My Intro and (long) story

[into]

Hello Everyone, I'm Chris.

I am new to keeping pet frogs and joined the forum to give them the best care I can.

I was one of those bad kids that did mean things to toads I found in the back yard (I won't go into details), so now it's my time to make up for that. My interest in frogs came about last Christmas when my son received a planet frog habitat as a gift. I promised when spring came, I would get him a little buddy. Well, spring came and I forgot about it, so did he until on a trip to a local waterfall we found hundreds of tadpoles swimming in a puddle. We caught two and brought them home. I searched all over the internet trying to identify these little guys and within a week, one of them climbed out of the water with symetrical spots on his back. They were american toads (or fowlers). I was thrilled watching them grow and bought them fruitflys to eat.

About two weeks later, I found the smaller one bloated in his water. He was very weak and I quarenteed him in a hospital container. He wouldn't eat but looked interesting the flightless fruitflys. the problem was that he couldn't walk well. His legs looked mangled half the time. About a week later he started acting more alert so I put him back into the habitat. The next day he was floating in his water and didn't make it.

I sanitized the planet frog and the larger toad seemed to be doing great. She got big really fast and was always alert hunting for food. About a week after the other one passed, I found her all bloated in the water with the same crippled looking legs. Thinking she would drown, I removed the water, it wasn't deep but she kept crawling into it. within a couple hours she was wrinkly looking. She looked like she was drying up so I misted her with water and thought maybe she was just getting ready to shed as she was still active, yet walking funny. About an hour after I misted her one last time, I looked in and she was dried up...stiff. I felt so bad because I took her water away but realized she would probably have the same fate as her brother. I was sure I did something wrong, but I followed the online care sheets. Since they were wild, I thought maybe they had diseases. I have since thrown away planet frog and decided to only purchase frogs. Has anyone ever heard of this happening?

That was a sad spring, but we now have 2 american green treefrogs and a whites treefrog (housed separately of course). I'm saving up for large terrariums for them all!

I added some pictures of our frogs in a new album. Please take a peek. Oh and Dumper our WTF loves watching youtube (especially Elvis the tree frog videos) The other night he was acting upset pacing back and forth in his home while I was watching Youtube, so I opened his screen. he quickly climbed up and jumped into my hand! I set him down near the laptop and he climbed up on it and watched for a few minutes, tucked himself into a little ball and fell asleep (I think he liked the heat). My AGTFs "bark" when they here dance music and keep us up all night... they are very loud, while my whites croaks quietly in his sleep. I didn't realize we ended up with all males.


anyway, sorry for the long post!!

[John]

Welcome to the forum Chris. I saw the photo of Dumper and I have to tell you, that photo of him watching youtube is awesome.

It's very hard to know what happened to your toadlets based on this account. Most of it would be wild guesswork. My own guesses would either be exposure to some ongoing stress or a vitamin/mineral deficiency. I hope you don't have to go through that again.

Best wishes,

-John

[Kurt]

From the bloating I would say that your toads had an infections, the mangled looking legs could be form a vitamin deficiency.
The reason why you have all male green treefrogs is that males are easier to catch. The sing and give away their position, while females don't. All green treefrogs, Hyla cinerea are wild caught and so are some White's treefrogs (aka Australian green treefrogs), Litoria caerulea.
Good luck with your new guys and check out our care section if you haven't done so already.

[into]

I am currenly dusting the gut loaded crickets twice a week and feeding them to the frogs. I never did that with the toadlets. I bought the frogs at Petco, but I think any future purchases will be made from breeders. they seemed healthy at the store but the staff is not very knowledgable and dumper (my WTF) has a couple scars on his face and one side of his back. I thought it was illegal to take wild caught Australians from the wild. At petco, they have indoneasians and australians in separate houses, but they may have been interchanged so I'm sure of his true origin.

[Kurt]

Even if you buy captive bred stock from Petco and other stores, a loto fo the time these frogs are exposed to wild caught animals and pick up what they may be carrying. I have noticed at Petco and Petsmart that they don't always thoroughly clean cages in between occupants. If they do they never do it with a bleach and water soloution.
If your Whites is wild caught, it had to come from Indonesia or Florida or New Zealand. There are introduced populations in the last two locations. My guess that it is wild caught as captive bred animals rarely, if ever, have scars.

[adawinters]

For what small consolation it may offer, many of us become serious about caring for our pets only AFTER learning (the hard way) exactly how serious the consequences can be. You've come to the right place to learn all about what your frogs really need and to make sure they're healthy and happy. Keep it up!