Grisly find in my yard - sort of neat, but mostly grisly

[Delphinus]

Yeah, I'm reading they can get pretty big! I had no idea. These guys are about 3.5", maybe 4" head to tail.

So far I'm feeding them crickets, and some kind of icky wormy things you can get at Petland. Apparently you have to be careful what you feed them, like, the crickets can't be more than 2 weeks old and superworms need to be decapitated because they can bite and chew their way out after being swallowed. So no superworms!! But trying some wax worms (moth caterpillars) since they're apparently high in fat and these guys could use some bulking up. Although one of them won't touch worms, already seems ot have developed a preference for crickets.

The one sucky thing is that every now and again I find an escapee cricket.

The one upside though is that I've always wanted to get into dart frogs, and just hadn't ever gotten around to it because I thought feeding baby crickets would be a hassle. Now that I'm doing it anyhow at the moment it wouldn't be much of an incremental step. Now to convince the wife. Yeah, yeah, it'll be a good educational exercise for our toddler! Yeah yeah!

[midgetwaiter]

The superworm story is bogus. That thing is very dead by the time they get it down.

Wax worms have an awful calcium / phosphorus ratio and crickets aren't very good either. You have to supplement them by dusting with a good calcium powder (preferably calcium carbonate) like RepCal. You have to consider calcium relative to phosphorus because excess phosphorus can impede calcification, a min 2:1 ratio is required. Same like your reef, maybe grind up a cricket and try your Hanna meter on it

Fatty things with better calcium supply are earthworms and hornworms. I've used both blow fly maggots and trout worms as well but I am not sure of the nutritional profile on those. The bait fridge at mowhawk is a great resource.

You should try darts, they're awesome but if you think 2 week crickets are small you are in for a surprise.

[Delphinus]

One guy I was talking to said he lost one because it ate a cricket that was too large. I asked how he knew it was the cricket that did him in, he said "because the thing crawled out after he died." So I'm not so sure that it's completely bogus, but I'm glad to hear it's probably not as big a risk as I thought it might be.

I've been reading the dart boards for years, so I sort of know the score on that one. I have no interest in trying to keep thumbnails, rather, no interest in trying to keep cultures of wingless fruit flies. That's just far too much for me.

What's the profile like on red wigglers? I could always start a compost bucket up to keep those, that's not too much work.

[Quinn]

Tony do you still have orchids? Those would look nice with darts.

(Oh man you're so screwed!)

[Delphinus]

Still do have some orchids although these days the collection is much smaller, restricted to those that can survive my level of devotion to them these day .. would like to setup a little terrarium. I have this great idea for masdevallias that involves modding a wine fridge ... One day, one day.

Here are some pictures I was able to get of the lizardy dudes...

[Der_Iron_Chef]

They're so cute

[Pescador]

The one upside though is that I've always wanted to get into dart frogs, and just hadn't ever gotten around to it because I thought feeding baby crickets would be a hassle.

Tony, I'm going to Costa Rica in two weeks, I'll fill my pockets for you.