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?

[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.

[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]

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

[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... 😂