I came home this morning and found Sharky had, what seems to me to be a prolapse! I've never had this happen before (well, this is the first time I've kept this species) and have no idea what to do! He doesn't have much of his intestines sticking out...but I need to know what to do before something bad happens to him!
im not sure but i think it involved applying honey water to the butthole of the animal with a q-tip. A quick search for prolapse on the forum should give ya some good advice.
...ok, found a better one. soak the frog in a sugar water solution, preferably with honey, for a couple hours. This is in the case that it was caused by straining out a monster turd or an impaction (hope ya dont use gravel or rocks, they can eat pretty big rocks)
If there is reason to beleive that it is protozoan related, then use a unflavored pedialyte solution to soak in.
If that doesnt cause the animals anal wall to retract and suck the guts back inside its butthole, see a vet.
Prolapse is a sign of a diet that is very lacking in calcium.. the pelvis bone weakens and it does not hold in the intestines properly.
Thats not entirely accurate, it can happen from taking a massive deuce, from having an impaction, or even from intestinal parasites. Ive never heard of it being MBD related.
Unless the frog shows other signs of MBD, such as misshapen jaw, legs, back or yes, pelvis, then I doubt its a MBD related prolapse.
On a side note, at least a small prolapse is fixable. My Budgetts Frog has a hernia which probably wont harm it, but i have no where to take it to get surgery done.
If you got rocks in the terrarium, take them out. If you are feeding the frog huge meals, try smaller food items. If his poops are runny, get a fecal test done.
Prepare a bath of Luke warm de-chlorinated water with 4 drops of honey dissolved in the bath. Soak for 20 minutes or until swelling recedes. You can use a Q-tip to gently place the prolapse back in when swelling has receded.
I'd like to play devils advocate here and entertain the possibility of a calcium deficiency.
I realize that it can be hard to administer calcium supllements to an aquatic frog, so what do you feed your frog? Do you use supllements?
I feed mine primarily fish, pacman food and nightcrawlers. With the pacman food, I dont have to worry about adding supplements. But this thing eats like an african bullfrog (and I have an african bullfrog coming tommorow) so Im thinking of trying the Mazuri carnivorous amphibian gel which is $32 for 2.2 lbs, as opposed to Pacman food, which is about $14 for a 4oz bag. Im also looking into the repashy meat pie fish gels and carnivoprous reptile gels.
Not saying that lack of calcium is only one of the possible causes, probably one of many like you're pointed out.
Thanks everyone for the replies! I thought I remembered reading about they honey soaks. I will try that and see if it helps him.
I just recently removed his rocks. They were pond rocks...the same size as him, if not bigger. I also took out his filter because the splashing of the water at night was driving me insane. So, I replaced that with a bubbler. The only other thing in his enclosure are two pieces of drift wood he favors hiding under.
I feed him crickets, dubia roaches & nightcrawlers. I do dust his items and tong feed him. He jumps out of the water to grab his food, so it doesn't wash off in the water. If I mixed some of the calcium powder in the water would it help any...?
It may if you buy the liquid calcium, but of course he needs Vitamin D3 also which you can get a calcium powder that used D3 to properly metabolize the calcium to his bones. It has been done to treat frogs with calcium deficiencies, but in an individual medicated bath not the water the frog lives in.
It should bring the swelling down. Once its back in don't feed him for a few days to make sure all is well and when you do feed him again make sure to only use night crawlers until after his next poop to make sure everything is working properly and he doesn't get another prolapse. This way he is passing something soft.
I put him back in his enclosure and he went straight to his driftwood to hide. Poor guy. I'm thinking it's a male? I'm not sure how to tell the gender of a Budgetts. I see like...what I think are like nupital (sp?) pads, but they are on the back feet instead of the front. Not sure if that's what they even are? Anyways...He is definitely of excellent weight...maybe a little chubby as I tend to overfeed. >_<
You can dissolve raw honey into the bath. Usually the bath is used to help the frog with constipation and impaction. It can provide a temporary energy boost and honey does have some antiallergen and antibacterial properties, but isn't really used for much more of a benefit other than to help reduce swelling in prolapse in place of sugar and assist in them using the bathroom.
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