I have to agree with you. Since my toad has not been eating I have been doing a lot of research. Both on pet owner web sites and academic articles. Only in the pet owner web sites do I ever see that an all rodent diet is all out bad for the toad.

One study I read compared the specific dynamic effect which is the tendency of the resting metabolic rate to increase after feeding. The study compared the rates of toads fed the same weight in crickets compared to mice. They predicted the all mice diet would cause the metabolic rate to be higher because of the higher protein content, but they found no difference in rates. Now this has nothing to do with obesity or lipidosis, but! if you know anything about cellular respiration you know that metabolism poses dangers to the organism because of producing free radicals... but the researchers found no difference in metabolic rates. They concluded that these toads evolved that trait so that they could grow really fast. After all, what matters in nature is reproducing and toads that eat a high rodent diet - grow faster - and reproduce more quickly.

Thus it makes sense that these toads would have a natural diet high in rodents. Contrary to what has been said though, no study has really been conducted which has specifically looked at their natural diets... also, someone mentioned these toads being nocturnal, but they are in fact diurnal.

Also, today I force fed my toad a small pinkie (put the head in his mouth and let the toad to the rest of the work). After he ate it the toad seemed more active - that is he actually moved today compared to his tendency to just sit all day and night. Pinkies have a much higher vitamin content, as well as other nutrients, so I figure a toad that isn’t eating would do better to have a fore fed pinkie than a single force fed cricket.

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Hide Replies ]