Help! Sick toad
by
, January 4th, 2017 at 04:36 PM (4484 Views)
Hello,
I have been an American toad owner for 10 years. Recently an unknown disease/illness has invaded my terrarium causing one of my oldest females to pass. My male is now showing the symptoms she had shown. I separated him and cleaned the tank to avoid further spreading. I love these toads so much, losing my female was heartbreaking. I will do anything to prevent it from happening again. I have tried seeing a vet but even he did not know what to do. I have called conservation places, zoos, reptillia, pet stores and tried to reach out to other herp lovers. I can't seem to find any help.
I was wondering if there's any possibility that you may know what could be wrong with my toads. I will list the symptoms here:
-first I noticed abnormal brown spots on the lower belly (near the drinking patch) never had I seen these spots before.
- agitation of the skin. ( they constantly rub their belly )
- soon the skin feels thicker or like its dying. The toad constantly shedding their skin. - the shedding is crazy and often I found my female with loose dead skin on her belly (no bleeding or sores)
-when in water I noticed the belly moving abnormally as if something were crawling inside of her (weird muscle contractions perhaps?)
-she got skinny super fast (appetite wasn't lost till later on)
-she seemed to act normal.
-appetite loss
- seemed extremely agitated when touched or picked up (this was unusual, as she loved to be picked up)
-near the end her mouth was extremely white on the inside, her tongue looked pale and dehydrated.
-slow breathing (looked like gasping or struggling to breath)
-when she died she looked like she was trying to swallow something. This was the first time I had seen a toad pass so I'm not sure if that's normal when they go or if it may have been apart of the sickness.
Please, any help would be amazing! I love these toads so so much and it's heartbreaking not being able to do anything to help them.
Thank you so much for reading this, I appreciate it very much!