Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all, I am new to this forum but not new to herps in general. I have wanted a toad of some sort for awhile now.

I have need for some sort of American Toad now as I have hognose eggs that might hatch. Before anyone flames me to death, I want to keep the toad (or toads) as pets and perhaps to SCENT pinkies with to get the baby hogs eating. They would be pets first and foremost.

I have been researching the various toads of North America and it would seem that the Couch's Spadefood is both attractive to me, largish for a toad and it overlaps the range of the Hognose sufficiently so I can assume that hognoses in the wild might prey upon small spadefoots.

The issue at hand is the availablity and suitability to captivity. If anyone has any pointers please feel free to let me know and if anyone knows where I could obtain one or maybe two of them that would be great.

Thanks,
Carole

Oh, PS I currently keep 2 dart frogs and one tiger legged tree frog so I am not completely in the dark when it comes to amphibians. I have kept these 3 animals for over 2 years and they are doing very well.
www.reptilecare.com

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Check it out. www.reptilecare.com

www.exoticgemsreptile.com carries couch's spadefoots.

Thanks! They dont seem to have any at the moment but I suspect they are seasonal. I will keep checking.

Thanks again,
Carole
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Check it out. www.reptilecare.com

I want to congratulate you on doing your research, and also trying to eliminate using amphibians as feeders. I happen to spend a lot of time on the Hognose forum and am constantly trying to knock some sense into people. I have also been pushing for people to have a toad for scenting purposes as also a pet.

I've personally do not feel that spadefoots make good pets. By their inherent nature they love to dig, so you may not see a lot of them. You'll probably also have to disturb them quite significantly when you need to use them for sending purposes. Although spadefoot's would probably be your best choice especially if you have a Southern Hognose, chances are you have westerns in which toads from the Bufo genus are suitable. The issue at hand here, is that secretions from the spadefoot have been known to cause temporary blindness, burning, itching, and edema in people who handle them, and it is well documented in the scientific literature. Ironically those same secretions are what you need for scenting the mice.

Another issue is that most spadefoot toads are going to be wild caught, and because of their secretive nature, on top of only breeding every couple of years, their population status may not be very well known through much of their range. People who collect reptiles and amphibians for sale are notorious for being completely inconsiderate to the population of animals they are taking from. They may be able to find two dozen toads breeding around a pool one day, but we don't know enough about the species to know if that is the only two dozen adults that make up the entire population in that area. I hope that you consider getting one of the other many toads, and collect one your self as a juvenile.
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...the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes (Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink', 1991)

Hi there, thank you for such a great response. This is really a very nice forum.

I had gotten range maps for all the various species and the hognose also and compared the ranges to be sure they shared at least some space in the wild.

Point taken on wild caught species that we are unsure of their wild population. I agree. I suspected that all the ones that eventually show up on various price lists were wild caught. All the literature I can find seems to say they are hard to impossible to breed in captivity.

So, my other choices seem to be Fowlers Toads and American Toads. They seem very similar to me. Also there seems to be a Woodhouse's toad but I wonder about its availability and wild status.

In CT here we have at the very least the Fowlers Toad and the American Toad. The Fowlers doesnt have a size listed but I suspect it is about the same as the American at 2-3 inches.

Would any one of these make a better choice for captive situation?

Thanks again for all the help.

Carole
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Check it out. www.reptilecare.com

They are all practically one in the same to me! Any species would do. The only thing I can think of is that Americans tend to be more colorful with some great red hues, at least here in VA. BTW, once you get the toad feeding, get it to bite onto the mouse, for some reason I have been more successful scenting with frog saliva than anything else! Even my gray TFs worked on my Western!
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...the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes (Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink', 1991)

Bite the mouse? Really. OK, how does one get them to bite the mouse. Is this something they might be interested in eating?

What do you all feed your toads? I have a steady supply of crickets here. I assume mealworms are not recommended for the same reasons I dont recommend them as a steady diet for any reptiles (hard to digest, not that nutritious). In the winter it would be mostly the crickets and then some earthworms and other wild caught bugs, slugs in the spring, summer and fall?

We do not treat OUR lawn with anything but I cannot speak for my neighbors which is why, generally speaking, I dont use wild caught bugs for my other animals.

Thanks a million,
Carole

PS I have a friend in Michigan who has friends that keep toads (not sure what kind yet) and they MIGHT have some CB ones. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I wont find out til Sat night.
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Check it out. www.reptilecare.com

You can get the toad to bite the mouse, once you have acclimated it to captivity and get it used to feeding off of the end of tongs or hemostats. They will see the pinkie as a good-sized meal and will latch onto it.

Although there is generally no problems associated with using an exclusively cricket based diet with a variety of supplements of vitamins and minerals. Also do not forget to feed the crickets good food such as chopped carrots and apples. I personally would not take any amphibian feeders from within your neighborhood because of the pervasiveness of lawn chemicals in the environment.
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...the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes (Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink', 1991)