# Frogs & Toads > Fire Belly Toads (Bombina) >  what do you feed your FBT?

## Kip

So I'm honestly trying to completely get rid of crickets. They die rather quickly and leave such a mess in my tank that I just want to filter them out. Even when I buy 6 at a time because each of my toads eat 3 crickets per feeding, I still find that one or 2 die before my toads get to them.

I thought mealworms would be the next best thing but the second that they hit the water they die or sink.

So is there any type of bug that these guys can eat that won't drown to death?

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## Faith

I was going to ask this also, as I bought 60 last Monday and after 3 normal feedings, I'm out today (they die so easily although I'm keeping them in a cool area, fed, cleaned out daily, etc.) Everyone told me crickets were best, I can't invest in raising them at the moment so I was wondering this too.

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## adinco

I've heard that roaches are the best but you have to cultivate them because they're hard to find for sale. roaches don't die unless eaten haha

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## krminnic85

I keep my crickets in a cricket container ( plastic container with a lid with holes ) with egg carton pieces. Keeps the crickets from smothering each other. I also feed the crickets Fluker's orange cube complete cricket diet. ( bought at petsmart ) I buy 50 crickets a time, a few died but not like before were they were all dying. I only have one toad right now. ( one died )

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## Panagiotis Mat

I 'm trying to  find and buy crickets and mealworms but in tinos they don'y sell food for frogs and reptiles because there aren't many keepers. So what do you advise me to do? can i feed them something else tha i can buy or i should keep chasing flies?

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## krminnic85

You can get live feeders on Fluker's website. I've never bought live crickets online. I believe they come UPS or FedEx. give it a shot and let us know!

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## KingCam

Roaches are the way to go, but as mentioned they must be cultured at home unless you know someone locally that will sell them to you in small quantities for a decent price.  The good news is:  they are EASY to culture, they don't stink like crickets, they are lower in fat/higher in protein, they won't bite your pets, and they don't make noise like crickets.  The bad news:  they are super creepy and are what nightmares are made of.

Roaches will still drown if they have nothing to hang onto, but they're not nearly as stupid as crickets.  It seems like crickets actually *want* to drown sometimes.  Unless they drown from having nothing to hold onto they will live through just about anything, unlike stupid crickets which are constantly dying for no apparent reason.

Mealworms are a terrible choice.  They have tons of shell, very little meat, and very little nutrients.  Mealworms = impaction/constipation waiting to happen

Here's a photo of one of my roach colonies:

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## Faith

Roaches, amazingly enough, do not freak me out. I would not mind raising them if they are easier to rear than crix (I tried to raise crix and yes, they are STUPID. lol. I failed miserably.) Cam, what all do you suggest to set up a roach colony and where did you buy your starter ones at? If you've already posted all that on here, please direct me to where. I'll gladly give it a whirl, anything to get rid of the crix smell. (I have a setup of crix just as Karri described, 60 at a time, feed them flukers and keep them in a bug keeper.) But they die entirely too often.

Oh, looking at your pic, are all of them that big? I ask because I remember the rule about FBT only being able to eat bugs about the size between their eyes. *knows nothing about roaches except those big suckers that sometimes make it in the house*

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## KingCam

> Roaches, amazingly enough, do not freak me out.


Then you have no excuse for not already having a culture!!  haha




> I would not mind raising them if they are easier to rear than crix (I tried to raise crix and yes, they are STUPID. lol. I failed miserably.) Cam, what all do you suggest to set up a roach colony and where did you buy your starter ones at? If you've already posted all that on here, please direct me to where.


 Well, thanks to you I just spent an hour typing up a lobster roach care sheet XD  You can find it here: http://www.frogforum.net/food-feeder...r-roaches.html

As far as where to get some, aaronpauling.com is a good one to order from.  If you want lobster roaches I could possibly send you a starter culture, free of charge (except for packing and shipping costs, of course, which you would need to paypal me).




