Why did my toad die?

[LizardMama]

March 30th, I caught a female toad. From then to a few days ago she was fine, eating and pooing well. A few days ago, like right after another toad(let) died she stopped eating. I thought that she was just on a hunger break, still very round. Well today she acted like she wanted to go in the water so I picked her up and put her in the water then left the room. When I returned about 10 minutes later she was all sprawled out, dead. What killed my frog? The temp in the tank is 80 degrees, humidity is 60-70%, they have a water dish with fresh de-chlorified water, the soil in the tank is cocofiber. She, and the other babies in the tank, got calcium dusted crickets every day. I don't know how old she was, all I know was that at the start of the week she was fine then she stopped eating and now she's dead. :-(

[nicodimus22]

The same thing happened to me last year. Basically it comes down to this: No matter how good your care is, sometimes they just die. Nature doesn't exactly go for quality with toads...a pair of them will produce hundreds of offspring, and usually only a handful of them live to adulthood. There is no quality control, and genetic defects are common. You can improve their chances of survival by taking out the predation/starvation challenges they would face in the wild, but they still could have plenty go wrong. If it was an adult toad, it may have already had a heavy parasite load, been exposed to pesticides with long-term consequences, etc before you came along.

Don't beat yourself up over it, it happens to all of us. Heck, right now, out of my original 3 toadlets, one is dead for no apparent reason, one is going downhill almost a year later (and I'm force-feeding) and one is OK. All three have had good care, and it looks like only one may survive to adulthood. It's just a roll of the dice.

[LizardMama]

Honestly this is my 3rd frog death, the first was a Cricket Frog. One minute I was taking a pic of it the next I looked up and it was upside down in the water (earlier a Fowler had hopped on it so..??), the second was one of my baby Fowler's Toads and now it's my only adult female Fowler's Toad. 2 weeks ago I did have a catastrophe, my father killed 2 of my Fowler's (purposely, long story). I'm now concerned about the 3 toadlets that I have now. I believe one is an American Toad (no dark mark on chest) while the other two are very much Fowler's, the smaller of my Toadlets worries me more because he/she,although is active, looks like he/she needs to shed. The skin looks like its right tight on it.