Won't eat worms anymore?

[Poly]

My large american toad Bufo used to LOVE worms, but now I throw down a worm, and he acts like it's not even there, but give him a cricket, beetle or small fuzzy, and it's gone!

How can I get him eating worms again? He won't feed off forceps, and will only feed in his viv?

The other toad, Bruce, simply will starve before he will eat a worm, about a month ago, I had to ration my crickets because I couldn't get any for 2 weeks (I had around 40 crickets) and I would cut up the nightcrawlers, put them in hole, in half, dangle them, nothing worked, wouldn't even try to eat one! He went down to a pretty skinny size, I tried to feed him a pinky too during that time, but all he wanted was crickets or fast moving insects, when my shipment of crickets FINALLY arrived, he ate 15 crickets.

Any tips on how to get them to eat worms again? I've got 300 nightcrawlers not getting eaten...

Here's Bufo:



And the picky, "if it's not moving very fast I won't eat it", eater Bruce:



Thanks!

~Royce

[kueluck]

I feel your frustration. I wish I had an answer for this but really don't. My guess is the season change, with shorter days this might trigger something. My toads won't eat from tweezers anymore either and I haven't seen them eat in several days. I leave pill bugs and a few small roaches in case they get hungry but I don't see them eat. They still poop and are chubby so they are eating something so at this point not to worried. How long have they gone without eating?

[Heatheranne]

Tank won't eat his worms recently either.

He is the same way.... Eats only what is running in his terrarium. He won't take anything from forceps.

[kueluck]

Maybe it's an amphibian conspiracy to worry mankind to death, then they can take over the world.

[Poly]

I feel your frustration. I wish I had an answer for this but really don't. My guess is the season change, with shorter days this might trigger something. My toads won't eat from tweezers anymore either and I haven't seen them eat in several days. I leave pill bugs and a few small roaches in case they get hungry but I don't see them eat. They still poop and are chubby so they are eating something so at this point not to worried. How long have they gone without eating?

Same thing here, I have to release the crickets into their vivarium, I'll still see them eat, but they do the majority of eating at night, it's like they've become less tame as they've gotten older, wanting to hunt and not be "fed". Like their going back to how they were in the wild, just in a spoiled way. Ha ha!

They eat fine as long as I feed them crickets, every second day I release 10-20 crickets into their viv.

[Poly]

Tank won't eat his worms recently either.

He is the same way.... Eats only what is running in his terrarium. He won't take anything from forceps.

Ahhh! NOO! Heather don't tell me that!!

My lil Tank is the only one right now eating the nightcrawlers... if he stops... lol

Did you start Tank off on nightcrawlers? The first thing I fed lil' Tank was a night crawler, and currently, that's all I feed him... NO crickets for now

Maybe it's an amphibian conspiracy to worry mankind to death, then they can take over the world.

Could very well be....

[UncleChester]

You can always try putting a few worms in a small dish and setting the crickets free to run around on top of them in the same dish.

Some worms (and I believe Nightcrawlers are included) can release a mucous that tastes bad (not harmful, just tastes bad). This might put your toads off, but doesn't really explain why one of them went from eating worms to ignoring them, unless he had a particularily foul tasting one. Rinsing the worm off might help, one of my treefrogs seems less likely to spit them out if I rinse them first (the others don't care).

[Deku]

My amphibians go crazy over worms... So not sure what would be going on but be persistant. Eventually they'll take to worms again. This is going to sound weird.... But if you want the worm to move alot try grabbing the worm and shaking him alot in your arms. Maybe itll work

[GrifTheGreat]

Well everyone I hate to tell you this and make it that much more frustrating but frogs and toads like people do get tired of one type of food if its fed to them very often. It happens. That's another reason why you feed them a variety rather than the same food item all the time. Your toad is trying to tell you"but dad I don't want to eat my worms anymore. Tired of the same thing. Heatheranne Tank just might be saying the same thing to his mommy.

[Mentat]

My ABF and Pacman are eating their night crawlers fine; but both are juveniles. I do rinse them in dechlorinated water and pat dry in paper towel before dusting. Did read before about the distasteful slime they exude from body.

