C.cornuta skinny and lack of appetite

[Hypnotic]

Lately he has been eating less to stopping, his eating was never fantastic since I've gotten him, 2-3 locusts per week. Now for the last week, he has completely stopped.
I also think he's looking really skinny compared to some of the other cornutas I've seen, and I've been considering force feeding for the past few days. I've found poop now and then, but only a rabbit sized pellet. So this makes me believe he has never eaten enough, and is always eating the bare minimum.
Note my temps are 28° during the day and 24 during the night, humidity 85%+-.
The frog is not handled at all and sees me to drop food and to change the water. In a medium traffic area but on a high shelf, so should not be botherd.
Should I wait and allow him to continu his minimal eating behaviour? Because my gut is telling me to go with a force fed mouse, just once. To see if I can't increase his appetite and digestion.
I've actually decided to give him a honey bath tonight, just to see if I can't jump start him a little, eventhough poop is not an issue.
Also note, I don't tong feed him, he absolutely does not respond to it, so I'm forced to set the prey free in his enclosure and recapture it in the morning. The enclosure size is 30x30x30.

[GrifTheGreat]

Lately he has been eating less to stopping, his eating was never fantastic since I've gotten him, 2-3 locusts per week. Now for the last week, he has completely stopped.
I also think he's looking really skinny compared to some of the other cornutas I've seen, and I've been considering force feeding for the past few days. I've found poop now and then, but only a rabbit sized pellet. So this makes me believe he has never eaten enough, and is always eating the bare minimum.
Note my temps are 28° during the day and 24 during the night, humidity 85%+-.
The frog is not handled at all and sees me to drop food and to change the water. In a medium traffic area but on a high shelf, so should not be botherd.
Should I wait and allow him to continu his minimal eating behaviour? Because my gut is telling me to go with a force fed mouse, just once. To see if I can't increase his appetite and digestion.
I've actually decided to give him a honey bath tonight, just to see if I can't jump start him a little, eventhough poop is not an issue.
Also note, I don't tong feed him, he absolutely does not respond to it, so I'm forced to set the prey free in his enclosure and recapture it in the morning. The enclosure size is 30x30x30.

Did you ever have a fecal exam performed to check for parasites?

Its time to buy some Repta Boost and give him a dose. Possibly setup a Vet visit and get a fecal exam done if you haven't already.

Fill out the trouble on the enclosure questions.

[Hypnotic]

1. Size of enclosure 30x30x30 (11.8x11.8x11.8) (Kept him smaller, moved him to this one today)
2. # of inhabitants - specifically other frogs and size differences Only him
3. Humidity 85%
4. Temperature 28° day, 24° night time
5. Water - type - for both misting and soaking dish Dechlorinated tap, reptisafe
6. Materials used for substrate Eco-earth
7. Enclosure set up i.e. plants (live or artificial), wood, bark and other materials. 3 sides taped off with jungle paper, exo-terra waterdish, a giant plant in the middle that hangs on the sides.
- How were things prepared prior to being put into the viv. Always scrub out the enclosure, do the eco-earth with dechlorinated water.
8. Main food source Store told me it's used to locusts, so have only attempted locusts so far.
9. Vitamins and calcium? (how often) Calcium 3x a week, multivitamines 1x a week, but it's hard to control the intake with the irregular eating.
10. Lighting Small led light shining from above, 12 hours a day.
11. What is being used to maintain the temperature of the enclosure UTH, on the side of the enclosure.
12. When is the last time he/she ate Week ago.
13. Have you found poop lately Yes, but only rabbit sized pellets since I've gotten him/her.
14. A pic would be helpful including frog and enclosure (any including cell phone pic is fine) Attached below.
15. How old is the frog No idea.
16. How long have you owned him/her +- 3 weeks.
17. Is the frog wild caught or captive bred Assuming wildcaught.
18. Frog food- how often and if it is diverse, what other feeders are used as treats Not diverse at all, wanted to get him eating on the main staple they provided him, locusts. Offerd daily.
19. How often the frog is handled In the 3 weeks I've owned him, I've handled him twice. Once to add him to his setup, and today to relocate him to a new setup.
20. Is the enclosure kept in a high or low traffic area Medium traffic, but it shouldn't bother him, he's on a high shelf and in a private room.
21. Describe enclosure maintenance (water changes, cleaning, etc) Daily : waterchanges and offering food and removing uneaten food, spotcleaning. Full clean once a month.

I'd also like to add, the store told me a fecal was done, I don't mind doing another one, but it's a pretty respectable store.I could try offering a mix of food tonight, dubias, locusts and some crickets.
And I could also try offering a mouse tomorrow, but since he's not tong trained and refuses any kind of it, I would have to drop it in live and that's what woudl bother me the most.Also, I haven't seen reptaboost anywhere around here, so I'd assumingly have to order it online and it will take some weeks to get here, so would there be an alternate solution I could consider?



