# General Topics > Food, Feeders, Live, Frozen, Culturing, etc >  Can Japanese beetles be used to feed tree frogs?

## derobins

Hi everyone,

I have green and golden tree frogs and oriental fire bellied toads.  They have been doing well on food from the local pet store but I've recently discovered that our white birch tree out front is infested with Japanese beetles.  Is it ok to supplement the frogs' diet with these insects?  I'm honestly not that worried about parasites or pestcides but I'd hate to find out that they are toxic in some fundamental way.  I've read on many gardening forums that frogs and toads will eat them, but none of those sources seem very authoritative.

Thanks,

Dana

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## Kurt

Well, being beetles they are high in chitin, a material similar to keratin (what your finger names and hair are made of). As such they can cause gastrointestinal impaction if too many are consumed at a time and the can be fatal. As far as toxicity is concerned, I don't really have a clue about this species.

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## derobins

Thanks for your advice.

We toss in the occasional insect that gets into our house (small moths, flies, etc.) and they seem to eat those happily.  We'll hold off on the Japanese beetles, though.  They are fairly large in relation to the frog and toad species we keep so maybe their elytra would be hard to digest.

It's really too bad - there's a LOT of free food for the taking just outside  :Frown: 

Dana

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## Deku

Hmm try small baby earth worms or red wrigglers earth worms. They are high in protein and low on fat. So would be good for a treat. Hopefully you arent keeping the tree frogs with fire bellies right? Its really bad to mix species.

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## derobins

Actually, I am keeping them together.  I didn't realize it could be such a big problem to mix species like that when I set the terrarium up.  In the future I'll separate them but for now they are doing fine.  It's a large vertical terrarium that is full of live plants (pothos and ivy, mostly) and branches and the tree frogs stay up high while the toads stay low in the 1/2 water bottom part.

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## Johnny O. Farnen

The toxicity threat from these beetles is two fold. The first is frome theory diet as many of the plants they feed on contain toxic to amphibian substances. The second is from pesticide contamination.

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## googie

Hi Guys:

Sludemonkey took the words right out of mouth.  I would be concerned with feeding my animals with anything caught outside due to pesticides.  Japenese Beetles in particularly (at least in my area, upstate NY) are considered a very large pest problem, and numerous products (pesticides) are stocked on the shelf to try and get rid of these beetles.

Seems alot safer to go to the pet store or start your own culture of worms/crickets from a known stock.

Good luck

Chris

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## derobins

> Seems alot safer to go to the pet store or start your own culture of worms/crickets from a known stock.


I've thought about this but we have no place where we live to keep them.  Inside is out of the question and the garage has no temperature control.  Since we live in the middle of the US, we get very hot summers and very cold winters.  Maybe one of these days we'll move to a house with a basement, but until then we have to get live food from the pet store.

Dana

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