> I'll gladly give it a whirl, anything to get rid of the crix smell. (I have a setup of crix just as Karri described, 60 at a time, feed them flukers and keep them in a bug keeper.) But they die entirely too often.


 The only reason I ever looked into breeding roaches was because of how freaking disgusting crickets smell.  You will love me when you realize I opened your eyes to a world where nasty cricket tubs don't exist.




> Oh, looking at your pic, are all of them that big? I ask because I remember the rule about FBT only being able to eat bugs about the size between their eyes. *knows nothing about roaches except those big suckers that sometimes make it in the house*


  The adults get up to 1.25 inches, but you could just keep the adults for reproductive purposes and just feed the smaller nymphs to your frogs.  Or you could culture Red Runners instead (_Blatta lateralis_).  They are smaller & BONUS they are non-climbing.

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## Faith

*bows* You are amazing Cam, thank you SO much! Gonna share all of that with the hubby a bit later, see what he thinks. He hates roaches but anything to get rid of the crix smell, lol.

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## KingCam

> *bows* You are amazing Cam, thank you SO much! Gonna share all of that with the hubby a bit later, see what he thinks. He hates roaches but anything to get rid of the crix smell, lol.


You're too kind *blushes*  :Embarrassment: 

haha, I hope you can talk him into it!  Seriously, you won't know how you made it so long with crickets after you switch to roaches :P

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## Faith

lol, well since *I'm* the feeder I doubt he'll mind. Read your care sheet, that's perfect. They are a lot less needy than crickets too! I like that.

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## KingCam

> lol, well since *I'm* the feeder I doubt he'll mind. Read your care sheet, that's perfect. They are a lot less needy than crickets too! I like that.


 :Smile:   So much less needy.  When I first started breeding roaches a few years ago I had this spare tub with a bit of peat moss in the bottom that I had been keeping some lobster roaches in.  Top edge vaselined to keep them in of course.  In the process of moving my animal room from upstairs to the basement the spare roach tub got forgotten in a closet.  They went 4 months without food OR water.  They were almost all still alive O_O

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## Faith

omg that's insane! lol. Reminds me of reading some roaches can live without heads and they've been around since the time of the dinosaurs, hah. That's good though, hardy little suckers.

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## adinco

i hate roaches with a passion and you have me almost convinced to cultivate them lol

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## KingCam

> i hate roaches with a passion and you have me almost convinced to cultivate them lol


hahaha, sorry!  I hate them too, or at least I did, but now I think I actually like them.  Otherwise there's no way to explain why I am currently keeping 6 different species of roach in my house O_O

EDIT: Make that 8 species :P

1) Lobster Roaches | _Nauphoeta cinera
_2) Guyana Orange Spotted Roaches | _Blaptica dubia_
3) Red Runners | _Blatta lateralis_
4) Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches | _Gromphadorhina portentosa_
5) Surinam Roaches | _Pycnoscelus surinamensis_
6) (No Common Name) | _Pycnoscelus femapterus_
7) Pallid Roaches | _Phoetalia pallida_
8) Death Head Hybrids | _Blaberus sp._

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## Faith

Death Head Hybrids - those sound awesome!  :Big Grin:  /random

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## KingCam

> Death Head Hybrids - those sound awesome!  /random


They are!  None of mine are adults yet (the culture is brand new), but from what I understand they get huge, and have an awesome pattern on their heads & wings.

Here is a photo I found on google images of an adult Blaberus (Death Head) Hybrid:

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## Heather

I have to agree, Faith. Roaches are super easy to care for. They do not stink, do not bite, and after your colony gets going they're free  :Smile: . 

You can feed them just about any fruit or veggie (except tomatoes), fish food, cereal, cat food...they're like little garbage disposals, ha ha! And they rarely leave scraps to clean up. They're great!

I was pretty freaked out by them when I first got them and would only pick them up with tongs or a baggie. Now I just pick them up  :Smile: .

