*Sigh*....

[irThumper]

(Cross posted from White's Tree Frog Lovers on Facebook 5.12.15)

My little honey blue-eyed, Butter Bean, who I have had for only 29 days, has died I never got a chance to post about him or his companion, Pole Bean, on here because my comp crashed on April 10th and I got them shipped in from Mikes Phat Frogs on April 14. Pole Bean was extremely skinny and lethargic with obvious issues from day 1, so I spent a lot of time working with him to try to build him up (fecal exam for them turned up positive for Giardia). Butter Bean seemed perfectly normal in every way and hunted, ate, soaked, shed, poo'd, etc like he should. In the last week I noticed, however, that he seemed to be losing weight, and I did not see him eating. He slept spraddle legged in an upper corner of the QT tank last night and this morning I found him sitting on the flower pot in an upright position looking dried out with mottled skin... in hindsight I should have taken a picture, but I was running on 4 1/2 hrs sleep and had just completed an almost 2 hr round trip to take my dad back to work at 5:30 a.m. I went to give him a honey soak in water that was just up to his chin, left the room for a moment to get a syringe so I could drip water over his back, and when I came back into the room found out that he had seized and drowned... I took his body to the vet and requested they do a post mortem test of him (and skin slough in the honey water) for Chytrid-- I hope to God it's not Chytrid Don't know how long the test results will take. I didn't even get a chance to treat them for the Giardia yet as I was waiting to hear back about a topical version of Fenbendazole. I so looked forward to having my own actual honey blue-eyed, now he's gone and Lord only knows what will happen to my other guys if this is something seriously contagious...

[elly]

I'm sorry, hoping for the best for your other frogs.

[Cliygh and Mia 2]

As am I

[Crispy42]

I'm so sorry to hear you lost your new frogs. At least you had them in quarantine still so hopefully even if it's contagious your other babies will be okay.

[irThumper]

I'm so sorry to hear you lost your new frogs. At least you had them in quarantine still so hopefully even if it's contagious your other babies will be okay.

Pole Bean is still alive, which is what astounds me. He was the unhealthy one from the beginning, while his friend seemed fine. Technically they should have had their own separate QT tanks, but I had only space for the one, and they had been shipped in the same container, so figured both would have the same problem, which they did test positive for giardia. I just hope Pole Bean makes it and my other guys will be safe...

[irThumper]

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/irth...0Butter%20Bean

[Cliygh and Mia 2]

Hey, at least he's cute!

[Frogger00]

Oh no! Terrible news about your honey blue eyed! It is just so unfortunate that a beautiful frog like that died. At least you gave him a good life. Here's hoping Polo Bean will make it, another astounding frog! I'm honestly in the same position as you with Oliver, so I truly understand. Good luck!!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Crunchy Frog]

Sorry about your new baby.

You should be able to get the chytrid results back pretty quickly. I literally got my results back for my new babies (negative) the next day after FedExing the swab to the lab. Chytrid is also very easily an inexpensively treated, if it does turn out positive.

Just FWIW, I believe you would use metronidazole rather than fenbendazole to treat Giardia. I know that the IV formulation of it can be applied topically. I'm pretty sure that you can order it from Dr. Frye, as I plan to do for my newbies.

I hope your other froggies are okay.

[Krispy]

Im so sorry to hear about your loss. I hope its not a bad thing for the rest. Might i add you have beautiful froggies

[irThumper]

Update: Positive for Chytrid I have a lot of work ahead of me to safeguard the rest of my collection. Pole Bean is STILL hanging in, and I am going to do everything I can for him.

I panicked and posted on FB about this, I had images in my head/imagined what it would be like if all the Sandfire frogs and Mike's frogs, and everyone who'd purchased from them, came down with this horrible disease and I just lost it... I made a different post after a long talk with Mike. The problem is this disease is everywhere, and people need to know about it and what to do to treat it. I also heard about something even scarier, which I think was also posted here and I missed it... here's my 2nd post from FB:

PSA: I had a long and good discussion with Mike Matson (thanks Mike!) regarding Chytrid (they do have bio-security measures in place at Phat Frogs and at Sandfire) and something else I found to be even scarier... Chytrid, while, a scourge among amphibians, is very treatable in captive frogs-- not so unfortunately for the wild population. I love frogs and the idea that they could die out is devastating to me, but from the sounds of it, if the government gets its way, soon there will be NO frogs left on this planet. They want to stop all herpers in their tracks and ban amphibians from being kept in captive collections... but captivity is the ONLY place where Chytrid can be successfully controlled! Frogs are not disposable pets. If you are going to get a frog for a pet then do what it takes to make sure they are healthy, get healthy, and stay healthy, test them, treat them, do not throw them away. Read here about the proposed amphibian ban: http://usherp.org/2013/07/26/catx-up...amphibian-ban/ Then read here about how to control and treat Chytrid in captive collections: http://www.pollywogsworldoffrogs.com/Text…/frog-rx-care.html

[Cliygh and Mia 2]

What I would do is go ahead and check your other frogs for Chytrid, to be on the safe side

[monster]

Hi, im so sorry to hear that's it chytrid. Hopefully and I will pray for you that it didn't find its way to any of your other froggys. And thank you for that post, I think a lot of people may be aware of Chytrid but don't realize how bad it is and how many frogs and actual whole species of frogs it has killed off. I will keep my fingers crossed as tight as possible for you that this last guy can beat it.