Edit: I've looked repta boost up and I'm unable to get it here, Ebay and amazon won't ship it to Belgium and petco charges 30$ for shipping alone.

[Hypnotic]

A small update, it seems one of the dubias has allready dissapeared. So he has eaten something, I'm hoping by the time I wake up tomorrow, more will be missing.
I'm curious if it was the change of enviroment, the food variety or the honey bath boost that triggered this. Or perhaps the combination of several. I'l keep offering a variety of food daily from now on, and see if the situation improves even more. If anyone from Europe has a good tip on how to get some flukers repta boost, I'd greatly appreaciate it!

[GrifTheGreat]

A small update, it seems one of the dubias has allready dissapeared. So he has eaten something, I'm hoping by the time I wake up tomorrow, more will be missing.
I'm curious if it was the change of enviroment, the food variety or the honey bath boost that triggered this. Or perhaps the combination of several. I'l keep offering a variety of food daily from now on, and see if the situation improves even more. If anyone from Europe has a good tip on how to get some flukers repta boost, I'd greatly appreaciate it!

Dubia burrow so this is probably the problem.

[mpmackenna]

I would try an earthworm with tongs. You may have to annoy the **** out of him until he bites it in frustration. This technique while not ideal does work. There is an ivory reptiles tong feeding 102 video on YouTube. That may help if you haven't seen it.


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[mpmackenna]

Here is the video... http://youtu.be/QzaDYHwzcK4


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[danfrog]

5 cm is pretty small still. I think your cornuta might be captive bred. Either that or the little guy has had a long journey. I would try the mouse thing. I would offer live pinkys to trigger a feeding response. Would also offer several over the next couple weeks to fatten the little guy up. Sorry your little dude is being stubborn. I know coruntas can be a pain with feeding.

[Hypnotic]

Thanks for all the advice guys! Grif, I don't think the dubia has burrowed yet, I tucked the substrate pretty tight and it hassn't been in there for that long. But I will keep it in mind, and when I give it a check tomorrow morning, I'm hoping to see more missing then just a dubia. I'l definately pick up some nightcrawlers and mice, I do want to get him some nice fatty mice inside of him, hoping I can fatten him up and make him crave food a little more.
We'll see how tomorrow night goes, I'l be sure to post an update.

[Lija]

Right..... Remind me of someone here. Both the way he eats and colour too, I say they're twins! But mine is unicorn lol and screams at me once in a while.

anyhow, look I don't have much experience with cornutas, I have just one. Mine eats randomly and always you need to ask very nicely, meaning rub his lips quite a bit, then that lazy stubborn dude may take it and then will sit and hold in his mouth for what it seems forever. 5cm is what 2,5"? Then exactly like mine, it is about right size for a boys, but he does look skinny. Try to convince him that he needs to eat
by the way mine will never go for big prey, I might try one day pinky, but I don't think it will work, pacman food balls has to be small in order for him to eat.

[CHiNO]

good thing my was CB, eating like a champ. i feed it nightcrawler pieces, it had no interest in crickets or other small insects. try using some sliversides(fish).

[Hypnotic]

Yeah, it seems the wild caught ones are really picky eaters. 5 cm is about 1.9". I've actually talked to some people and decided to drop in a pinky tonight, hope it dissapears. I'm steering clear of fish as a concioce choise. I'd only trust fish if I bred them myself, and I'm not going into that. I don't need an extra terrarium right now.

[Hypnotic]

I've given him some more time, but tonight I felt it was time for decisive action. I've tryed to feed him with my tongs in his enclosure, this failed. He kept turning around, making it impossible to keep teasing him with his prey, but I saw his mouth open on a few occasions, so I decided to up the level of manipulation.
I've then placed him in a feeding enclosure and noticed he was biting down, but spitting the locusts back out when he felt the legs... So I removed the legs. And these following pictures, fill me with INTENSE JOY and a clear message to switch to nightcrawlers. This week I will be exchanging my staple from locusts to nightcrawlers, I've also had this duscussion with a vet earlyer this week, and offcourse all of your advice.
The vet even gave me a few syringes along, for the difficult eaters. He told me that if I have picky eaters that spit them back out dusted, I should mix up a little water/supplement mixture and inject a little of it into the nightcrawlers. I'd love to hear some opinions and experiences on injecting feeders with supplements and maybe someone allready has some experience on the subject?
Either way, I'm beyond happy that I finally got my cornuta to eat. I plan to offer food every other day, since he allready showed me a clear signal (pushing my tongs away) to note that he was full, or done with me atleast.
He ate 2 locusts tonight!
I have to admit, he din'd seem to be trying to eat, more trying to bite whatever was tormenting him, I kept it up for 15 minutes, untill he started swatting my tongs away with his paw, I took that as a sign of "I'm full".