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## Pluke

Dude, why do you have some many different species? o_O

I thought you only had like 3 or 4 different kinds.. 8 species, are you sure you're not a roach collector?  :Stick Out Tongue:

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## KingCam

> Dude, why do you have some many different species? o_O
> 
> I thought you only had like 3 or 4 different kinds.. 8 species, are you sure you're not a roach collector?


There's something wrong with me, that's the only explanation I can give as to why I have 8 species of roach. XD

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## Heather

Lol! Nah...we all like frogs. You just happen to like bugs too  :Big Grin: .

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## Faith

> They are!  None of mine are adults yet (the culture is brand new), but from what I understand they get huge, and have an awesome pattern on their heads & wings.
> 
> Here is a photo I found on google images of an adult Blaberus (Death Head) Hybrid:


Those look so cool! I would have a blast tormenting my husband with them. I mean...raising them.  :Big Grin:  (Yes, a recurring pattern for me is harassing him :P)

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## Faith

> I have to agree, Faith. Roaches are super easy to care for. They do not stink, do not bite, and after your colony gets going they're free . 
> 
> You can feed them just about any fruit or veggie (except tomatoes), fish food, cereal, cat food...they're like little garbage disposals, ha ha! And they rarely leave scraps to clean up. They're great!
> 
> I was pretty freaked out by them when I first got them and would only pick them up with tongs or a baggie. Now I just pick them up .


I like that free part, lol. Talked it over with Mike, he's game for it. Gonna wait til the next paycheck to get everything needed and see about ordering some! 

I wanted to ask (as I saw no tomatoes for frogs either) - what is it that causes problems with feeding them that? The acidity or something else? (I wanna know purely for info purposes.)

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## Heather

We'll have to ask KingCam what actually would happen. I just steer away from them. I'm sure he'll have the answer.

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## KingCam

I was actually unaware of the no tomato thing. I've given then to my roaches before. The tomatoes weren't really favored by the roaches, so I don't give it to them anymore. 

Faith, if you want lobster roaches I can help you out. If you want dubia you'll have to order them from someone else, I don't have enough to give them away.



Sent from my Epic 4G using Tapatalk 2  :Smile:

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## badkelpie

If you're going to get roaches for fire bellied toads, the lobsters are the best choice, followed by lateralis (turkistans, red racers).  I have never had luck getting frogs to eat Dubias.  Lobsters are instant favorites, though.

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## adinco

cam, how much would it cost to ship some lobster ones from you to georgia? I'm thinking we want some. i'm so sick of half my crickets dying on me before they cna be used.

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## KingCam

> cam, how much would it cost to ship some lobster ones from you to georgia? I'm thinking we want some. i'm so sick of half my crickets dying on me before they cna be used.


Well I'd imagine 2-day shipping would be acceptable.  I dunno, I'll just  have to check UPS for rates.  PM your zipcode and stuff.

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## adinco

I have to tell everyone, my frogs are so much healthier since I switched to roaches! I've only been feeding them roaches for like 2 weeks and there's a huge difference already. amazing! go get roaches people! I loathe roaches and they already don't freak me out nearly as much as they did, though I refuse to touch them.

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## KingCam

> I have to tell everyone, my frogs are so much healthier since I switched to roaches! I've only been feeding them roaches for like 2 weeks and there's a huge difference already. amazing! go get roaches people! I loathe roaches and they already don't freak me out nearly as much as they did, though I refuse to touch them.


This makes me smile  :Smile:

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## Heather

Haha! Took me a while to get used to them too. You'll be able to pick them up in no time, lol! 

They sure beat stinky crickets. Though, I still use both for my frogs.

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## crossfrog

flies

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## ToadTee

I usually feed my lil toads crickets with the occassional worm meal for treat.  After reading this thread I tried out roaches, as the exotic pet store up close to where I work has them.  I had never seen roaches that looked like this and apparently after doing a little googling I found out they are dubia roaches.  Anyway my wee ones pounced on them and munched them no problem.  

I may have to look into cultivating them as well.  
This was very educational.

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