Best Foods for Tree Frogs: A Complete Guide to Their Diet

Food is something that controls every living being’s health, energy and survival rate. Your tree frog always depends on you for their food supply.

So, if you want your tree frog to be healthy, correct feeding is fundamental and without training yourself with proper guidelines, you won’t be able to provide the proper nourishment.

Here is a brief sheet of guidelines on tree frog’s diet and feeding from Acuario Pets. We ensure you proper research-based information so that you don’t have to roam around through numerous web pages.

Before going to the main menu, let’s know an interesting fact about tree frogs. Have you ever wondered how tree frogs eat their food?

How Tree Frogs Eats?

Tree frogs eat their food by swallowing through their throats.

While humans and monkeys use hands, most of the animals use their mouths, tree frogs have a unique posture to grab their live food. They use their tongue to get their favourite munchies.

After getting the food in their firm jaws, tree frogs force it down by swallowing. Closing their eyes helps them to push the food item to get inside their stomach through their throat. Some species use their hands to get help in swallowing.

How To Choose Tree Frog’s Diet?

Moving to the next part, let’s help you with choosing your tree frog’s diet. Before arranging your tree frog’s food menu and schedule, you need to consider three things:

• Your frog’s age
• Species
• Size

Your frog’s age does matter because most of the tadpoles are herbivores. On the other hand, adult or baby frogs are insectivores.

Different ages require different schedules of feeding. All though, every tree frog is an insectivore but according to its size and species, the menu differs.

If we try to divide the frogs according to different stages of life, it will be easy for us to make you understand your tree frogs’ food needs.

• Tadpoles
• Baby frog or froglet
• Adult frog

What Do Tree Frogs Eat & Drink?

Insects such as crickets, moths, earthworms, mealworms, flies or any other small invertebrates are ideal food for most tree frogs.

In terms of drinking, tree frogs absorb water through their skin and do not drink water in the traditional sense.

As mentioned before, your tree frog’s food menu and schedule depend on the species, size and age. So, if you want a detailed guideline, scroll down.

What Do Tree Frog Tadpoles Eat?

Tadpoles are herbivores and depend on the remaining egg, plants, and algae available.

You can also supply them with boiled latus, broccoli or other greens in captivity.

At the primary stage of life, tadpoles are so small that they only live as herbivores. But as they become more mature, they eventually become omnivores.

They can fit anything in their mouth according to their body size in this state. Even small fishes, dead insects also.

You can introduce them to small insects and larvae at this stage. You can purchase processed tadpole food from pet shops also. It’s possible for you to even make their food by yourself. There are plenty of recipes available on the internet.

From their initial state to emerging tales, their food necessity changes according to their growth. After they start to develop legs, you must supply them with enough protein. This is the stage when they start to become carnivorous.

Don’t add any meat chunks because it will be harder for them to digest any food which they don’t eat naturally. Little insects will do the best work. Blood worms and aphids are a handy and simple choice in this case.

How Often Should You Feed Tree Frog Tadpoles?

You need to feed tree frog tadpoles daily. Feeding them one time properly in a day is ideal for their health.

Your little growing buddies need a regular nutrition supply. You don’t need to follow a strict schedule for them, but providing regular food is a must.

One thing you should not do is to feed them every other day. Some people may offer you this suggestion but it’s totally not enough for their healthy growth.

Until the tadpoles start to develop their feet, you can continue this session. While their legs are developing, they consume their tails to get nutrition. After the tail completely vanishes, you may start their feeding session again.

On the journey of developing from a tadpole to a baby tree frog, they ultimately become carnivorous. So, how’s their diet after becoming a toad?

What Do Baby Tree Frogs Eat?

Small insects including crickets, gnats, red worms, fruit flies, ants, mosquitoes or any other invertebrates are ideal foods for baby tree frogs.

Tree frog babies can eat any small insect which is not larger than their mouth. If you supply large food items to them, they might choke. So be careful with the size. You can add vitamin supplements, calcium supplements to their food to help them with the growing process.

How Often Should Baby Tree Frogs Eat?

Juvenile tree frogs have a high metabolism which means they need multiple feeding sessions a day.

High metabolism leads to fast digestion of food. Baby tree frogs need lots of food for their growth. They need to spend a high amount of energy for their constant body growth.

Feed them multiple times a day to ensure proper nutrition supply. Again, make sure live foods are not larger than them. In some cases, your tree frog can be eaten by their own food.

What Do Adult Tree Frogs Eat?

Adult tree frog’s diets may include recently fed crickets, wingless fruit flies, beetles, mealworms, spiders, or any other insects etc.

Depending on their size and species, tree frogs have varieties of live food to enjoy. You can find them in your native pet shop or online shop as well. You can also sprinkle supplements on the food items before providing them to your tree frogs.

