Stu & Shaz's Dart Frog Room

[Chuck Lawson]

my humble apologies for the slow response,my Dad passed recently so it's been tough of late

Sorry for your loss, Stu! Lost my dad last month also; besides all of the emotional stuff, it's amazing the amount of other details that soak up time and attention to get resolved.

Here's to getting back to the frogs real soon now!

[Philsuma]

Stu, my condolences man. I remember when my dad passed...it wasn't easy. God Bless.

[Stu&Shaz]

my humble apologies for the slow response,my Dad passed recently so it's been tough of late

Sorry for your loss, Stu! Lost my dad last month also; besides all of the emotional stuff, it's amazing the amount of other details that soak up time and attention to get resolved.

Here's to getting back to the frogs real soon now!

Ahh mate i'm so sorry. it happens to us all ,but it's still a tough one to deal with. Your SO right Chuck the "other stuff" takes up much time

The solace from frog absorption is a good thing my friend especially seeing new life enter the world: guys that keep/ care for livestock have an edge here,tis a big one.

Sad times mate, the thoughts run back to you
best

Stu

[Stu&Shaz]

Stu, my condolences man. I remember when my dad passed...it wasn't easy. God Bless.

Thanks bro!!!! I'm not great with words Phi, so the meaning is in the first two
best

Stu

[pa.walt]

don't take this the wrong way but at least you have family to support you. for me it was my brother dieing and a month later my mom getting sick and between hospital and nursing home she passed away. and it is just me no other family. no one to help me thru the tough times.
but sorry for your loss.

[Chuck Lawson]

Ahh mate i'm so sorry. it happens to us all ,but it's still a tough one to deal with. Your SO right Chuck the "other stuff" takes up much time

The solace from frog absorption is a good thing my friend especially seeing new life enter the world: guys that keep/ care for livestock have an edge here,tis a big one.

Sad times mate, the thoughts run back to you
best

Thanks Stu -- and very much likewise!

[Stu&Shaz]

don't take this the wrong way but at least you have family to support you. for me it was my brother dieing and a month later my mom getting sick and between hospital and nursing home she passed away. and it is just me no other family. no one to help me thru the tough times.
but sorry for your loss.

Very sad Walt and not taken the wrong way either,we have a saying here,"there is always someone worse off than yourself",never truer in this case! I'm very lucky kiddo I have good folks around me both family and friends,even had a frogger mate drive a good way just for distraction therapy and a goodly frog chat. Once again shows what a great bunch of folks are in this hobby all over the world ,not just over there ,but here too 8) .

Ok back to the frogs,this is the sight I had been awaiting and put a massive smile on my/our faces.We knew tads had been carried ,but couldn't find them,granted I didn't want to disturb things so searches were not that thorough.


Here are those awful pics I mentioned, maybe later i'll grab something a bit better,ha ha for Craig note the colour of the first,I'm sure it will be transient




and the other two




take care all

Stu

[pa.walt]

"there is always someone worse off than yourself" funny you wrote that. even though i don't have the best life i always say to myself and other people.
also my closest 2 cousins live in bolton.

[Stu&Shaz]

Tis true Walt...what can I say :wink:
We have another kid from the RFB poking his head out of a brom axil today,the older kids all come out to feed virtually on command now,I can confirm 4,but have more than a hunch there is a slightly earlier 5th lurking in all that leaf litter.
one busy mum...VERY busy 2 clutches carried in 10 or so days,got the first pum transport shot whist I was still asleep a day or two back


kids RFB






Cem bastis growing really well








SB autatus 2 siblings




Atachisbakka





Stu

[Stu&Shaz]

Damn forgot da leucs :lol:






ps Stu and Shaz as of 25th Feb have now kept darts for 2yrs,so finally we are more time keeping than researching plus we have now gained official beginners colours blue ones red ones yellow ones and spotty ones :lol: give us ten years more and we might know something ,I wish to be here awhile,doing what we love
bring it on

Stu

[Stu&Shaz]

Hey folks,I thought some pics might be sort of nice,so we'll kick off with those red frog beach kids as they'll add some continuity to this thread.Its quite amazing looking at the pis above how all the blue has vanished leaving 3 unspotty kids and one well spotty.











