Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just liften up a potted plant in my toad house and saw several black beetle-like things.

Is this a result of the mealworms I attempted to feed my toads but crawled away under the substrate ?

yes

Is this something to worry about? In a lot of literature about my kind of toad, it's said that they eat beetles in the wild... though others have told me the exoskeleton the beetles have can hurt them.

I don't know what to do any more, I can never get them to eat any mealworms, the worms either get away under the substrate never to be seen again (untill they're beetles) or I take back the worms I tried to offer the toads so they don't dissappear.

One of the toads looks good, but the other is getting skinnier and skinnier despite my attempts to offer them a variety of live foods.

I really don't think it's a problem, but if you are that worried about it, just feed crix. Your skinny frog may just be getting old :O Or it may have an internal parisite. good luck!

the skinny toad is a young toad for sure, about half the length adults reach

I am new to toads. I have had mine since March. But I have grown up with snakes and lizards. Sometimes if you have more than one animal in a cage one will be dominate and not allow the other to eat food. You could always try seperating them and see how that works. Faten up the younger one until s/he is big enough to fend for themself. As the other poster mentioned your toad could have a parasite. For this reason I would also seperate them.

As far as meal worms. Get a tall dish. I use a small tup aware dish in my toads cage. I leave the dish in though because they enjoy sitting in it. So when it's time to feed them I take out the dish and they know it's feeding time. Like I said. Just make sure the dish is tall enough a good 2-4" and you shouldn't have a problem.

This is a good site about meal worms. It tells you how to raise them if you want and shows them as larva pupa and beetles....

http://www.nabluebirdsociety.org/mealworm.htm