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Full Version: Can Flour Beetles escape into the house ?
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alexislake

I want to have another source of food for my dart frog, Rain. I'm considering confused flour beetles (the ones that don't fly) but am concerned that if I put them in one of the larger cricket keepers (made of plastic) that they might climb up the sides and get out into the house. Does anyone raise them for their frogs and have any idea if they could climb out the container and get into the house? I was also considering springtails but I heard they can jump four to five inches and that's too close to the top of my frog's feeding area height than I'm comfortable with. Any advice would be appreciated.
springtails are very easy to culture. they live in and on the soil, and while they will jump when you scare them, they really don't escape much. you can 'seed' your vivarium with them and with luck a strong colony will be thriving by the time you introduce frogs.

the fruit flies are masters of escape. at this point, i don't even dump out my coffee when i see a ff in it, i just pick the fly out and keep drinking....

i use glass jars to culture beetles. cfb's are said to excrete chemicals which make the beetle taste bad (it's the larvae which the frogs eat), as well as limit populations. when the chemical builds up, they stop reproducing. for this reason, mesh lids are preferable.

OutsidetheBox

Springtails generally prefer to stay a little bit buried, so jumping isn't that big of a deal. They don't want to escape into a bigger world, they want to stay hidden!!! The only thing about springtails is that if you have a false bottom tank, LOTS of them are going to fall into the water, so you may have to seed your tank more often.

As for my experience with beetles, it isn't much, but a friend gave me a culture she got from Ed's, and it isn't very tall, but I have never seen a beetle climbing up the wall or sitting on the mesh that covers the top. My frogs jump all over the larvae, so it seems this would be a very good choice!
ok...here's the 2nd flour beetle thread. Only 2....

This is also a great supplemental feeder and can be used in between FF cultures. Some frogs don't readily accept them, but a lot do and some can be coaxed onto them.

VERY easy to culture and they seem to last forever.