So, now that we've had our toad cuteness overload for the day. ;) Lets talk food. Not just any food. Toad food. Crickets and pillbugs are my main staples, but as always toads also need enrichment. The occasionally moth plucked from your window, or a wax worm (Which are actually caterpillars, if you let them grow they will cocoon and turn into a moth.) will make your toads happy.
But, beings as I haven't started my wax worm/wax moth cultures yet, today we are talking about pillbugs.
If you have wild caught toads, (I do not agree with keeping wild caught animals as pets. Mine were carried across a border accidentally in someones luggage, I can't legally get them back across and anyway its too late, they already are used to being fed by me.) You can feed them bugs from your backyard. Now, if you have a captive bred toad, you might not want to do that. You can, and they maybe fine. But there is a risk of parasites. Wether they are wild caught or not. The only reason why I don't recommend it for captive bred toads is because wild caught toads have already been exposed to those parasites, captive bred toads have not. I would try to get captive bred bugs if you have a captive bred toad.
So Critter care. For crickets and pillbugs, You can use a Tupperware container, critter keeper or some sort of glass or plastic box. DO NOT USE CARDBOARD, they will probably eat right through it and escape. Pillbugs eat wood, they may eat the wooden parts of your house. (They ate our front door once!)...
If you are using a critter keeper, for pill bugs, cover the top with a paper towel before putting the lid on. Why you ask? Humidity. Pillbugs like humidity. They need it. That is why you have to cover the top of a critter keeper with a paper towel for them. if you see humidity in the tank, thats a good thing.
What I use for Pillbugs is a Tupperware container. I pop a few holes in the lid, but not to many. Just enough for them to breath and yet not let out to much humidity. They like places to hide, which is why there are pieces of bark and log inside of my container. This is what my set up looks like:
Notice the carrots? Pillbugs love veggies. Cucumber and carrots are a success with them. I tried broccoli and cauliflower with them once, one pillbug drank the moisture off of a tiny piece of cauliflower. Thats all. They do not like broccoli (I don't enjoy the taste either, so I can't blame the little guys. lol.) and cauliflower is definitely not a favorite. I said earlier that they eat wood. Well, they do, but that is not the only thing they eat and I wouldn't recommend only feeding them wood, you want to gut-load these guys with veggies and vitamins found in veggies. I do not gut load with products, personally I like natural gut-loading by feeding veggies to the bugs.
Pill-bugs do not need anything else that I know of. Substrate can pretty much be anything, but I use coco-fiber.
Another note about pillbugs. If you put a bunch of pillbugs into your toad tanks, they will clean for you. They will eat dead crickets. They may even eat toad feces. I recommend that you still spot clean the tank, because it takes them a while to eat a whole cricket :) So just because you have some pillbugs in there, doesn't mean you get out of work ;) haha.
They will breed in your toad tank. I have some that are in my toad tank and I have baby pillbugs all over the place in there. It seems like the baby pillbugs are the ones that eat the yucky stuff. I've yet to see a full grown pillbug eat anything other then vegetables and wood, but I'm not an expert.
Cool thing about pillbugs. They keep their babies in a pouch on their bellies for a while before giving live birth. They do not lay eggs.
Not much else to put here that I know of, But If I remember something I'll come back and edit this post. So If you are interested in Pillbug care, you might want to come back and check this post again every now and then. :) Good luck!
