New Huge Cane Toad

[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.

[Hart24601]

Thanks!!! I will check them out for sure. I have a large colony of dubia and wide horn hissers in a 29g for a few years, but it's a good idea to supplement the colony before I collapse it from taking too many. Really appreciate the suggestion! I imagine a 4lb toad is going to need an awful lot of small bugs since she wont eat anything large yet....

[Hart24601]

I went ahead and placed an order from some small and medium dubias from there. Might as well beef the colony up.

[Axqu]

I went ahead and placed an order from some small and medium dubias from there. Might as well beef the colony up.

Awesome! Yeah I've had nothing but good experiences from them, and their customer support is apparently top-notch too, though I've never had to contact them about anything. I don't have the patience to keep a colony, and my cane toad would eat all the big adults before they had a chance to breed! I think that's a bit hilarious considering she's only about half the size of yours, but mine was caught as a youngster and little ones probably adapt to captivity a lot more readily. I'm hoping to grow mine into a monster!

[Larry Wardog]

My God is that a big toad lol



I am happy that you shared this on the forum I am seriously in awe of that toad.

Sent from my BKL-L04 using Tapatalk