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The Corroboree
Buttsack

Frogs Galore!

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I've got frogs everywhere in my greenhouse so I thought I'd take some pics to share with everyone. Such cute little buggers.

Some of them are looking a bit thin so I'm thinking since there is so many in my greenhouse there isn't enough food for them all. I was thinking of hanging a light from the roof, near an open window, to introduce more bugs for them to eat. I was reading Mercury Vapor lamps work well for attracting bugs. Would leaving this one for a few hours per night affect my plants?

Does anyone know of any other ways to introduce food for the frogs?

Has anyone ever farmed crickets?

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Edited by Buttsack
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nice army!

lovely little pest controllers

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i've never seen so many in the one area like that

you must have spot on breeding conditions.

maybe you could buy a tub of crickets from the pet shop to encourage them to hang around? or maybe live fishing bait from a fishing shop might be cheaper??

from what little i know, frogs are voracious eaters and have a very varied diet

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Cute indeed. They are Litotia fallax, dwarf tree frogs. If you have a large-ish open body of water in your greenhouse, say about 10 liters (minimum) they will readily breed in there.

As for food, even just a 15 watt light globe by an open window will attract bugs. You might get the odd moth laying eggs on uour plants though?!. Farming crickets are a hassle and as adults are too big for the little frogs. You could hang a bit of rotting meat inside the greenhouse near an open window which will attract flies and the frogs will greedily accept them. But it might pong a bit on a hot day.

Those frogs have a neat call too.

I think your pretty lucky. I wish I had them in my greenhouse.

:)/>

Edited by Amazonian
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That's good to know that they're Litotia Fallax and even better to know they are dwarf tree frogs. I thought they were just babies and would get bigger then leave. I've got even more reason now to feed them and try to get them to stay. Although I don't think they need much convincing since they are everywhere in the greenhouse.

I don't have any water laying in my greenhouse. The greenhouse gets misted for a minute every 3 or 4 hours though so I think the frogs would like that.

Should I put an open body of water in there to give the frogs somewhere to drink?

I think I might try the rotten meat so they can have a good feed of flies. I just hope my dogs don't tear the door down to get to it.

Hey Amazonian, how do you know so much about frogs?

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They will get moisture from the misting but would still benefit from a dish of water to go to at anytime.

I have spent a bit of time around frogs. I was really into them a while back. I joined a frog group and everything. I still love frogs, but don't have a frog fetish any more :wink:

:)

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Aww no frog fetish:( Lol

I wish I had frogs in my greenhouse... Your a very lucky guy

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Haha I think I'm about to start my fetish.

I might have to put the dish of water somewhere high so the mice don't have an extra reason to stick around. They're a pain in the ass when they throw the soil out of the pots when they dig. I don't mind them though since they help aerate the soil with their burrows. If I get too many I use a live catcher to catch them and then I set them free in the bush.

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Far out, you're lucky! What gorgeous little dudes. I bet you'll be spending a lot more time in your greenhouse from now on.

Last year my partner found tons of little brown frogs hopping around his cacti pots, they were so gorgeous.

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Great photos Buttsack, they look very happy in your greenhouse. Hanging up meat is a great way to attract flies, I use an ox heart from the butcher & find this has some good advantages, for one it stays hanging on wire for weeks & doesn't rot like meat, it kind of drys out & goes hard, another advantage is that while the frogs are catching most the flies some of the flies crawl inside the cavities & lay eggs/maggots, after a week you will have maggots dropping out & finding places to pupate into more flies for you frogs. If the smell gets to much you can hang it right away from your house for the first week & then bring it into your greenhouse, by this time the smell is a lot less & the heart will still be full of maggots ready to fall out & pupate.

Another good use for this method is for the freshwater fisher people out there or people with pet lizards/fish etc... when I use maggots for bait or pet food, I hang the heart over a bucket filled with very fine breakfast bran, the maggots drop into the bran & eat it so cleaning out the rotting meat, I just strain the bran & end up with hand full of "clean" maggots. You can put the maggots into a Chinese container with fresh bran & place it in your fridge, here the maggots go into a state of torpor & last for weeks. Before you feed your pets its best to let the container get to room temp.

Edited by Jox
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^ Good advice Jox. I actually prefer to keep the meat in a bucket as it holds its moisture better and the maggots thrive, but when it rains, or in Buttsacks case, when he/she mists the greenhouse, the bucket will fill with water drowning some maggots, and forcing other maggots up and out of the bucket. If they are close to pupation stage, that's fine but if not, then they die with no food.

The bran is a great way to purge the maggots. They can then pupate, and be sifted so you end up with pupae only which can be put in containers and stored until the flies begin to emerge. As far as i know, when breeding flies this way, the emerging flies may need dusting with vitamin/mineral/calcium supplement (just what i have been taught is all?!). I also use to add the vitamin powders to the bran in the hope the maggot may pupate and trap some of the goodies inside the pupae shell.

