New Huge Cane Toad

[Hart24601]

Could she not be eating out of fear of you or maybe other animals? If she feels like there's a predator around her she might not be willing to give away her location by going after food.

I hope she gets better soon! Keep us updated.

It's very possible, although she does now come out at night to sit in her waterbowl sometimes so she will come out that far at least. Before she was sick I tried keeping her in a smaller frosted Rubbermaid tote for few days with night crawlers in the basement so there would be 0 movement down there without luck.

Hopefully her infection clears up so I can worry about not eating again!

The vet thought there could have been some sort of infection or issue that was already present before the leg injury, so it's possible she had been fighting something off for a while that made her not eat, but it wasn't until the cut that the illness was noticeable.

I think that I have read every post on the site about toads not eating, frustrating when the wild toads here will eat from your fingers!

You bring up a good point, she doesn't seem to worried in her cave when I pass by, but maybe I should tape construction paper on the sides of the glass (outside) to remove any potential stress she might have.

[Hart24601]

Butcher paper. Handy for smoking food and sick toads!

[Hart24601]

Off the antibiotics now. Still some swelling so brought her in for a follow up. The vet said no charge for follow ups which blew my mind. I even protested a bit, ha! Just seems like can’t take up that much of their time for nothing...

He chatted about the Chicago show and his previous reptile breeding, was really nice. I asked about possibility of her breaking the leg so he said ‘let’s take a radiograph for fun!’

Long story short there is some bone damage on the left knee, which isn’t too bad and not unexpected because the bone is so close to the skin and he figures was caused from the infection. He said aside from a limp should be fine.

The other vet came in and we talked about ideas for her eating. They suggested raising temp up to 80 and see if that helps since she was collected in tropics. Said 3-4 weeks is ok to try, then force feed her and try again but a month is the limit at one time.

Total bill. $0. Total including last time with the antibiotics and two feces exams? $45. Amazing place. He even tried finding vendors selling marine toads at the Chicago fair to ask about how they kept them and issues although couldn’t find any.

[Hart24601]

I forgot to say, I am leaving her alone after that last trip to the vet yesterday and put superworms in a bowl. Per the vet's suggestions I raised temp to 80, her hide stays a bit cooler, and have also as seen above put paper over the tank. I will let her go 3 weeks like this and at that point will force feed her again, and then repeat the above. I only open the tank to take out the water when soiled, and to add water to the substrate. Although I will need to take her out once a week to make sure the infection stays away for a while.

[Hart24601]

Update time. I did force feed her a bit last week as it had been the vet's recommendation as the maximum time, it was just a small amount though. There has been a bowl in her enclosure the entire time of superworms as well which she didn't want. Seemed exactly like it has been.

However the craziest thing happened, Saturday night I had a dream I got her to eat with crickets. I also have a chameleon that I feed mostly dubias from my colony but I do give him crickets at times for fun, so I went out and got a few dozen. I put a few in her bowl, scooted her out of the hide over the bowl and went to refill the chameleon's bucket for the automated misting system and give him the rest to free hunt.

I came back up and she had not retreated back into her hide as normal, but seemed to be looking over the bowl, I didn't want to disturb her so I left but I heard that noise that is really only made when an amphibian strikes. I slowly looked over the top and by gosh she was striking at those crickets!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even got a little video of her eating from the top of the exo terra.

Finally, after almost 6 months!!!!!!

I had tried them before, along with other small items like waxworms, baby silkworms, small hornworms and the such, but for whatever reason yesterday the banded crickets got her interested. Picked out some small dubias to put in there too and she was going after them all! The small size seems to be key here, she must have been in an area where she ate quite small food items. I have never seen banded crickets before (we got a new store in that sells them, previously I got them from box store that don't sell banded), so perhaps something about their movement finally stirred something in her. I put some small immature dubia in the dish again this morning, and she went after them too, so mission accomplished!

I am happy to spend the time training her on other food items when mixed with the small banded crickets, that is relatively easy. Ordered 500 from Josh's frogs and some phoenix worms since they are about the same size too. My goal the next few weeks is just to give her plenty of food she wants, and change her water and leave her alone. I want to train her that when she sees me open the cage it means food.

Perhaps it was the antibiotic treatment, perhaps it was time, perhaps it was increasing her enclosure to 80-85 degrees, perhaps it was adding UV light, or maybe just all those things combined with small active food items.

I have had a lot of challenging animals over the years, even some fish getting them to eat live food, then train on frozen/thawed with sticks and fishing line before moving to pellets - but nothing has been this much of a challenge as this toad, which ironically are so tough they are ultra invasive, lol.

[Hart24601]

Gave some more small roaches this morning, which she ate. So thankfully don't need the crickets to train, however she will quickly deplete my colony of small roaches so I need to be careful how many I offer. She seems to have 'accidently' snagged some superworms while eating the smaller bugs too, so that is a great sign.

My wife found 4 crickets in the office today as I got a very upset text message! I think the rear cord cutouts on the exo terra might not be closed fully. Need to have a happy wife and a happy toad, ha!

I wonder if solider fly larva will be more cost effective long term.

[Axqu]

Awesome to hear your girl is finally eating on her own. It's interesting that she only wanted to eat small bugs. If you need to order bugs online, I have had great experiences with Dubiaroaches.com. They gave me a container of free hornworms when I ordered a big cup of dubias.