I would be worried that it is getting something that it can't breakdown such as excess exo-skeleton from the grasshoppers?? I mention that because I've heard of compaction in lizards from feeding one source food such as crickets. I seen lizards get swollen like that and they couldn't break the cricket down fast enough before the next feeding.
Randy, you may also look into reading up on other Captive raised frogs such as pacman, poison arrow, African clawed. I'm just thinking these are more commonly kept as pets and there may be more information of keeping them in captivity than the book Dave mentioned. Not that yours is a captive kept pet BUT it does have it's limitations of being able to free roam, in a way it still lives in a enclosed system and has to be provided additional food source. Just thinking these kind of books might have more information to work off of.

 

[Mmathis]

My [sort-of] area of expertise when it comes to reptiles & amphibians, is confined to box turtles. I do know that box turtles can suffer from various nutritional & metabolic problems, resulting from poor diets [but let's leave it at that.....]. And probably 99% of these are issues that affect captive turtles.

Obviously, in the wild, animals will forage and [hopefully] find a variety of foods that meet their nutritional needs. It's rare that they will ever over-eat. But when kept as pets, we tend to either over feed or we fail to offer them a good variety of foods, or a combo of both.

And there is the issue of internal parasites and illnesses -- in the wild, critters have a wider range of habitat that helps keep them parasite-free. Plus, they seem to know what to eat that will rid them of parasites, but in captivity, unless we intervene, they won't have access to those foods. (My boxies had to be treated for a couple kind of worms a few years back -- that was when they were smaller and I had them in a more confined habitat. As a result, I greatly expanded their habitat and haven't seen any more evidence of "worms." And it's not easy treating turtles for internal parasites, either......)

But on the other hand, they say that captive animals [herps] live longer than their wild counterparts -- which is probably due more to predation issues than dietary ones.......

That's one fat frog! Looks like it just ate another fat frog! Are you missing anyone?

 

[Mmathis]

P.S.-- Maybe they need environmental enrichments and more exercise!

Remember this video?

 

[Mucky_Waters]

What's his BMI?

That's a tough one to calculate. First of all; I don't have a weight scale sensitive enough to weigh him accurately, second; do I measure his squating height, or do I try and stretch him out and measure his length from the tip of his nose to the tip of his toes?

@ Larkin and Dave, I have no doubt we have been overfeeding the two larger frogs, I guess our problem is we just don't know any better way of showing our affection, and despite their over sized girth, they really appear to be hungry all the time. If you'd ever been there and had to look in their eyes when they come hopping over, and you are standing there with a grasshopper in your hand and nobody else around to give it to, I think you too would find it's very hard to turn your back on them.
Perhaps Dave has the best idea, smaller portions is the key. I think trying to get them to exercise more would be futile.

 

[Mucky_Waters]

P.S.-- Maybe they need environmental enrichments and more exercise!

Remember this video?

That's actually looks like a good way to get them to exercise, I actually was doing something like that at night with a shadow from the light, but I felt like I was teasing them.

Oh, and no other frogs missing. The smaller frogs are big enough that that can't happen, and I've watched this guy slowly get bigger and bigger or the months, so I'm pretty certain it's not one big meal that made him that way.

 

[tengbells]

P.S.-- Maybe they need environmental enrichments and more exercise!

Remember this video?

That scared the snot out of me when that frog did what he did at the end...yikes!

 

[Mucky_Waters]

That scared the snot out of me when that frog did what he did at the end...yikes!

LOL, yes they tend to get bite off more then they can chew sometimes.
Our frogs are the same way.

 

[Mmathis]

LOL! Silly frog! I was wearing sandals once when I was in the turtle habitat, and one of the turts bit my toe -- thought it was a nice, juicy worm, I guess. I think it startled the turtle more than it did me!

 

[JohnHuff]

And here's a picture of Randy's cat:

and his dog:

 

[Mucky_Waters]

We have turtles, fish, frogs and two teenage boys John, we can't afford a cat or a dog. Especially any that size.

 

[fishin4cars]

OMG! I just spit drink all over my work desk and everyone in the office now thinks Randy has the fattest dog, cat, and frog in the world. I had 7 people looking over my shoulder watching the frog eating and then I scrolled down and they saw the dog and cat. Needless to say it is officially clean the office day today before the boss comes back in the morning. I don't think anyone could synchronize that many people bursting out in laughter at one time in a cubicle as what just took place in my office. At least we are all calling it a good day when everyone can leave the office with a smile!

 

[JohnHuff]

@fishin4cars, I don't think you've visited this thread from last week:

https://www.gardenpondforum.com/threads/my-dream-part-time-job.15488/page-2

I think you're in for a treat.