Care sheet guide by DartFrogsAndGeckos.com

This care sheet is intended to help you with your young Milk frogs. While they are small, these frogs are much more delicate than they will be as adult frogs, and you will have the best luck keeping them if you make life as easy as possible for them! I’m providing this with frogs I sell as juveniles particularly in mind, these frogs are often about the size of a jelly bean, and can use a little “hand holding” to get to the next stage. They grow fast, so it won’t take long!

Temps should be in the low seventies at night, warmer is fine, and in the upper seventies to low eighties during the day. Lighting is not particularly important, background light to full lighting from a dedicated lamp is fine. Humidity should be high, water sprayed in the tank should take many hours to completely dry up. Food should be provided with supplement dusted crickets of the appropriate size, and water should be provided in a small bowl or regular spraying with dechlorinated water.

So, first, a simple setup is best. If you are planning a larger terrarium for them, great, but while they are small, you should keep them in something small. Ideas for this include a ten gallon aquarium, or a 12 by 12 by 18 inch Exo Terra or similar tank. One of the best temporary setups for them is one of the clear/translucent storage tubs that you can find at Target, Walmart or any other similar store. I use the Sterilite brand tubs you can buy at Target. The one I use is approximately 30 quarts, about 16 inches tall, 16 long and 10 inches wide.

So, to setup your container, first, if you are using a ten gallon or Exo Terra type tank, use some saran wrap to cover the screen. I’d leave less than an inch of open screen across the edge of the lid, these frogs like a nice high humidity, and that is difficult to achieve when you have a screen lid…another reason the Sterilite tub (for around $10!) is a great solution.

Second, decide what to use on the floor of the temporary setup. One option is paper towels, another is a piece of furniture foam, 1/2 inch or 1 inch latex foam. You can get this at a fabric store, or order it online. Cut it to fit the bottom of the tub, and rinse it out before putting it in the tub or tank. Remove and wash it every few days, as needed.

There are other options for substrate, however you will want to avoid anything they can ingest, as these frogs are very susceptible to prolapse due to ingesting indigestible items. There are always these general cautions about frogs ingesting their substrate and concerns about impaction, etc, however with these guys, they really seem to be the poster child for this sort of issue, things like long fiber sphagnum will absolutely cause issues with prolapse. This is a nasty issue, which is manifested by a small (or not so small) lump of tissue protruding from their cloaca. If they ingest something that they have a hard time passing, this will happen. Generally the prolapse will retract on its own. If you see this, make sure it is clean, spray it with water if in doubt, keeping it moist is very important, if this delicate tissue dries out you have a real problem. Make sure to keep the water bowl particularly clean at this point. Mostly I’d say this issue is due to the ingestion of indigestible substrate or other things they might eat while feeding, not from food items, however I would err on the side of caution and not give them food items that are on the larger side. Another point I would make is that using the feeding station I’ll describe shortly will help to keep the frogs from ingesting substrate.

A couple of pothos or similar type plant cuttings can be placed in the tank, I usually put the cut end of them in the water bowl and allow them to trail across the tank. Milk frogs don’t really use the leaves of plants as much as other smaller tree frogs will but this cutting will offer more room for them to walk about in the tank. I usually also add a few small branches that I cut to length and wedge into the tank/tub across it. This will allow the frogs to perch in their preferred way, perching on a horizontal limb. Again, unlike many frogs they seem to prefer to perch in this way, rather than stuck to the side. Not to say they won’t do this but give them the option to stay horizontal!

Next, you will want two similar size boxes, to use for a food bowl and a water bowl. The water bowl is obvious, you’ll want to provide them a water bowl to soak in, although to be honest they will also do fine if you just spray them well once a day.

The second box (about 6 inches square, clear preferably, a glad ware type food storage box works) should have a piece of paper towel folded into the bottom of the box, and moistened with a bit of water. You will put your dusted crickets in this container, and your frogs will hunt for them in this box. My frogs here are raised hunting their crickets this way. This method helps limit the number of crickets that drown in your water bowl or otherwise get lost in the tub or tank. Believe me, this method will greatly increase the number of food items your frogs can catch each night, and will increase your frogs growth rate.

On arrival your frogs will most likely be eating 1/4th inch crickets. Be cautious with giving them crickets that are too large. Appropriate size crickets are generally those that will not be longer than the frogs head is wide.

By the time you receive the frogs they will be well past the size which would eat hydei fruit flies, so you will need to be able to provide them with the correct size of crickets. You should use a high quality supplement to dust your crickets, here we use Repashy Calcium Plus. If you have the crickets to spare, every couple of days your feeding station should be emptied out, cleaned, and your frogs should get a fresh supply of dusted and gut loaded crickets.

That is about it, kept this way a group of Milk frogs should rapidly grow to the size of a (for lack of a better guide) a large grape, or a large mans thumb, maybe 1.75 to 2 inches in length, and somewhere in this size range you should move them into a larger terrarium. You’ll find lots of caresheets for these larger frogs on the web.