Sick Couch's Spadefoot

[brianlevario]

Hello all!

I am very happy I stumbled upon this site on my searchings because my partner and I are in need of some assistance!

During our last monsoon season, we managed to save about 100 tadpole eggs of Couch's spadefoot toads. We were eventually left with about 10 little toadlets who are now dropping one by one. They get very vividly colored green and blue and then just shrivel up and pass away. We are both very distressed about this and are wondering what kind of illness it could be? I read somewhere Sepsis, but if this is the case how can we treat and prevent it before another of the little guys get sick?

Thanks!

-Brian

[Yusil]

Hi

It's awesome you have the heart to try and help out some creatures in need.

Before we even get into diagnosing anything, perhaps you should look at what you are doing or maybe what you're not doing in regards to care of the Toads/Toadlets.

What are you feeding them? And are they supposed to eat what you're giving them? Is what you're giving them Nutritious?
How is the water quality? Is there too much/too little water? How often do you change the water, if any?

You should ask yourself questions along these lines, before you start to worry about disease, although, it seems that may be the problem. Disease in a tank, is bound to be communal on some level, so it may be best to either seperate the Toadlets or, and this is unfortunate, remove the sick ones or the ones you believe are sick and only keep the healthy ones.

Clean their entire enclosure, everything they've touched or come into contact with, wash it[not with detergents]. This way, if there was a communal illness in the tank, atleast most, if not all of it would be removed.

But if this is a genetic thing, then you may have to look into seeing a vet, or atleast someone with sufficient knowledge in dealing with diseases in animals, particularly frogs/toads.

Also, stress is a big factor in regards to illness, so perhaps having so many toadlets in one tank is stressing them out, and is in turn spreading to the other toadlets, or something has happened to stress them out.

I don't know a whole lot about the Toads you have, but you should generally try to back-track and go over what it is that changed and what can you do to fix it. As you are the one who has had them, so should be monitoring their development/care. I find back-tracking a useful tool, I even keep a small notepad for writing changes down.

Hopefully someone with more knowledge can help you more. It may be Sepsis. I know a bit about Animal Medicine, but I'm not familiar with everything, so perhaps someone else may know.

Keep us posted!

[lindsayshocking]

Hello there!

I keep many different types of Spadefoots, and have for years. How do you house the spadefoots? I've found that they can get stressed out easily. Couch's Spadefoots can be social, but sometimes they hate living with others. I had to move a female to her own cage because it seemed like she was getting very sick, but once she was on her own she was fine. Also, spadefoots NEED to have ample burrowing space. When they feel threatened, they try to burrow away from the threat, and if they can't burrow, that makes it worse.