How Often Should Tree Frogs Eat?

You can feed your adult tree frog’s 2-3times every week. Two to three insects are enough for each food session. Adults usually don’t require regular food supplies.

Here is a summarized table of the diet and feeding schedule of tree frogs according to age:

Tree Frog Age	Preferable Food Items	Amount of food	Feeding Schedule	Type of eater
Tadpoles (Initial Stage)	Algae Plants Boiled greens (broccoli, cabbage) Flakes Tadpole foods from stores	Put a certain amount and see if there is any leftover after each session. If yes, then you are oversupplying.	Once a day regularly	Herbivores
Baby Tadpoles (3-4 weeks)	Vegetation Water striders Dead insects Larvae	Put a certain amount and see if there is any leftover after each session. If yes, then you are oversupplying	Once a day regularly	Omnivores
Developing Tadpoles (5-9 weeks)	Protein supply through animal matters such as bloodworms, aphids Vegetation Water striders Dead insects Larvae	Put a certain amount and see if there is any leftover after each session. If yes, then you are oversupplying	Once a day regularly	Omnivores
Baby Tree Frogs	Crickets Red worms Fruit flies Ants Mosquitoes  Gnats Any other small invertebrates	5-7 cricket or the same amount of other food.	Multiple times a day	Carnivorous
Adult Tree Frogs	Crickets  Beetles Wingless Fruit flies Mealworms Spiders Any other insects according to size	2-3 crickets or the same amount of other food	2-3 times per week.	Carnivorous

One thing you can ensure is supplying the baby and adult frogs with gut-loaded live foods which actually means recently fed insects. Generally, pet stores offer different sizes of these insects.

You can also capture wild ones in the summertime. But wild-caught insects can have parasites that can affect your frog’s health. So, it is preferred to get your frog’s food from a safe and trusted source.

Now, when we are done with selecting the menu and serving time, let’s get to some mandatory problems or questions we face associated with the topic.

How Long Can A Tree Frog Go Without Eating?

Generally, a tree frog can go 3 to 4 weeks without eating.

Tadpoles, froglets, and juvenile tree frogs need a regular supply of food to survive. So, you can not expect them to live without eating for a long time.

Even the adult tree frogs need an equivalent amount of food and supplements after the inconvenience. Or else, they may survive but not in good health.

Why Won’t My Tree Frog Eat?

Stress, fear or health issues may allure your frog to ignore having food.

When your frog is stressed, they may avoid food. Failure in adapting to the terrarium’s environment, not having proper nourishment, fear of people’s presence, lack of any necessity, or physical sickness may cause stress in your tree frog.

Another considerable cause may be fear. Your frog is afraid of you or your system of feeding them which can lead him to avoid food.

The leading reason for your pet’s ignorance of food may be health issues. Try to find out if it is ill or not, and you may know the answer.

How Do I Get My Tree Frog To Eat?

Supply them with various insects in a normal process and your frog should eat their meal.

If they are not responding or ignoring the food, find out the possible reason and try to solve them.

If they are afraid of people, then after providing food, leave the room for a certain period or cover the terrarium with something.

If there is any health issue or stress, try to identify it and try to solve it with a permanent solution.

Do Tree Frogs Eat Dead Insects?

Tree frogs are not fond of dead insects. No matter what happens, even if they are insectivores, captive tree frogs will always prefer live food.

They will not touch the dead ones, even if the tank is full of them.

They are more like a bear, I guess!

Can Tree Frogs Eat Fruit?

As tree frogs are strictly carnivores, they should not be fed with any other thing except meat including fruit, veggies, plants etc.

Foods that you should avoid feeding to your tree frogs:

• Fruits or veggies
• Processed pet foods for other animals
• Wild-caught insects
• Larger live foods compared to their size

Do Tree Frogs Need Water?

Drinking water from a container is not a regular thing for tree frogs. They usually absorb moisture through their skin, drink water from the droplets of the plants in the tank.

Still, you need to add a dish filled with fresh de-chlorinated water for them. If there is no other source of water for them, they will probably dry out and might die as well.

Adding water is not only mandatory for their diet but also swimming as well. They are not professional swimmers but shallow water is something they might consider hopping in.

What Do Tree Frogs Eat In The Winter?

In the winter, tree frogs hibernate like other frogs. Being cold-blooded animals, tree frogs tend to survive the extreme cold by freezing up to 65% water content of their body.

Generally, tree frogs go into a winter-sleep mode during the hibernation period of winter. Hence, these frogs do not eat anything in the winter.

Before going into the hibernation state, tree frogs store up the required fats by eating more than usual. So, if you have a pet tree frog, you should feed your frog extra food.