mrs summersi once again heavily gravid,once again we'll probably get no embryos in those eggs,but I was born an optimist,so fingers crossed for us guys,I so want to rear summersi




These are some red frog beach tads,I'm going to try the surrogacy route with these as mrs cem basti is feeding just one tad. i'm very aware of the fact she might not feed and all might be lost.My observations of watching her feed the last lot draw me to the conclusion that she is looking for tads as she walks up that oak log I filled with film cans,(look back for detail).I am exploring i suppose,it 's what I always do as I learn about the animals we keep. we have to evaluate not only the species but also the individual,I'm very prepared to be wrong and fail


Tiger


In praise of auratus,

shy frogs they are,folks give up on them because they don't see them. They seem to like some overhead cover they seem not to like bright light,but if you stay the course if you make them feel secure and your patient you get this.Lets face it nothing does metallic blue and greens like auratus do.We adore them I wish everyone see's what we do.they are the common frog, morphs get lost to the hobby it is possibly the biggest shame,the frog that gets imported in number and then lost ahh man that is just so sad

Panama specials








superblue/blue on bronze I can call these now,I did it for a mate a while back he sort of stood shocked,but they are...... :lol:












Finally I'll finish with this, probably the most important bit of this post.
Iso need Ca our frogs need Ca,so we add cuttlefish bone to our ever increasing iso hoard. I also use use grated cuttlefish bone for springtails i think it's a bit easier for them to munch. This picture is taken just minutes after adding said Ca source to the culture,most have moved off by the time i got the camera in focus,but you'll get an idea of what the iso think of this stuff and how much they need/want it. One day that Ca will be in our frogs one can also use egg shells,naturally organic ones baked and crushed,I keep poultry i have that and use that as well.

I take no credit for this it was passed to me by Ed K. At the time I kicked my self as i knew this!! I knew Ca was important as a building block for their exoskeletons,but I hadn't implemented,it is so damn obvious I bloody missed it, and yeah I already know others do to by replies I've had elsewhere.sometimes the obvious is starting us down,and we still don't see it...DOH :lol:

It's just such a great example for a new guy this pic I had to take it and post it



Quadrat et demonstrandum

bring it on

Stu

[Rusty_Shackleford]

Great pics Stu!!
I don't understand why people give up on them. I only have two groups of auratus right now (El Cope and Nicaraguan) but neither one are shy and always out despite the bright lights.


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[Stu&Shaz]

Great pics Stu!!
I don't understand why people give up on them. I only have two groups of auratus right now (El Cope and Nicaraguan) but neither one are shy and always out despite the bright lights.


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Thanks Jon,
pics a work in progress,but when I give myself the luxury of time slowly but surely they are improving.
Auratus need care I feel ,ie care from the hobby,i see them change hands too quick here. Folks don't give them chance!To me vastly underrated.I'm glad yours are bold mine are now but it took a while,properly worth the wait though,my goal was to encourage more to think of keeping them and to try and fix each morph hobby wise,or at least contemplate this. Such strong athletic frogs and the colour,well to die for
best

Stu

[Philsuma]

Superb pics mate....just superb.

I had long forgotten about the 'Ed-cuttlebone'....maybe because he never accompanied it with a piccy, like you did.

Great idea - cuttlebone. I always add some corrugated cardboard squares to the top of the culture - makes for good congregation of the beasts and easy shake out. They love cardboard too.

[Chuck Lawson]

Stu, awesome pics, awesome frogs -- as always!!

[Stu&Shaz]

Thanks both and I hope you're both well.

Phil,the cuttle pic i hope will lodge in some folk's minds,that's why I popped it up. Yes we do use the cardboard too,although the little buggers keep munching it all.I seem to cut up bigger and bigger boxes each time I top them up.

