Stressed/nervous frogs.

[irThumper]

Hi everyone,
we have two WTFs that we have had for two months now. Two weeks after picking them up we took them to the vet who after doing a fecal sample treated them for protoza and then dropped the bombshell that they had lung worms, a pretty bad case of it. (He assures me that the amount they had means we brought them home with it, as I was pretty upset that i could have been our fault)

It was decided that we would wait until they got bigger/heavier to start treating them as 1 weighed 9 grams and other 15 grams.
So I started feeding them everyday(on advice of the vet), making sure that I placed the locusts (this is what they were fed in the shop and so they will not entertain crickets) infront of the little one as otherwise the larger one seemed to beat him to it everytime.

Now my problem is that I have to phone the vets with the weights each week. I don't normally handle the frogs and so getting them out for this is starting to stress them to the point that when i open the doors to feed them they go and hide. This isn't a problem for the larger one who is prety good at launching himself across the tank and still catching the food he is going for, but little one isn't so great at this. They are both putting weight on, but now its getting to the point were if you even go near the tank the little one especially will jump away and hide.

I don't want to stress them anymore than I have to but they need weighing so that we can hopefully start treatment soon. I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas/tips to make it less stressful for them?

Thanks in advance.

Welcome to FrogForum, Bee Sorry your froggles aren't well

Could you answer the questions in this post? http://www.frogforum.net/tree-frogs/...enclosure.html It would really help us to make an informed decision and give you the best answer we can, thanks!

Here are a few questions I have in addition:

--Where did you purchased your froggles?
--How old/what size they were when you got them?
--What kind of protozoans did the vet say your frogs had?
--What did he treat them with for the protozoa? How was it given/how much per frog?

I'm a bit stymied about why the vet decided to wait to treat for lungworm, especially if it is "severe"?? And yet your frogs are gaining weight and seeming to thrive otherwise? I wouldn't think that 9 and 15 grams would be too small to treat... he did give them an anti-protozoal medication after all. I started medicating my frogs when they were 5, 7, 9 and 11 grams respectively; the smallest dose of medication (Metronidazole, which is an antibiotic/anti-protozoal) was 0.02ml. I believe the most common medication for lungworm is ivermectin or fenbendazole (Panacur), your frogs should be able to receive medication now. I also fed my frogs daily throughout their medication when they were juveniles/sub-adults; they are now young adults and still are fed daily (sometimes every other day if they had a big meal previously), I generally feed 3-4 food items one day and one food item the next day and repeat. If I give something like earthworm I will skip the next days feeding to give it more time to digest.

As for the frogs being scared of being handled and being stressed, there's only one way to fix that-- and I know not everyone will agree-- you have to handle them more and habituate them to it. Now, I don't mean excessively, or for extended periods of time, but when you have to weigh frogs, and examine frogs, or transport frogs from their tank for cleaning, eating (if you feed in a separate enclosure), or to take to the vet you want them to remain as calm as possible. Yes, all these things will stress them more... but if a frog is used to being handled GENTLY, and learns nothing bad will come of this, then they will in time calm down. Now the caveat here is that some frogs just have a flighty disposition and may never really calm down and get used to it (I have a couple like that!) but most White's tree frogs will. Before I explain further can you tell me HOW you handle your frogs? How do you capture them to weight them, and what is the process you use to weigh them? This could make a big difference in the success, or lack thereof, you have been having so far. Hopefully we'll be able to get them to the point where you can at least get them out successfully for their weighing and treatments