I've never ever dusted before until last night. I just got a new pac man and the peeps over on that board said dusting is best even for my two trees. But after Hellen, my wild caught Grey, ate several of them she started acting lethargic and, well, drunk.
She stumbled around and when I picked her up to get a good look at her her eyes were only half open and almost blurry (like a drunk person). This morning when I checked on her she was sitting there opening and closing her mouth and had goo on either side of her mouth mixed with the dirt from her substrate and she was still acting off.
I havn't seen Percy, my store bought green whos never had dusted crickets either cuse the pet store dosn't dust, eat any so I'm thinking of taking the rest of the crickets out before she can. And I'm thinking of taking them away from my pac too.
The dust I got was Flukers Calcium with Vitamin D3 (the stuff I was told to get).
If I dont feed her any more dusted crickets will Hellen be ok or should I be concerned?
Either way I'm taking the powder back to the store and not dusting again. I gut load my crickets with calcium and vitamin fortified food and water gel before the babies eat them and thats worked so far. I think we'll go back to that....
Just an update. I went into work (I work at a petsmart) and talk to our resident frog lady and she thinks that the container was messed with and contaminated by something. We carry another brand of Calcium dust (Repto something or other) so I think I'll pick up a container of that latter this week.
Thanks for everyone who read this and for trying to think of anything it could have been. I'd suggest if you use the same brand of calcium powder and you bought a container of it recently in the central illinois area you should keep an eye on your own frogs just in case mine wasn't the only one contaminated.
I don't know about the acting drunk bit, but the half open eyes sometimes happens after eating. All eyelids close on attack and the clear one doesn't always open fully right away.
This sounds like normal shedding behavior. The 'goo' is her skin that she's shedding, it bunches up on the side of her mouth as she's eating it (frogs like to recycle). The substrate mixed in was already on her skin and goes along for the ride. The opening and closing of the mouth is sucking the skin in. She may have also puffed up like a balloon and squirmed from side to side to loosen the skin and ease the process along.
Hope all is well and if you powder was contaminated that they can figure out with what and how it happened.
What did I just read...
Like Brian explained, the mouth-opening and the goo sounds like perfectly normal shedding behavior, so no worries there.
I would not stop dusting, since the powders contain much of the goodness the frogs need. If you really want to, exchange that specific batch of powder (which it sounds like you already did).
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