Chuck,I think the pics are slightly improved,colour saturation seems deeper.Mate as we've talked on this at some length,they were taken at much slower shutter speeds F around 11 or higher, off a tripod. Well the pums and summersi were. It might be worth looking into if you haven't got there on your own already. They are exactly as I took them no processing cropping etc,tis a shame the pums are covered in bits, but as always i'm wary of stressing them.Maybe one day when i've got to grips with all this i'll relax abit more. But at the moment our first pum kids seem to be thriving both pulled and left in viv,so i'm just thankful and very very pleased with progress thus far

best to both of ya

Stu

[Stu&Shaz]

This one is a tiny bit special for us. It takes a mystie around 5 1/2 to 6months to come ootw. this little fella has done the whole lot completely on his own. He has grown in viv morphed in viv ,got a start of some springtails from yours truely and then disappeared,but he is fine,and I can't believe it. He has just started to come out of that shy stage,that we oft see just after morphout,so I'll grab some better pictures soon,but for now



Oh we have been learning about pum surrogacy,or just having some skills at using alternative methods to rear a pum. I've also been fascinated by this and wanted to get some skills rather sooner than later,just in case. We have hatched a clutch of RFB eggs,I lost two but 3 have been started on other dart eggs.I'm using a small pipette and plastic plant label to remove the yolks from the jelly/albumin.Much to my amazement 3 tads are still going strong. I popped them in a tad gizmo...branch plus filmcans, in with the bastis,mum basti ignored them until untill I removed this little fella


But she has now started to feed the RFB tad i substituted for it. It has been the most wonderful process,being able to see the tad dance is fabulous,I'm not quite sure why an oophga tad responds to a big ugly human face,but they do.
here is a tiny pum tad feeding off an auratus egg,just infront of it's nose...there is another whole egg in there aswell.


another picture showing two pum feeder/trophic? eggs


All stuff I've not seen before so worth popping up. Rob Melancom's site has been a big influence on this,my thanks to him,I don't really have great expectations of success,but each day they are still here my hopes grow just a tiny bit ,plus mum basti is now on my side. I guess we are about 3 weeks in now time will tell

Oh and just to go off topic completely as I often do with brit wildlife,here is our common spotted orchid








bring it on

Stu

[BcsTx]

Congrats on the surrogacy.
I have a blue jean tad in my cristo viv so far she is feeding it, only time will tell..
Hope yours morph out for you!
Love the flower pics.
Here is our state flower:
[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

[Stu&Shaz]

Hiya Beth,

back at ya mate I really hope things go well for the blue jeans tad. It really has been a fascinating experiance attempting this part artificial part surrogacy,of an oophaga tad. Win or loose for me definitely worth the effort. Oneday a brom will drop dead or something else dreadfull will happen and i'll have at least a chance of rearing,which is better than nothing.

The orchids occur here and there around us.None of our wild flowers are as common as they once were,I think we have lost something like 97% of all wildflower meadows here. I wanted to grab some downtime with the camera and experiment in the field as it were,lots of relevence for me and froggy picture taking,besides the beauty of the actual flowers themselves.

I guessed your flower to be a member of the lupin family,I'd no knowledge of your state flower at all ,but we grow stuff so know Lupins. So I did some research and you have showed me some form of blue bonnet yeah I know, politicians,cactus jack five species,the interweb makes life too easy :lol: .

Beth, tell me what kind and size of aphids you get on these plants,I'm hugely curious,because when we had lupins in our managerie cottage front garden,they were the biggest most massive aphid I've ever seen. That left field side of my brain is working again (tell me you didn't just say OMG :lol: ).Lupins are, I'm almost certain, pea family...ie legumes. Hmm I wonder whether their might be an avenue to culture dart grub on these,at least for part of the year. Mate as before I think one could actually fill a tinc up with these aphids we had here and that takes some doing.But obviously I don't know whether it was a particular type of aphid,or something in the plant that made them grow like this.I actually think this is really cool,show me american mates some of our native flora and what I get back makes me ponder dart grub :roll: :lol:
thanks kiddo

best

Stu

[BcsTx]

Yep it's a bluebonnet, good job! Have no idea about the pea family... Sometimes the bluebonnets arrive in the spring, sometimes they don't depending on the rain, they only stay around for a short time. When they are in bloom they stop mowing around the highways until they are gone.
Not sure about aphids... I have tons of spider mites here gave up on tomatoes a while ago.
Me being me I am terrified of feeding any "field sweepings" or bugs from outside. My frogs just get boring isos, springs and ffy's.

Cheers!