[GrifTheGreat]

This is true but a lot of frogs don't mind the slime the worms secrete. They mainly secrete this substance to keem themselves moist and to help them travel through there tunnels easily. It does act as a slight defence but obviously not a very good one. Its mainly to defend against ants. And other biting insects. The same with slugs.

[Poly]

Well everyone I hate to tell you this and make it that much more frustrating but frogs and toads like people do get tired of one type of food if its fed to them very often. It happens. That's another reason why you feed them a variety rather than the same food item all the time. Your toad is trying to tell you"but dad I don't want to eat my worms anymore. Tired of the same thing. Heatheranne Tank just might be saying the same thing to his mommy.

Missed all the rest of these helpful replies.

See, that's the thing Grif, Bufo (the brown one), only ate worms (and crickets) for around 2 weeks, then crickets for another 3 weeks until I got more worms in, then he wouldn't even touch a worm after that. Bruce (the back one) never ate worms, from the time I got him, he wasn't the least bit interested in worms, and to this day, I try to get them to eat worms, and no luck whatsoever.

All they will eat is crickets!

Pinkies scare them, hoppers annoy them, they ignore worms, mealworms, wax worms, etc. The only other thing I can get them to eat are beetles or spiders, which I have to catch in the summer, as I cannot purchase them as a feeder. I'm at a loss of what to do...

[UncleChester]

Pinkies scare them, hoppers annoy them, they ignore worms, mealworms, wax worms, etc. The only other thing I can get them to eat are beetles or spiders, which I have to catch in the summer, as I cannot purchase them as a feeder. I'm at a loss of what to do...

Mealworms turn into beetles.

[Poly]

Mealworms turn into beetles.

Yeah, true... hmmm... how long does it take? How big do the beetles get? Thanks!

[GrifTheGreat]

Missed all the rest of these helpful replies.

See, that's the thing Grif, Bufo (the brown one), only ate worms (and crickets) for around 2 weeks, then crickets for another 3 weeks until I got more worms in, then he wouldn't even touch a worm after that. Bruce (the back one) never ate worms, from the time I got him, he wasn't the least bit interested in worms, and to this day, I try to get them to eat worms, and no luck whatsoever.

All they will eat is crickets!

Pinkies scare them, hoppers annoy them, they ignore worms, mealworms, wax worms, etc. The only other thing I can get them to eat are beetles or spiders, which I have to catch in the summer, as I cannot purchase them as a feeder. I'm at a loss of what to do...

Sometimes they become picky eaters for a short time. Are your toads wild caught? Sometimes they won't eat large prey. Grif gets picky about the size of the night crawlers I give her. And she's a pretty decent sized Cranwelli at a little over 4 in svl. The night crawlers I buy are very big though. They're about twice as long as Grif when stretched out maybe more. Loki likes them but ofcourse I have to cut them up for him. I keep thinking of new foods to try them on but just haven't got around to getting any. Maybe you happened to. Have some mighty tasty crickets this time.

[Wormwood]

If they get hungry enough they'll start to target anything including worms and meal worms. You might want to introduce some small meal worms in a deep ceramic dish while some crickets are running around. They will mistaken the movement for a cricket and might accidentally target them. That's how I slowly got my cane toads to eat earth worms, they wouldn't touch them but once that got used to them and how they move they are all over them now.

[UncleChester]

Yeah, true... hmmm... how long does it take? How big do the beetles get? Thanks!

From newly hatched mealworm larva to pupating takes 2-3 months depending on the temps, pupating to a beetle is 1-2 weeks. The beetles are shorter and fatter than a fully grown mealworm, but look to be about the same overall mass (I haven't tried weighing them yet though). They move at a decent speed, probably not as fast as a cricket but much faster than the mealworm larva.

[Squirp]

Sometimes the toads like the worms when they first wake up in the morning because they're chilly and their squirp bellies don't like climbing over things.

[asdf1234]

I'm in basically the opposite situation! I have 2 Gulf Coast Toads, Jim and Joyce. A few weeks ago, Jim completely stopped eating. I put a heat lamp on top of his enclosure to make it more like outside and now he'll only eat worms, but not more than 2 a day (he's a little skinny due to this). He just ignores crickets now. Joyce, on the other hand, won't touch worms! She'll eat super worms and crickets just fine though. Toads are weird... 😂