What Should You Feed Your Giant African Bullfrog?
Big African bullfrogs are popular pets mainly found in streams and ponds. To keep them healthy as your pet, you should feed them the right things. You can buy frog pellet food anytime, but you should know what to feed them after bringing them home.
Here are the foods that you can feed your giant African bullfrog:
Worms and Fish
The diet of a bullfrog mainly consists of worms and fishes as they eat so much throughout the day. You can also feed them cricket and other kinds of worms. They tend to eat small animals and amphibians, which are smaller than them.
Feed them worms or live fishes dipped in a flaxseed oil solution known as gut-loading. This process makes sure frogs get sufficient vitamins and nutrients in their diet and stay healthy. A giant African bullfrog’s diet should include vital fatty acids.
Calcium
To strengthen bones, African bullfrogs need calcium. Worms and beetles are excellent sources of calcium. Due to this, you should feed your bullfrogs multiple insects so they get the required amount of calcium from those sources.
Remember, African bullfrogs like live food. So, use a pet cricket care kit or build a cricket trap. If you keep them in a restricted environment like an aquarium, feed them one to three times every day. When they live inside large enclosures, you can feed them every day, depending on their activities.
Live Insects
Frogs tend to stop eating for some time and even forever if they feel sick and stressed. When your giant African bullfrog refuses to eat their dish, mist live insects with water before giving them in their enclosures so they can catch them easily.
Though frogs can eat a lot of insects in a sitting, you should monitor how much they are eating. Stop feeding them once their stomach looks bloated/distended. Over-consumption of insects causes gas accumulation that leads to constipation and buildup.
Live Crickets and Mealworms
In enclosures, you must have seen African bullfrogs eating live crickets and mealworms that are coated in Nutrachrika, a vitamin supplement. It is a simple addition to the water of the frogs’ food, which covers their bodies with artificial vitamins.
Preys
African bullfrogs are called “ambush hunters” as they wait silently until their prey gets close to them. During that time, numerous frogs emit secretions from their skin that can attract any tiny aquatic animals close to them. The secretions are made of a combination of smells that are emitted by the frog’s skin glands.
Your giant African bullfrog has no teeth but can use the rough exterior on its tongue to catch hold of and swallow its prey. So, you can keep their enclosure in an open area just outside your home to make it easy for your frog to catch prey.
Male and Smaller Counterparts
Your pet frog can be extremely cannibalistic, and thus, you need to look for any such signs in them. Female African bullfrogs can be highly aggressive towards their male counterparts. Both females and males can show cannibalism by eating the eyes and skin of their smaller counterparts. Sometimes, they can even eat the full frog.
They tend to show ruthless cannibalism when the food is very less. They can even eat their young species to ensure that at least one of the two living frogs is available when they starve. The male frogs can also try to consume tadpoles once they see them, but the females may not.
The Bottom Line
African bullfrogs are ruthless hunters who spend time sitting quietly on the bank of ponds or rivers and waiting for prey to swim by. They are nocturnal and are known to be one of the world’s giant frogs.
As they eat countless insects in the wild and tend to catch prey that is significantly larger than themselves, you should feed them a protein-rich diet when you keep them as pets. They may not be ideal guests for your pool party but can be excellent pets.
To keep them healthy, you can always feed them frog pellet food. But if you include live crickets in your pet’s tank and monitor them closely, they get every required thing to stay healthy and fit for years.
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