I found her floating lifeless upside down and bloated in her water dish this morning. Kind of a sad way to go and pretty unexpected given that she seemed all right up to this point.

She (and Waldo a male Gray) were my first frogs, from back in 2009. Fatty was full grown at the time, meaning she was probably at least 2 years old back then. So she made it to nearly 7 years (possibly more).

Yes, I took an adult female out of the 'wild' but I've no regrets. She was living in one of our greenhouses that prior to 2009 remained heated year round, effectively removing them from the breeding population (the females at least). We decided not to heat the greenhouse that winter and paint the interior. We kept kicking the frogs out in the fall to prepare for this but we found 6 after the snow had fallen and the ground had frozen- I took them in for the winter.

I already had a soft spot for Fatty- she had run into a cactus with fine prickles that summer and I spent a good hour or so with tweezers removing them from her head and hands. In retrospect, I should have had a picture of her cactus mohawk. As a result, she (and Waldo who has an irresistible charm), ended up being kept when it came time to release them the following spring.

She had a health setback in 2011, with a prolapsed cloaca that I managed to reinsert. It took her many months after that to put her weight back on, but eventually seemed to have recovered completely. I'm not really sure what finished her off, I've seen that bloating can be a sign of kidney failure or a bacterial infection (Waldo has been moved to another tank while I sterilize, just in case) but I'm also not sure if the bloating happened after she passed. I knew she'd been approaching the normal lifespan for a Gray, if she hadn't exceeded it already, but I really have no idea what frog old age looks like.

Normally, I bury any pet that passes. I'm thinking I might not be able to get a hole dug given the brutal cold we've been having, so she may be due for a cremation ceremony.

Sigh. She'll be missed. Not just by me, Waldo's main hobby was sitting close to her and loudly propositioning her. Fatty's main hobby was ignoring him.


RIP Fatty, 200?-2014

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