Frogs?

[Deleted]

Thanks to Marie's posts, I'm curious if anyone feeds frogs/amphibians to their ferrets. It seems to make up a good portion of the polecats natural diet.

Where do you get your frogs? Does the ferret eat the whole frog?

[Deleted]

I feed frogs, mostly seasonly in the summer. The type of frog is common frog (Rana temporari) and I get most of mine from a friend who is a private hobby breeder of amphibians. One should never take live frogs from the wild.

I also collect road-killed frogs from a nearby road where they are unfortunately killed in rather large numbers. I only collect them fresh and pick the ones that are not too damaged. I always freeze the wild dead frogs for a lengthy period of time to minimize the risk of parasites.

[Deleted]

Looks yummy ;D

I wonder if there is a commercial provider of frogs...

What about raising frogs? I'll have to look into how hard that would be..

[Heather]

I"m not sure my guys would go for it....maybe Lady"B" after all, she likes worms I don't have a problem with frogs...I'm just not sure about feeding them It would be easy to go down to the lake and get them or even buy them from bait shops (that's even easier). I just never thought about feeding them....hmmmm. I'm really liking that nutritional posting of Marie's more and more. I'm thinking it might need to be stickied
ciao

[Deleted]

Ah, bait shop! That's a great idea! I'll have to check some local ones. I agree it should be stickied.

[Deleted]

I don't think I've ever seen live or dead frogs in a bait shop around here... must be one of those local things, drat.

I've read that breeding frogs/toads can be tricky depending on the species (even if you convince them to breed, they usually require specific habitats for their different life stages), and of course you'd want a species that's natural to a ferret's diet, which could also be difficult to find depending on your location. It's easy to find fire-belly toads at the pet store, but they probably aren't good food candidates!

We live on a pond as well as near a lake, and as soon as spring gets here there's no shortage of frogs. The "spring peepers" make enough of a racket to keep you awake at night. I assume the local weasels make meals out of them...

[trippyferret]

One of the stores I get my "weird" meats from, like rabbit and pork kidneys, carries frog legs. They're a bit pricey, but they might be worth trying out and see if the kids like em.

[Deleted]

i got some frog legs for my kids awhile ago. i'm not quite sure how they liked them.

[Sherry]

I have to admit- I'm really quite surprised at how much of their diet amphibians make. Depending on the time of year, of course.

[selantra]

Brings back high school biology days, though I think these guys go to a greater cause. However, wouldn't the ferts be a little cautious about the texture and temperature. The thought of serving room temperature roadkill or frozen frogs raises an eyebrow...

However, I do know that there are certain companies that ship tadpoles with instructions for growing them. There are quite a few terrariums in the kid toy aisles. You order the tadpoles and you grow them through the stages. Fairly simple, my little sis did it once. And then you can reorder. I am not sure how cost effective it would be however...

I do know certain school providers also do a wholesale deal, but I wouldn't know who to contact

[katt]

I have thought about feeding frogs before but there's not exactly a good supply around here and they are not so cheap at the pet store.

[katt]

Jackie - they also eat small lizards in the wild.

[Deleted]

I am afraid of lizards

[Deleted]

Apr 16, 2011 16:47:43 GMT -5 @kerit said:

I don't think I've ever seen live or dead frogs in a bait shop around here... must be one of those local things, drat.

They're not readily available in Sweden either, not even frog legs which I believe is not allowed to be imported raw and there's no frog leg production in Sweden. I'm lucky to have my roadkill and crazy amphibian friend Because frogs are indeed tricky to breed and raise and it takes a rather long time depending on the type of frog. One thing that I like a lot about the captive frogs that i get is that they are raised in a very natural manner (large fenced in ponds) as opposed to frog farming.[/quote]

Apr 16, 2011 19:42:13 GMT -5 @selantra said:

However, wouldn't the ferts be a little cautious about the texture and temperature. The thought of serving room temperature roadkill or frozen frogs raises an eyebrow...

Hmm, I'm not sure what you mean? Texture is no problem at all and any frozen frogs are thawed before served to the ferrets. Just like you would do with any frozen prey.

A word of caution Frogs spoil very quickly so the ferrets shouldn't get more than what they can eat in one sitting. Loose stools are completely normal after such a meal. Wild polecats also have loose stools after frog dinners, which one can see occasionally by ponds and river banks out in nature where polecats live.