A pet tree frog hunts moving prey. Its diet is live insects, offered in the evening when the frog wakes and climbs, and the keeper's real work is choosing the right insect, preparing that insect well, and matching its size to a small mouth that cannot handle oversized prey.
The Feeder Set to Rotate
Crickets, fruit flies, and small roaches are the feeder set for this frog. Fruit flies suit a tiny frog or a young frog that needs many small mouthfuls, crickets suit a frog ready for a larger moving target, and small roaches give a soft-bodied option that many frogs take eagerly from tongs or a feeding dish. Rotate within that set across the week instead of offering one insect until the frog refuses it. A tree frog does not eat plant food as a meal, so a dish of greens in the enclosure is not feeding at all; the frog needs live prey it can watch, stalk, and snap up.
Size the Insect to the Frog
Choose a feeder no wider than the space between the frog's eyes. That single size rule prevents the common error of offering a cricket that is too large, which the frog may ignore, struggle with, or abandon half-eaten in the enclosure. When a frog is growing, review the size match often, because a feeder that was correct last month may now be too small to satisfy it, while a sudden jump in feeder size can put a frog off eating. If the frog strikes and misses repeatedly, look first at prey size and prey speed before assuming the frog is unwell.
Gut-Loading and Dusting
An insect is only as nourishing as what that insect has eaten. Gut-load crickets, fruit flies, and small roaches by feeding the insects a nutritious diet before they become a meal, so the frog receives more than an empty shell. Dust the feeders lightly with calcium as a routine practice, following the product label or vet guidance, and make dusting part of the preparation rather than an occasional extra remembered after a refusal. Keep the preparation sequence in the same order each feeding: gut-load first, dust second, offer third. Uneaten insects should come out after the feeding window so they do not wander the enclosure, lose their dusting, or stress a resting frog.
Reading a Good Feeding Response
A frog that is feeding well watches movement, turns toward the insect, and strikes with intent, then settles to watch for the next one. Offer one feeder at a time where you can, using tongs for a frog that strikes eagerly, so each insect is seen, taken, and counted rather than lost in the foliage. A frog that ignores well-sized, gut-loaded feeders across several evenings, loses weight, or stops climbing to its usual perch needs a closer look at temperature, humidity, and health, with a vet conversation if the refusal continues.
Sharing Feeding Turns Without Double Feeding
Evening feeding is easy to duplicate in a busy house, because one person feeds the frog at dusk and another, seeing an active frog later, assumes it has not eaten. A shared feeding-turn record solves that quiet problem: it names who feeds on which evening, who gut-loads the insects during the day, who holds the dusting turn, and whether the frog ate well or refused. Family Sharing carries that record at the point where helpers need it, turning a memory-based routine into a written rotation that survives a late shift or a weekend away. Note a refusal in the record rather than offering a second round an hour later, and note a feeder-size change when the frog grows. Update the turn list whenever a feeder type changes and keep it on KinsLe, and the Family Sharing notes stop a second feeding on the same night.