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Thread: Help! Bumblebee toad not eating or responding to any treatment - losing weight quick!

  1. #1
    humessea
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    Exclamation Help! Bumblebee toad not eating or responding to any treatment - losing weight quick!

    Hey Guys,

    well this is my last ditch effort to try to get some advice or possibly do something different that I may have overlooked.

    Since I am new to the forums, I will give everyone a quick background. My wife is a frog nut, and we currently take care of a ton of exotic frogs, including red eye tree frogs, fire belly toads, big eyes, golden eye tree frog, and finally one of my favorites, a bumblebee toad (that we call Mr. Bumblebee, even though we have no idea if it is a girl or boy!). Just recently my wife has successfully breed the red eye tree frogs for the first time, and nursed them into little froggies (she has kept a few, but sold the rest to a local, pet store owner who is a friend and deals with exotic pets). So this kind of gives you insight that she is not your normal, run of the mill beginner when it comes to frogs, and in general all the frogs remain healthy and active and we really haven't had any problems.

    Unfortunately we have hit a brick wall with the bumblebee toad, and it seems like we have tried everything with no success. She has had him for over three years, so he is in his adulthood, and normally he is a very active, FAT bumblebee toad with no problems. Just recently he has slowly been losing weight, and I woke up today to find him the skinniest I have ever seen. He doesn't seem to have much interest in the fruit flies nor pin head crickets we gracious fill his cage with (and yes we do dust them with calcium powder and try to give him gut-loaded when we can) and when he does seem to want to try to eat, it doesn't seem like his tongue is actually "grabbing" the food (not sticky enough?). I am sure by now he is very weakened due to eating nothing to very little, and we think he might have pooped maybe once, but it's hard to tell with such a small creature. We have both read every post out there, ranging from vitamin deficiencies to humidity problems. We started to soak him in a vitamin rich bath a couple of days ago, which seem to spurt a bit of action, but still no signs of eating, which is troubling considering this guy ate ALOT before. We also raised his humidity up to the 80% range hoping it would help with the "wetness" of his tongue (it was down around 65%-75% 4-5 days ago). We also noticed his skin is rather shinny the other day, and when we soaked him, it seemed like it helped in him shedding his skin; so we thought maybe he was just shedding his skin, and would return to normal. No luck on that though, as it's been two days since then and again, he is the skinniest I have ever seen him this morning. The fruit flies and crickets just seem to ignore him and crawl all over him, and he stays pretty stationary (which is very frustrating considering how skinny he is, eat dude!). I love this guy, he is definitely my favorite, and my wife is much attached. I have never seen her go wrong in the care she gives these animals and this is very frustrating for her considering the toad has flourished up until now (and all the other frogs she cares for). We continue to soak him each day in the vitamin rich bath for roughly 10-15 minutes, and try to keep handling down to a minimum in his thinned and weakened state. She had also tried to put him in a seperate small container with crickets/fruit flies to see if he was just having issues in the cage we have him in, and although he tried a few times, again it didn't seem like the tongue connected. I think at this point he has almost given up, and I don't know what to do from here. Access to the food is definitely not a problem, as we put plenty of crickets and/or fruit flies and they are crawling all around him. One side note and this is kind of a tangent, but it made me think; there is a plant that has been in his cage for a long time, and he hasn't had any issues. Well the plant is definitely in the stages of dying, and is pretty "dried" up - could that be causing any issues, or releasing anything that would harm him? It seems pretty far-fetched, but I know these guys are very sensitive. The temperature stays around 72-78 degrees, along with the humidity staying around 70-80% (again we heard it was good to raise the humidity when they were having "stickiness" issues with their tongues and to also help the skin shedding process). The cage is plenty big, I believe a ~5 gallon with just him in it, but I would have to confirm with my wife, who is not here at the moment.

    I apologize for the long post, but I figured the more thorough, the better. I will also post pictures when my phone is charged enough to take off the charger and I can get them on the computer, shouldn't be any longer than a couple of hours. Until then, I figure it's best to post this and see if anyone has had similar issues or any ideas. I realize that the help received from this forum isn't a "vet" say, and no one is responsible for anything that happens. Any insight would be greatly appreciated, since I believe if we do not get him to eat, he won't have much longer.

    Thanks,
    Sean
    Last edited by humessea; March 23rd, 2013 at 09:38 AM.

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  3. #2
    humessea
    Guest

    Default Re: Help! Bumblebee toad not eating or responding to any treatment - losing weight quick!

    Here are some pictures.. I did my best and I am posting the best ones, however if anyone feels like they need better just tell me and I will take him out of his cage for a photo shoot. (I avoided it right now, just because I am trying to handle him as little as possible)

    Pictures of Mr. Bumblebee:

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  4. #3
    humessea
    Guest

    Default Re: Help! Bumblebee toad not eating or responding to any treatment - losing weight quick!

    Here are some pictures of his cage:

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  5. #4
    humessea
    Guest

    Default Re: Help! Bumblebee toad not eating or responding to any treatment - losing weight quick!

    We have lost Mr. Bumblebee. Unfortunately there wasn't much else we could do for him, and he slowly slipped away a few minutes ago. Thank you for all the help, he (my wife tells me it was a she, but I don't care either way I loved em') will be remembered as our favorite and beloved bumblebee toad.

    RIP

    Sean

  6. #5
    100+ Post Member tinkgirl77's Avatar
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    Default Re: Help! Bumblebee toad not eating or responding to any treatment - losing weight quick!

    Sean, I am so sorry for your loss and so sorry that no one chimed in to help. It sucks so much to lose a pet even as small as herps are. They make such an impression on us.

    .:* Lisa *:.
    laissez le bon temps roulet! :-)

    1.2.2 Agalychnis calidryas - Felix Felicis, Wall-E,Eva, Mike & Sull
    0.0.2 Canis lupus familiaris (Italian greyhounds) - Zaffira & Aurora
    1.0.0 My own personal prince charming (husband edition): Beau



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