American toad distress call? (female)

[inging]

Hello and welcome to FF Inging! Well, the fact that you've put a "ton" of substrate in your toad enclosure and dropped 20 crickets once a week has me concerned about your enclosure, water source, and food sources. Please answer the below questions clearly so we can try to determine what if anything has to be changed. Also, here is link to the forum's Bufo care article: Frog Forum - Toad Basics - Keeping ground-dwelling Toads. A care sheet for Bufo, Anaxyrus, Spea, Scaphiopus, Ollotis, Alytes, Pelobates. Good luck !

“Trouble in the Frog Enclosure”
The following information will be very helpful if provided when requesting assistance with either your frog or enclosure. To help with your questions, please utilize the below list and post the information in the proper forum area to get advice from FF members that keep the same frog. This will allow for little confusion and a faster more informed response.


by Lynn(Flybyferns) and GrifTheGreat.

1. Size of enclosure: 30" x 18" x 12"

2. # of inhabitants: 1

3. Humidity: 45%

4. Temperature: 65F at night 70F during the day

5. Water: Rain water for both

6. Materials used for substrate: Coconut fiber, no sharp stuff, with a bunch of dry leaves on top

7. Enclosure set up: A few branches, a terra cotta pot (toad has only been inside it once or twice and abandoned it. Now it spends almost all of its time in a hole it burrowed underneath it), a glass dish
about 3" tall without much curvature

8. Main food source: Since 2weeks ago, just crickets. 2 weeks before, anything I found in my backyard, usually earth worms and pill bugs, occasionally slugs, grubs, grasshopper, etc

9. Vitamins and calcium? None so far

10. Lighting: Natural lighting. Sometimes I have my room lit up because I have to do stuff but I try my best to put things around where the toad is in the tank to create as much shadow as I can for it. I try my best to only use a light that is as far away and weak from the tank as possible

11. What is being used to maintain the temperature of the enclosure: Nothing. It's located in my bedroom

12. When is the last time he/she ate: 1-2 days ago

13. Have you found poop lately: No. The last time I saw poo was a month ago and it was huge. Sometime around then my boyfriend also has seen some smaller poop. But none in the past few weeks. It's hard to tell if it's pooping in the subsrate or not since the substrate goes up to 3-5" deep.

14. A pic would be helpful including frog and enclosure: This is what I have for now. My room is too dark to take a good picture of the tank so I'll do it tomorrow.


15. How old is the frog: Don't know

16. How long have you owned him/her: 2 months

17. Is the frog wild caught or captive bred: Wild

18. Frog food- how often and if it is diverse, what other feeders are used as treats: I used to catch different bugs every other day for it. Since it got too cold about 2 weeks ago I slowly went from a mixture of found bugs and crickets to only crickets from PetCo.

19. How often the frog is handled: I've only handled it twice in the past 2 months

20. Is the enclosure kept in a high or low traffic area: Medium to low? It's in my bedroom and there are usually 1-2 people in the room.

21. Describe enclosure maintenance (water changes, cleaning, etc): I change the water every few days. I don't think the toad is using it much, if at all. I haven't cleaned the tank so far.