Most of the flies that meat attracts are blowflies which are too big for dwarf tree frogs, but you do get a bit of a mix. You need to watch out for wasps too as they love to carve up a bit of raw meat.

The best flies for small frogs are house flies. The maggots can be raised on powdered skim milk, bran and water mixed to a porridge consistancy, and will pupate in there and can be later soaked in water to separate the bran from the pupae. The bran will sink, and the pupae will float. You skim off the pupae and and drain. You can then put them into a dry bucket with a pair of pantyhose (every fellow has some pantyhose..right.?!) over the top. You cut holes about half way up the leg of the pantyhose and you can collect flies through these holes with a jar containing supplements. The flies all hang out at the top of the stocking and its easy to scrape the jar around the inner surface and get a baby food jar full of flies with out too many escaping. The flies need to be misted a few times a day, and a sugar cube is added for food (don't lace the sugar cube :wink: ) .

Might be a bit much to bother with, but if you take a full on interest in them Buttsack, and they breed, your going to need lots of food. Can you imagine the size of the metamorphs of dwarf tree frogs,lol, . I will give the next lesson on breeding fruit fly when they breed. :P

How long have the frogs been in there for?. You must have heaps more around the neighborhood.

:)

Edited by Amazonian
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I should also say...don't tell your neighbours you are breeding/encouraging flies, because believe me, you will get blamed for ever fly that turns up around the house, BBQ, yard, street, etc..

:)

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cute guys! ...but maybe you should not feed them too much, because they also eat potential plant pests like fungus gnats, but spurn them when they are full with houseflies ;-)

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Awesome thread!! I have a small creek running just behind my unit on a reserve that has 1000s of frogs this time of year. Lately I've been hearing them getting closer to my unit and after seeing this I may just put down a half wine barrel and start enticing them in! My vege patch is only 10meters from the creek through a mesh fence so shouldn't be that hard!?

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once, i observed a mass migration of small green frogs, across a thank god, not very frequented road.

i guess 8h later or so, the small creek they came from, was flooded badly...

the frogs knew, rain was comming!

btw, it's very important not to move any frogs from a to b as this could, spread disease.

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Iv'e heard if you must handle the (green tree) frogs, wash your hands in rainwater first if you can, as i beleive they have different PH levels on their skin to that of the average PH of a human set of hands! An expert can surely set the record straight here!

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^

I'm no expert but i have also heard not to touch frogs with dry hands as it burns their skin.

I have never come across such ethusiasm for fly-breeding lol.

I remember at a scummy old flat we 'bred' an infestation fruit flies in our kitchen, by not taking out the compost for a couple weeks.

Every surface was black with fruit flies.

I tripped out one day watching fruit fly behaviour, i got really excited and thought i could interperet their actions to gain insight to the way groups of humans interact lol.

It seemed like there were bossy males who protected a little piece of territory from other males by charging at them and performing an agressive wing-flap dance, then stealing their woman and taking her back to the hareem of lady-flies.

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I think its the salts/acidity in human hands that can irritate a frogs skin. Frogs will often wee on your hand as a defense mechanism, but i think it can neutralize the surface that they are on too. The wee comes out as a squirt , so if your not careful, you might cop it in the face.

You can get vestigial winged fruit fly which are great food for tiny froglets. The fruit-fly are fun to watch, well, any creature can be interesting to watch, except slugs and snails...they are better observed with time lapse photography.

What plants are in your green house Buttsack?

:)

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Handling frogs can remove their mucus coating, as well as transfer any contaminants that may be present on your skin. The mucus serves to keep the animal hydrated, as well as acting to inhibit micro-prganisms. I've handled thousands of frogs for my work, and I always used disposable gloves and kept the animals in freezer bags rather than holding them directly, partly to minimise any risk of harm to the frogs, and partly as a control against the spread of chytrid.

If you do ever need to handle a frog directly, use wet (preferably washed thoroughly with fresh water) hands and be be sure to wash your hands again directly after to avoid chytrid dispersal. Also, some frog mucus can sting like heck if you transfer it to your eyes - as I experienced on a number of occasions. Never move frogs or tadpoles from their home range.

If you do get a frog that pees on you and it's a fairly dry day, be sure to put the animal somewhere moist, cool, and dark. Some species use the water in that ejected fluid for hydration, so squirting it to scare a predator is a risky strategy in dry times.

Nightlights are by far the best way to provide a bit of extra food for frogs. Most species are very noctural in their feeding habits, so daytime feeding is uncommon.

Some people like to attempt to make frogs 'perform' in various ways. I won't say how, because I don't want to give those types ideas, but if you ever see anyone doing this tell 'em to back off. It's an extreme stress for the poor little buggers, and can easily result in death - I've seen it happen too many times.

Bogfrog, the ones that are hanging around your cacti might be Litoria ewingii, an import from Tassie. They've been calling recently - it's a sound that I never tire of hearing.

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