Does PacMan clean itself?

[Beep617]

Le bud did this crazy thing today that I've never seen him do before. He likes to lay under the substrate almost directly under the red light, so the eco earth dries up and gets stuck to him. Occasionally I will drizzle a little water on him to moisten and loosen it. HOWEVER, today after eating he started moving all funny. First he made this loud squirty noise.. I thought he was urinating. But then he started bulging both sides of his stomach out, moving his back legs around (the ones I've practically never seen..!) rubbing his face with his front feet, and just wiggling around. Finally I noticed he was peeling off a layer of goo and dirt. Was he secreting something out of his skin to do this? A few minutes earlier it was all dry! I've noticed a slimey-dirty thing on him before. First time I noticed I thought he was sick. I certainly never noticed him pulling it off, either. I used forceps and helped him pull some off, and what he got-he ate. So am I just crazy and imagining things, or did I correctly interpret what he was doing?

[Louis Charles Bruckner]

He is shedding his skin.
Frogs normally eat their old skin.
I wouldn't peel any old skin off of him it might hurt him.
but a soak in water will help loosen it and it will come off by its self.

The frog does have a water bowl it can get into if it wants to?
Since I do weekly soaks for mine and he has never used the water bowl I took mine out.

[DVirginiana]

Yeah, he's just shedding. If he has a huge amount of dried substrate or it seems to be sticking, you can soak him or something. Mine is pretty chill, so if she has a bunch of dried substrate on her when she comes out of her burrow to shed I will very gently pour a little of her misting water over her back to get the larger chunks of it off (she's pretty calm and it doesn't seem to bother her at all).

[reptifrog]

yeah when I first got mine I noticed bits of skin that's came off that was still stuck to him but after a few days in the tank he was coated in eco earth due to burying himself but the next day it was out of its depression he made and had made another but not as deep about 5cm away from the old one ( I filled the old one back in, and now in the new one has buried its self again) and he looked really clean not one bit of eco earth on the top of him and I know he hasn't been in the bowl as it is still clean but haven't found no goo so he might of ate it

[Beep617]

Thanks! My first thought was the he was shedding, but from what I've read different places it seemed like shedding isn't very common. Plus, I thought it would have been dry and this was more gooey. He's done it a few times since I've had him a week or so before Christmas. Was the weird squirty sound part of the shed process? Or was he just making noise?

[Hypnotic]

Shedding is very common. I've seen some of my frogs wash themselves, especially my female who never bathes. So when I drop her into her waterdish, she takes a nice long bath, and the thing that's really amazing is that these fat frogs can reach their heads with the hind legs. They must be yoga masters.

[mchell43]

I love to watch Rolo shed so cute the way he opens his mouth and wiggle his back legs, its great !

[DesertHeat]

What a coincidence you posted this today! I just pulled out my phone to post that I got to watch Fergie shed for the first time tonight.

He didn't want to feed tonight, which isn't super unusual, he is easily constipated and when he gets backed up he won't eat. I checked his side and it felt like he had to go, but wasn't impacted, so I set him in his tub and left him alone for about 15 minutes.

When I came back he'd left a nice big poo in the tub and had hopped over to his favorite corner. I removed his tub to clean it and when I came back he was puffed up huge, almost like I'd done something to make him really mad.

I waited to put his tub back in and just sat and watched him. Pretty wild to watch, he did just what you described Beep, used his back legs to shift around his sides and belly then used his front legs to pull the skin up into his mouth.

I occasionally find pieces of shed skin in the water dish but this is the first time I've watched it happen from the beginning.

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