[Lija]

Sorry for not being around, but I was told about this thread...

Lisa... I'm not going to be nice right now. In any circumstances you should not be happy with Mike and frankly when someone is selling chytrid carriers or sick frogs, he or she goes into black list of sellers who should not be trusted. I would be a bit less angry if that would be WC frogs, but absolutely not when it is cb. I would request him to compensate for all your expenses, including testing everybody in your collection and treating if nessesary as minimum remedy. But even then....

Chytrid is not everywhere, but it's one of the most devastating deseases that swipe clean entire populations in a wild, and could be extremely devastating in captive collections. Careless sellers and breeders, like it seems Mike is, contributing to spreading a desease and people like that are the reason for government officials want to ban keeping amphibians. One of the important principles of exotic keeping is being responsible and care for environment, making sure nothing that leaves your premises is a danger to anything or anyone. if you fail and then downplay it - you are not I will ever deal with or suggest anyone to. It doesn't matter what kind of biocontrol measures are in a facility, if they fail, they are not sufficient.

Say you have one frog, you don't do qt or testing (only few people do that unfortunately), you flush used water, you wash whatever you use without bleaching it out, well of course not, how would you know otherwise. Say you have a frog from Mike... So now you are are possible reason chytrid is killing amphibians where you live. Now considering he shops all over the states.....

thank you for reading this is a short version of what I have to say lol

[irThumper]

Hi Lija, I understand, and I felt I was... "compelled" to make a retraction statement. There's more about the situation I cannot say here. Will PM you.

[Crunchy Frog]

Sorry to hear that it's Chytrid, but it is very treatable. There are a number of threads here on Frogforum about Chytrid, that give details on the Lamisil treatment protocol.

I'll just take this opportunity for a quick PSA. All new additions to an amphibian collection should be tested for Chytrid during their quarantine period, whether they are showing any kind of symptoms or not. There are a number of species of frogs that can be asymptomatic carriers, meaning that they may never get sick themselves, but they could infect the entire rest of your collection. It's always a possibility for any newly acquired frog, even from the most reputable of dealers.

There are a number of inexpensive test kits that you can order online.

https://www.genesisexotics.com/herp-health.html

http://www.joshsfrogs.com/amphibian-...-test-kit.html

http://www.dendrobati.com/#!medicalcenter/cgy5

I believe that they all utilize Research Associates Laboratory, and you can download copies of their submission forms off the site. http://www.vetdna.com/test-type/reptiles http://www.vetdna.com/application/fo...issionform.pdf

It's only $18.00 for the Chytrid test, plus the cost of shipping the swab, and they will generally email you the results the same day they recieve the sample, so you can overnight it to them and get the results the following day.

Also remember to be very careful in how you dispose of your frogs wastes, especially during quarrantine, and while the Chytrid status is unknown. I have been dumping all waste water and solid wastes into buckets of bleach water, prior to disposing of them. Even though the test results for my new frogs were negative, it's always possible that it could have been a false negative, and I will likely be getting them tested again in a few weeks. Even if they don't have Chytrid, they could be carrying other pathogens that you don't want to release into the local environment.

For more info on Chytrid and treatment, there's a really good thread from Dendroboard, though it's a little dated as far as info on testing equipment and labs; very informative otherwise. http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/gen...c-chytrid.html ((I hope it's okay for me to post that here.)

[irThumper]

Excellent info, Crunchy. I went looking for Lamasil AT yesterday but apparently the pump action spray is no longer available All they had was the aerosol spray, which is unable to be measured for dose and contains ether, and the cream which contains different alcohols. I wound up buying Micatin (Miconazole 2%) cream but the vet said only to use it on Pole Bean. It's not likely he's going to make it so we have nothing to lose with him, the poor guy

[Crunchy Frog]

Lisa, I'm doing some research, and just did a little experiment just for you. As nearly as I can tell, the pump spray version was discontinued several years ago, and the Lamisil Continuous Spray is what people are using now. I actually did several treatments on a couple of my new Clown tree frogs that I thought might be showing symptoms, prior to getting the group tested (negative). I did the ten sprays in 200 mL of water, with a 5 minute bath, as recommended, and have seen absolutely no ill effects, and these are tiny (<2 grams), delicate, sickly, wc frogs.

The actual amount you are supposed to use is 1mL of the spray to 200mL water. As an experiment just now, I did ten sprays into a small Pyrex dish, and pulled up the resultant liquid with a 1mL syringe. It turned out to be a little bit over 1mL.

Please remember that whatever is in the spray, it is being diluted by 200 to 1. The recommendations that I've seen is that the cream not be used, as it can block the skin of the frog from being able to exchange gases or regulate fluids (since the skin is permeable).

I would strongly advise going ahead with the Lamisil AT spray, spraying it out into a container, and then using a syringe to measure out 1 mL (or you might want to do 2mL in 400mL water for a large frog like a White's). The only other suggestion that I've seen is that you let the solution sit for 5 minutes to let some of the inactive ingredients dissipate.

Here are a couple of threads that I found that may ease your mind.

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/gen...l-aerosol.html

http://talkto.thefrog.org/index.php?...20269&page=0#1

I'll try to find more links to post later.

[Krispy]

Holy guano... this is one of the most terrifying ailments in the trade i think ive ever seen

[k5MOW]

I am so sorry to hear about this.

Roger