Food refusal becoming serious

[Allthingswithscales]

Thanks cory! Bacterial infection is what I've been worried about the most and there's still some vets I could call. I'm about an hours drive from Chicago and if I can't find one here I'm sure there will be a reptile/amphibian/arachnid vet there.

[monster]

You should really change out the substrate, that could be part of the problem. You should really not go any longer then a month without changing it. For the light if the bulb over head isn't to bright it is totally fine, but if the room is lit up enough that his tank is lit up that is also usually enough. When I just had my albino I would just keep the room light on for the 12 hrs of day she needed and she would burrow during the day and then come back out night when the light went off like they are supposed to so I know that way works if you want to try that for some extra lighting. And this was actually suggested to me from a lot of the long time pacman keepers that used to come on here all the time back in the day, lots of people have seemed to have left the forum. If you try the 2 baths suggested I would do the honey bath first, make sure its pure honey like the good Billy Bee stuff. Then do the pedialyte bath because you can use that bath to rinse the honey off. Hope some of the suggestions through out the thread help.

[Allthingswithscales]

Excellent! Thanks again Cory! I'll be doing all of this!

[froghub]

Excellent! Thanks again Cory! I'll be doing all of this!

Yeah, lets us know i would suggest that since you're doing the honey baths change the substrat and do a deep cleaning in the terrarium to kill anything that might live in there other than the frog, then wash it really good with water before putting the frog in!
Try to get the new substrate a lot dryer than this one, as it seems to me a lot of water.
Also, if i were you i would give preference to live food only, and try to be sure how they're raised if you can, so this way you'll be sure that you're not feeding parasites to the poor guy.
You said that you've the top cover? You might get it a little bit open so the air circulates, you can close the grid but not all of it, you can cover 2/3. In mine i usually do 1/3 so there's no condesation in there, therefore some of the water in the substrate is able to evaporate and the risk of bacteria growing is less.
Nice frog you got there, hope he'll do better soon!

[Allthingswithscales]

Thanks so much Froghub! I really appreciate it! Everyone has been so helpful and I will do everything that I can I hope he'll actively respond to food by mid November.

[Sajuuk Khar]

This is my experience so please take this as a grain of salt, it may vary from others. I have the same type of frog carnwellie. He was an eating machine for the first 6 months (got him as a baby) and then slowly started eating less and less until l he stopped eating completely. I tried everything to get him to eat (warm baths, clean enclosure, turn up heat, different feeders ect ect) nothing worked. He started doing this around December so I though maybe the season change was the reason and he would start eating again by spring summer.

During those winter months, I was assist feeding him every 2 - 3 weeks so he would eat something. Its up to you if you want to do this or not. I did this because I thought he would never eat again on his own. Then come spring, he started staying on the surface instead of being underground all the time and started eating again on his own. So keep that in mind it could be seasonal?

Others say change the substrate once a month, I usually go 2 - 3 months between changes with no ill effects. I do however mix/churn the substrate every few weeks to mix it all together again, as they usually sit in one area and it would be contaminated and hardly touch the rest of the enclosure. Again its up to you as to how often to change, but changing it sooner is always better than leaving it.

If your frog is starting to lose weight, you may have to assist feed him. But this is not for everyone and if you are worried about hurting him then dont attempt it.

[monster]

This is my experience so please take this as a grain of salt, it may vary from others. I have the same type of frog carnwellie. He was an eating machine for the first 6 months (got him as a baby) and then slowly started eating less and less until l he stopped eating completely. I tried everything to get him to eat (warm baths, clean enclosure, turn up heat, different feeders ect ect) nothing worked. He started doing this around December so I though maybe the season change was the reason and he would start eating again by spring summer.

During those winter months, I was assist feeding him every 2 - 3 weeks so he would eat something. Its up to you if you want to do this or not. I did this because I thought he would never eat again on his own. Then come spring, he started staying on the surface instead of being underground all the time and started eating again on his own. So keep that in mind it could be seasonal?

Others say change the substrate once a month, I usually go 2 - 3 months between changes with no ill effects. I do however mix/churn the substrate every few weeks to mix it all together again, as they usually sit in one area and it would be contaminated and hardly touch the rest of the enclosure. Again its up to you as to how often to change, but changing it sooner is always better than leaving it.

If your frog is starting to lose weight, you may have to assist feed him. But this is not for everyone and if you are worried about hurting him then dont attempt it.

If your frog wasn't losing weight and started to eat again in the spring you shouldn't force them to eat over the winter months if they slow down or go into estivation, they slow down there metabolism for these months on purpose. Frogs are built to withstand the shortage of food over these months, all my frogs go into estivation from around November early December and turn back up around april/may and start eating as normal. Feeding them during these months and disturbing them if they are in estivation is actually more harmfull then good, to be honest your not even supposed to change there substrate if they make the mucus sac around themselves because they aren't peeing because they retain all there water over these months. And they don't need to poop because your supposed to stop feeding them a couple weeks before and let them totally empty out before going to sleep so they aren't holding food and they cant go septic. These are crucial steps to conditioning them for estivation. And I don't even try to let mine estivate to be honest they just do it for some reason no matter what I do so I just let nature take it course. I believe some of them even though you don't change temps and humidity that they still sense the change in the season and the pressures and dryness in the air and do it anyway. A lot of people that keep assist feeding or messing with the frog in these winter months end up with a very sick frog in the spring or a dead frog and then are stumped to went wrong not realizing the frog was doing this on purpose. I'm not trying to knock your advice or say this is the case with your frog but if you do think this is what could be happening if your frog isn't losing weight during this span of time it is just better to leave him till he comes around. Sometimes instead of going into full estivation they will just go into kind of dormant stage almost like a bearded dragon, and if this happens you can still offer food like with a beardie but if he doesn't eat it he should be ok. Again I'm not trying to say your wrong just thought I would throw this out there so if it happens to you again this winter it is something to think about.

[Allthingswithscales]

Thanks Sajuuk Khar! That's reassuring. That's pretty much what I've been trying to do and he is certainly becoming that much more active as I turn the heat on in the room. It is probably about time for a soil change though. I'll do that this weekend and maybe it'll perk him up. We'll have to wait and see.