One of my housemates discovered a 3in Cuban Tree Frog in the garage around noon EST today. I was at work, so I only just got the full story, and being the animal person in the house, its up to me to decide what to do with it.
It would appear that some of the organs - they seem to be intestine, mostly long, thin, and pale pink - are protruding from the anus, however they don't seem "inverted" - there is no blood, it does not seem to be harming the frog, and they aren't really going anywhere; or at least they haven't moved or extended farther out of the body than they were earlier, according to everyone else. There is one section of what appears to be intestines that is swollen and dark red on the inside. It is almost shaped like a human kidney. I thought at first that he may have been stepped on, but after gently prodding his back/sides/belly/legs, he does not seem to show any signs of being bothered by a broken bone or anything.
I know that they're invasive and destructive and its probably not worth it to write about since most would probably recommend humane euthanasia anywhay, but he is very tame and does not mind being held. I would really like to keep it if this issue can be corrected.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what might be going on? I will try and get a picture up soon. I am going to call a couple of local vet offices tomorrow and see if they will take a look at it, and how much they would charge to do so :\ Luckily there is one in town that specializes in reptiles and amphibians.
Last edited by dinofsilence; January 15th, 2010 at 08:33 PM. Reason: corrected to use the proper scientific term. XD
This is called a prolapse. The diagnosis for one this bad is very bleak - that frog is a dead frog hopping. A vet may be able to push the prolapsed tissue back inside the frog but even then it's unlikely the frog will make it. I would not attempt it yourself.
Founder of Frogforum.net (2008) and Caudata.org (2001)
Just took another look at him after posting and noticed the red bulge had enlarged and fecal matter and a few small white objects - disc-shaped and about the size of a large grain of sand - visible through the membrane. I located a resource that suggested soaking the frog in a lukewarm bath of clean dechlorinated water mixed with sugar to leech out fluids. He's now been soaking for about 20-25 minutes and the swelling has gone down significantly! There is still about 1/4 of an inch of organ sticking out, but I hope the problem will resolve itself.
Thank you for your post, John - I could have kicked myself when I read your response. I took a class on reptiles/amphibians and you'd never know to talk to me - I forgot just about everything, but I should definitely have remembered that term.
I am fully aware he may take a turn for the worse, but I'm still hopeful ;)
Any news on the tree frog?
I took him in to the vet the next morning. The prolapse had worsened again overnight. The vet examined him while I was at work..he left a message on the answering machine saying that the problem would have been rectified by the warm water bath, but he continued to strain to defecate. Apparently he had ingested another frog that was too large to digest properly, and was passing undigested bits. The vet euthanized him for me.
A sad end. There are plenty more though where that one came from.
Founder of Frogforum.net (2008) and Caudata.org (2001)
It's surprising to me that the "I ate too much so I died" issue is a problem in the wild. You'd think natural selection would have taught frogs over the course of millions of years what is the safe size of a meal. The costs of evolving a neural 'measuring stick' can't be THAT great, given that all frogs do it to some extent...
Well aside from the fact that this happens, Cuban Tree Frogs are not native to Florida so they may have attentional "learning" to do.
Founder of Frogforum.net (2008) and Caudata.org (2001)
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