Giant bullfrog rescue

[Buck Rogers]

We have had in the last week heavy rains, and in the last 2 days (from Wednesday till Thursday) over 90mm of rain. I have started to learn that after a few days of consecutive rain (minimum 50mm) the Giant Bullfrogs (Pyxicephalus adspersus) start emerging properly on the highveld. The first sign is usually the swifts and swallows catching all the flying insects before sunset.

So myself and a friend set out on a road cruise to some new spots where we heard there has been some bullfrogs spotted in the last year. We cruised the quite back roads where we heard there were sightings but besides some interesting calls of frogs I never thought even lived in the area we found nothing.

Upon cruising down a busy main road we see the noticeable back legs of a large Bullfrog lying on the road like a filleted chicken. This really upset me because not even 5 minutes earlier we were saying we haven't seen a HUGE bullfrog in almost 10 years and now we see one dead in the road!!!!

We pull off onto the side of the road with the hazard lights on as cars are screaming past us. I ask my buddy to use his grab stick to just pull it off the road, as he grabs its leg it starts squirming, so we put it in the bucket and head back home. Straight away we put it in a luke warm bath and reacted to treat it with shock (like a human). It honestly looked dead and after some time in the warm water he started moving around. We could see straight away that his left forearm was broken and on further inspection the jaw was split in half. We suspect that it was trying to cross the road and jumped head first into a car, it was clearly shocked and slightly concussed. We treated the wounds with Baytil and then set up a large tub with a moist towel and some heating cable under the tub. I set it up inside the tub then left it over night with a towel over it and hoped for the best. I spoke to John via email to see if there was anything else that I could do for it, but he assured me that is all I can do and the rest is up to nature now.

It was the worst nights sleep I ever had, not knowing what will happen in the night - will it over heat, will it be too cold, has the shock set in too much, are their internal injuries that are too severe?? All this running through my mind.

When I woke up this morning I was too scared to go down and look at it, I feared the worst. To my astonishment it was alive and alert!!!! I must have done something right!!! I honestly thought it would just die and I was just giving it a nice safe place to die over night, but it didn't!!!!

Now that I got through the night the real challenge starts, I will take it off to a vet today and see what can be done. The leg is not troubling me too much, because I have kept tripod frogs in the past that do really well. But the jaw is my big concern, I know with snakes you just have to eave the jaw to heal, but with a frog I have no idea what to do

I'm ganna be phoning around today and speaking to the vet and all, but is there any advice you guys can suggest?

Darryn