Posted by:
anuraanman
at Fri Aug 10 00:12:58 2007 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by anuraanman ]
first off sorry for being lame and taking 7 days to reply. To clear up a bit of confusion now that you've given a locality, what you have is Fowler's Toad which used to be Bufo woodhousei fowleri but now most people are calling Bufo fowleri and Bufo woodhousei is a different species not technically found in North Carolina. BAH! The names are always being debated nearly whenever you want to know what anything is...
Toads can be difficult to sex but there are some things you can look for. If a toad is sexually mature, males tend to have a swollen thumb when compared to females. This might not help much unless you've looked at and compared males to females. If you pick up an adult male between your thumb and index finger and hold him behind the armpits that to him means that you are another male making a mistake and trying to breed with him. In this situation, he would give off a release call which is a violent vibrating with some chirps in there as well. If your toad does not do this then it is either a female or it just doesn't want to do it. Essentially, you might be able to prove it's a male or assume that it's probably a female.
Care isn't too hard. It will eat crickets or bits of nightcrawlers. Nightcrawlers are probably the easiest thing to care for since you can just buy some at a general store or bait shop and keep a container in your fridge. You will want to cut it up into something it can take down in a single bite which is probably going to be segments as long as the toad's head is wide. One or two pieces per feeding will be plenty and you would want to feed it two or three times a week. It might not eat immediately and you may need to try some different food items at first to get it used to eating in captivity. Crickets, as mentioned above, are nice because the have lots of moving parts to catch the toad's attention. I would try feeding with forceps or tweezers (or fingers) first before letting a couple go in the tank.
Leave a dish of water in tank that you know the toad can get into and out of easily. You don't want it to be as deep as the toad is tall -- just and inch or a little more is plenty. Soil is a nice substrate because toads are diggers and will want to make little holes to get snug in from time to time and it's easy to keep moist. A plant or two never hurts as well as something the toad can hide under (like a plant pot broken lenghwise to make a little cave). You will want to remove any feces you find and change the soil every couple weeks to avoid sanitary issues. A lot of what I'm saying is just rule of thumb material. If you have a really small toad then quantities and frequencies will be different from those of a toad that's the size of a baseball and there is even variation among individuals of the same size. Water should be changed regularly and you should mist the tank with a squirt bottle a couple times a day. You will want to use dechlorinated water for the misting and the water dish -- if you just fill a containter up with tap water and let it stand overnight then it's pretty much dechlorinated.
Hope that helps!
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