# General Topics > Food, Feeders, Live, Frozen, Culturing, etc >  How much should I feed my American toad?

## Dunian

Everyone is telling me something different.
Hes not an adult but hes not a baby either.

I've been hearing four crickets every two days, and two every two days, and every amount in between.
Would two crickets a day be alright?

He always eats so fast and I feel like I'm not feeding him enough.

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## bobrez

The cricket sould be the size of the space between his eyes or smaller. If there smaller than increase the amout of crickets.
But 2 a day or 4 every other sound right if there the right size. Hope that makes sense.

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## Poly

I fed mine .5" grasshoppers and .5" cut up worms (they looooved them) when they were small, and now that they are growing fast, I feed them worms and grasshoppers and don't really stick to the "food sould be the size of the space between it's eyes" rule anymore, as feeding an almost 2" toad, multiple tiny grasshoppers and worms will take a very long time, and not fill it, but two 4" worms later, and he's full.

I feed my toad every day, when their adults is when you feed them every other day, also, do you dust it's food with calcium dust?

Try it, just see how much he will eat, they vary in appite, one day, my toad took down 7 grasshoppers, and come the next day, took down 2, a few weeks after that, he was taking down 4 a day, today, he decided to take down 1. Also, you may find that crickets are a good food staple, but not nearly as good as worms, that and once your toad figures out how to eat worms, and get's a taste for them, it won't like crickets as much. Plus 2 worms fills up a toad like 4 crickets would.

Hope this helps!

~Royce

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## Greg M

Good comments from Royce. Honestly, its hard to over-feed toads *as long as you are feeding insects*. If you are feeding mice, then you have to be more cautious. Every day, as much food (insects) as they can eat in 15 minutes, works well for growing (juvenile) toads. Their appetites will peak during high-growth phases and slow down when they are mature. I find every 2-3 days, as much as they will eat in 15 minutes works well for adults. If they (the adults) are not hungry on any given day, that's fine. In the winter, my adult toads slow down considerably (even though the house is 70 - 72 degrees), bury themselves and eat very infrequently, if at all. Toads have a remarkable ability to slow their metabolism down. They perk back up in the spring...

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## Dunian

I plan to start calcium dusting them soon.
I just haven't had the chance to acquire any dust yet. XD

Okay. Thank you all.

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## Deku

A toad can consume alot of insects in the wild. Avoid mice as told above. Mice I would personally only feed to some animals that CAN eat them and only as a treat or to get them fattened up a bit(Say if they lost a bit of weight because you may have forgotten a feeding or two). 

What I would do is if the toad is 1inch, feed 3pin head crickets every other day. If its 2inches. Feed 5pinheads every 2days(dust every other feeding for both sizes), at 3inches and above you can feed 12large crickets every feeding which for me is every 2 or 3 days. Sometimes I even feed like 30crickets per toad a week. You could also get them onto worms later down the line so to alternate from earthworms and crickets. Inspite of what a lot may say. I find earthworms to be meatier, and healthier. You don't have to gutload earthworms as you do with crickets.

Try a varied diet. That's pretty much all I can say, because feeding depends on MANY MANY things for examples:
1)Type of item you are going to feed. Crickets are less meatier than an earthworm. So one earthworm(nightcrawler--large ones)= 5-6large crickets. Or one dubia roach(large adult)=3-4adult large crickets. That's just my opinion.  

Toads like to gorge themselves and in reality there's no much in overfeeding if you're actually feeding them crikets, worms and stuff like that. When they stop feeding it means they're extremely full*but that's my opinion*. 

I personally think you can feed up to 3-4doz. crickets(large) to an adult toad(female)a WEEK. It's not a need. But it's like you could and it won't really damage them. Just divi. up the numbers so not all in the same day. You know?
Gutload them with veggies and such and then dust one feeding when they're fully grown.

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