HELP - Whites Treefrog - very thin

[stickumz]

I have a Whites that is about 5 now. He seems very happy and is eating.

He is very thin - I can see his hip bones through his skin.

I was feeding 5-6 crickets at a time but have stopped because one night about three months ago, his "inards" (for lack of a better word) came out through his rear.

It was very scary and we thought he would not make it. There were some articles online, that said this was a result of overfeeding and that most whites die from this.

We kept misting it and turned off his lights, a couple of hours later it had pulled back into his body and he was fine.

We felt very fortunate and since then, only feed about 4 crickets at a time for fear that it may happen again and we won't be so lucky.

He always eats his crickets as soon as we feed him but he is very thin and we are worried. I have called a vet and am bringing a stool sample in to be examined tomorrow to rule out any sort of bacteria/parasite.

I bought a product today called Flukers Reptaboost. It's a nutritional supplement for reptiles and amphibians. He takes it well and I am hoping this will help him gain some weight.

ANY and ALL advice would be greatly appreciated. I simply adore him.

[DonLisk]

I guess the biggest thing is to find out why before additional treatments are used. The Reptiboost should be ok but since you already have having the stool sample being checked.

I don't think the Prolaspe is caused due to overeating but maybe someone else might have more insight into this.

[GrifTheGreat]

I'm not sure if 5 to 6 crickets is too much for an adult whites. I don't own any but a lot of cases of intestines being distinded can be a result of constipation(impaction). Also poor housing conditions can also attribute to this occurance. If it returned back inside the frog and he is acting normal you may be out of the woods for that issue. A vet trip to rule out any possible parasites and infections is a good idea. Maybe try night crawlers as they are a much more nutritious food source for frogs. Do you dust your frogs food with vitamines and calcium dust? Do you use de-chlorinated water? I'm no expert by any means and do not own Whites but this can happen to any frog and what I've mentioned above can attribute to this problem. Since you have a stool sample then impaction is probably out of the question.

[Purrdoc]

Parasites are probably the most common cause of this that I see. Even if the stool sample is negative, I would deworm him since parasite shedding can be intermittent and fecal samples may not always be the best quality, despite our best efforts.

Good luck.

[UncleChester]

Hi there, I went through a http://www.frogforum.net/tree-frogs/...-prolapse.html this summer, so I know your fear in returning to a regular diet. Earthworms were a commonly recommended easily digestible recovery food after a fasting period following the prolapse. I kept mine on an all earthworm diet for about 3 months (they are also nutritionally awesome) and have only recently started to reintroduce crickets, and even then smaller than I used to feed her. You might want to slowly up the food intake and consider trying soft earthworms if he'll take them. How often are you feeding the 4 crickets and what size are they? Someone with a whites may be able to tell you if this is too low for your frog and is a factor in the continued weight loss (this is my guess from what you've told us!).

Make sure you've addressed the other possible causes of a prolapse (these are the major ones I know of)- humidity too low, insufficient calcium (dust them crickets!), impaction (this was my problem), and parasites (you're dealing with). Hopefully your vet can give you other ideas.

I also strongly recommend you get a scale to monitor his weight, http://www.frogforum.net/tree-frogs/...own-scale.html. My frog lost a bunch of weight from the fasting and slow reintroduction of food. I only recently was able to get a scale, and I should definitely have been monitoring her all along to make sure I wasn't starving her (as fear of a re-prolapse made me want to do) instead of just relying on her looks. Long term trends in the weight are what to look for, and be as consistent as possible with the weigh-in times if you do get a scale.

Best of luck!