Aestivating ABFs?

[Jace]

I went on vacation at the beginning of the month and before I left, I cleaned my African Bullfrogs tank. I added extra substrate and extra moss for them to hide in, as we were experiencing a heat wave and my house has no air conditioning. My friend came in every day and misted both frogs and attempted to feed them, but they buried themselves down deep and stayed that way. It has now been a week and one came up, soaked in her water dish for one night and then buried herself again and my male has stayed hidden. I rather miss seeing them and I am concerned about them not eating. Should I remove some of the moss coverage and not allow them to burrow, or should I just leave them alone and hope that when they are hungry, they will come out? I am having problems keeping their humidity up-could this explain why they are hiding??

[John]

Low humidity and long interval between feeding will encourage them to do this. They will come up on their own though. If one is aestivating and you remove the moss, it won't break out of its skin - you'll have to pick the frog up and soak it in water for a while and peel the skin off once it starts to loosen. However I wouldn't touch them at all - just leave them be. If you want to increase the humidity, cut off a lot of the ventilation in the terrarium and mist it regularly for a few days.

[Jace]

Thanks, John. They didn't have enough substrate to bury in before, so doing what comes naturally to them is un-natural to me!! I will bring their humidity up and mist them a couple of times a day and see what happens. I have a superworm (or two) waiting for them when they do make an appearance. Nothing like amphibian crack to get the taste buds going again!!

[John]

I hope they don't miss out on the superworms!

[Douglas]

Hey jace, two things. If they want to aestivate, I would just let them do it. They will be fine. I know you will miss them for the time they are down but it is best to let them be. Be sure to have plenty of food for when the wake up

Also, I would advise removing the moss. Like gravel, moss runs a high risk of causing impaction and possibly killing your frog.

[Kevin1]

A similar situation happened with Chubbz and I
He was asleep for 2 months but instead of going to sleep while I went on vacation he woke up the day i was leaving.
I had to scramble to get his food and tank set up for him it was quite hectic. lol
He was all right though.
I did nothing different for him to wake up.
The only thing i could think of was that he sensed the pressure in the air.
The day we left we had massive amounts of rain and thunder.