Your pet frog may fatten up. But, it will help these frogs get prepared for going into the hibernation period by saving up calories.

Also, you can go through this article to know more about tree frog hibernation.

Do Tree Frogs Eat Plants?

Tree frogs can eat plants, but it depends on the stage of their life.

When tree frogs are in the tadpole phase, the tadpoles remain herbivores. So, the tree frog tadpoles survive on the plant matter like algae, moss, duckweed, etc. For around 1-2 weeks, these tadpoles live on eating only algae.

Variations in the plant-based diet appear along with the transformation of tree frogs. When the tadpoles turn into baby tree frogs, these frogs start eating plants and root vegetation too.

Gradually, the adult tree frogs become omnivores. But, these adult frogs tend to live on hunting live insects. So, adult tree frogs do not usually eat plants when they grow up.

What Do Brown Tree Frogs Eat?

Brown tree frogs are popular as agile hunters. These frogs tend to jump in the air to catch their prey from any high position in trees.

So, brown tree frogs can hunt airborne insect species using this mid-flight catch hunting technique. As a result, these frogs eat mosquitoes, flies, locusts, moths, crickets, grasshoppers, wasps, bees, beetles, etc.

What Do Green Tree Frogs Eat?

The diet of green tree frogs consists of varieties of insects. Besides, there might be a few changes or inclusion in the diet depending on the species of green tree frogs.

In general, Green tree frogs eat crickets, ants, flies, mosquitoes, moths, grasshoppers, slugs, worms, cockroaches, locusts, etc. As green tree frogs are not picky eaters, these frogs eat any insects that fit in their mouths.

On the other hand, Australian green tree frogs are bigger than other species of green tree frogs. Hence, this species can consume bigger prey like lizards, small mice, etc.

Do Tree Frogs Eat Grasshopper?

Being insectivores, tree frogs eat almost all types of insects that fit in their mouth.

Grasshoppers can be a delicious food item in the diet of tree frogs. Along with crickets, you can keep grasshoppers as staple foods for tree frogs. Tree frogs enjoy eating grasshoppers too.

Besides, grasshoppers can be a good source of protein for tree frogs. These grasshoppers contain 40-60% protein and 30% fats. But, you need to gut-load the grasshoppers before feeding your tree frogs.

Moreover, these insects are readily available at almost all pet stores. Also, do not make the mistake of feeding wild-caught grasshoppers to your tree frogs. You can also breed grasshoppers smoothly at home.

What Do Tree Frogs Eat In The Rainforest?

In the humid environment of the rainforest, there remains a diverse range of insects. There are around 2.5 million species of insects in the rainforest. So, tree frogs do not lack their food.

The common diet of tree frogs in the rainforest includes worms, crickets, bugs, ants, moths, larvae, snails, lizards, spiders, cockroaches, small invertebrates, etc.

Generally, these frogs tend to eat everything that fits in their mouth. But, several larger species of tree frogs hunt larger prey like small mice, fish, snakes, etc.

These frogs use their long and sticky tongue to catch prey instead of chasing after them. In addition, they can catch their prey from 4 meters distance too.

Do Tree Frogs Need Calcium?

You must provide calcium supplementation to your captive tree frogs. In the wild, these tree frogs can get their required calcium and other nutrients from a wide range of insects. On the other hand, it’s pretty usual that no owner can afford such varieties of insects as wild.

So, you need to gut-load the insects with calcium before feeding to your pet tree frogs. Otherwise, your pet frog may suffer from metabolic bone disease due to the lacking of calcium.

What Supplements Do Tree Frogs Need?

To keep your pet tree frogs healthy, you should give supplementation and vitamins regularly. So, you can choose any of the following supplements for your pet frogs.

These are Repashy Calcium Plus, Rep-Cal Calcium with Vit D3, Rep-Cal Herptivite, Repashy Vitamin A Plus, etc. You need to sprinkle these supplements over the insects before feeding them to your tree frogs.

Frequently Asked Question

Can green tree frogs eat mealworms?

Green tree frogs can eat mealworms, but they are not the best food option. Mealworms have a low nutritional value and have a hard exoskeleton that is difficult to digest – which makes them a poor feeder. If you want to feed mealworms to your green tree frog, it’s recommended you only use the ones that have just shed, and still have soft bodies.

Conclusion

Ensuring a proper diet for your tree frog may seem hard to you. But detecting their size, age, species will make it easier to choose their food menu and schedule.

Along with the suggestions above, try to observe your frog’s behavior and activities as well.

You can give them food flakes as treats, add supplements to their food for ensuring proper nutrition, and add medicine if needed as well.

If you notice any unusual activities in them, try to consult with experts. At the end of the day, experts can give you adaptable and reliable ideas to make your frog friend happy and healthy again.