We've had her (not sure it is a her, but it works for now) since early winter when we found her in my mother in law's basement after she had some renovation done. Since we didn't know how long she'd gone without access to food and a good water source and with snow fast approaching, we made the decision to keep her. I've been regretting that choice ever since.

I cannot get her to stop eating her substrate. We started her off on cocofiber, and then potting soil, and now she's on peat moss. She's showing some overall signs of improvement (she had papery skin for months, but now she feels like a wild toad again) and her color and activity level has increased, but she's still eating substrate and becoming impacted on a constant basis. She is my first toad, but we've had a grey tree frog (found under similar circumstances) for two and a half years who is doing fantastic so she's not my first amphibian.

I have been feeding her out of her tank in a clean plastic container for months now. I dust everything, and a couple months back I started giving her a cricket with Rescue Cal Plus and Reptivite (have it mixed for a MBD gecko) once a week as well. She also has a UVB light. Meals are a mix of mealworms, superworms, waxworms, earthworms, crickets and calciworms. She has a large water dish with dechlorinated water that is changed daily that she can soak in.

She's not getting the substrate in her system from eating. She's deliberately swallowing it. And I'm not talking a small amount either! At any given time I'd say 1/4 to 1/2 of her mass is retained stool. She bloats up scary big (it's not air, she's solid) I have to soak her in a critter keeper for around an hour in warmish water to get her to go at least once a week, and when she does it's frighteningly huge. I've also noticed that she doesn't pee when picked up like every other toad I've ever touched has.

She goes from this:




To this after a soak. Look at the size of that stool!! It's solid soil. She is not being fed that much!




The photos above are a couple of months old and were taken a few days apart, but this is what I've been having to do with her for months now. In the image above, she was still retaining some stool. I soaked her again the next day and got almost the same amount out of her again.

This was taken last week after a good soak and poop. Her skin at least has gotten back to normal, but nothing else has:



And yes, she really is that red/orange!

Any ideas on why she might be doing this? Nutritional deficiency? I mean, she's a toad, it's not like I can put her on paper towels for the rest of her life! I'm very very tempted to dump her tank and replace everything with a chunk of the backyard instead. Give her something completely natural and see if it makes a difference?

I can't find anything about this anywhere - I've talked with several vets and several rehabbers and they've never heard of this happening before. The best anyone could suggest was swap it all out for moss, but I really worry about her becoming impacted from that instead as I know that's a real risk. I'd even be fine with putting her back outside (we're in Ohio if that makes a difference) if it's the best thing for her. I have always been told though when taking wildlife from this area that they can't go back outside if they've been kept temperate through winter.