Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Today I was cleaning out the water dish of my 2 Phyllomedusa sauvagei (yes, they are WC) and I found a whole bunch of little wormy things & it was pretty foul smelling. I've had them for about 6 months and they seem quite healthy - good appetites (especially the female) and the male is calling almost every night. They often defecate in their water bowl and this is the first time I've seen this. Two or three times in the last month or so I've found poo (not in water) that is smelly and a bit mushy (normally it's dry & odorless). Should I treat them with something like panacur? If so, how much? I shouldn't have a problem administering it on a cricket since I handfeed them. The nearest vet is over an hour away & I'm not sure how much they know. Here's a pic- it's in one of those deli cups if that gives you some idea of scale.
Thank you!

Just curious...do the bugs seem to be alive? Or do they just seem to be eggs of some sort...One thing I've noticed with feeding crickets to my dumpy tree frogs is that they do not digest the eggs that female crickets carry, but instead they come out when they go to the bathroom. Sometimes their entire poop consists of just the eggs! I've brought the fecal matter into my vet and he agreed with them just being cricket eggs. It also looks like that could be the problem from your picture. Panacur, otherwise, should take care of the parasites, but there is another type of medication that can be given, although I don't remember what it was called (my vet had prescribed it when my frogs did have parasites.) What I would probably do in your case is try and feed the frogs the crickets that don't have the long brown thing coming from their rear..those are the females and that's what they use to lay eggs. Instead try and feed them only males...even though it might get kind of expensive throwing the females away. When I buy crickets though, I try and look for the ones that don't have the brown tube. You could also start feeding the frogs smaller crickets that don't have eggs developing yet, but that might take a while to do. Anyways, if you want to put them on Panacur, it won't hurt them. I think my frogs took a dosage of 2-5 mm...depending on how big they are. I was also told I could mix it with a little juice; cherry juice, apple juice..etc because it's not so bitter to the frogs. I administered it from a little syringe though by mouth..but putting it on the crickets could also work. Let me know how that goes...

Thank you so much for responding. I never saw anything moving in the sample . . . cricket eggs sounds very possible to me. They have definitely been eating quite a few older female crickets lately. Is that bad for them?

I contacted the exotics vet located over an hour away and he recommended I take the sample to my local vet for analysis and have them consult with him. So I did, and initially they said it was nothing but “debris/plant matter.” I called back a day later to ask about the cricket egg possibility and they changed their story to “something was swimming” in the sample. However, when I asked them if they could describe what they saw a little better, they just got irritated and repeated that “they don’t know anything about frogs.” I also couldn’t get them to consult with the exotics vet and they threw away my sample. They’ve been giving me the run-around all week and the only information I’ve gotten from them is they think there was a “squiggly” something “swimming” in the poo sample. Real professional huh?

I called the exotics vet again and they recommended to do a single dose of panacur at 75mg/kg of body weight using an oral suspension in a syringe. Does this sound like a good dosage? It seems like this method of giving it to them will be pretty stressful. However, I can’t do anything until I find someplace around here that has a scale for me to weigh them on. . . which is proving to be more difficult that I thought.

Eating female crickets isn't bad for them, but it is rather annoying because you always wonder when they go to the bathroom. I also try to take out any poop I see in the cage right away so there's no chance for the eggs to develop, even though I don't know the likelihood of that...usually they dry up and die when the waste does.

As far as the dosage of panacur, I'm not sure how much you could administer without a weight. Out of curiousity...about how long is the frog? And is it underweight, overweight, or just right? I could give you a good estimate of how much to give it in comparison to my frogs. And what I did to give it to them was take a credit card or a card that size and slide it in horizontally to open the mouth and just quick shoot the medicine in there. It's easy and harmless...all but one of my frogs took it very well. The one who didn't has always been hyper...but with a little practice it's easily done. I see you had a picture of the dirty water...any way you could also get a picture of the frog? And as far as something swimming in the poop...if that's what the "vets" saw...the panacur will get rid of it. I would probably give it two doses though, give it one dose and then another after a week just to be safe. I was giving it to my frogs every day I believe...but one of my frogs had actual diarrhea so that's the issue with that.

If the frog does have parasites, just watch for weight loss even if there is some type of appetite. That will happen at first, and then the actual loss of appetite will happen. Those are signs of parasites. I guess keep looking through the poop. I will try and get a picture of what my frogs' fecal matter looks like for a comparison. Good luck!

I was reading your original message again...and I also wanted to let you know that my frogs' fecal matter also smells rather foul when they first poop. It's going to be wet and mushy then, but eventually it does dry and loses is smell. Just wanted to make a note of that! Smells worse than human poo sometimes!

I bought a little scale and weighed them. The female is about 2 ounces and 3.5” long, the male is about 1.5 ounces and 3” long. I think they’re both at a pretty good weight right now. . . the female might be at the upper end of “ideal” and the male at the lower end. They do *appear* fatter or skinner sometimes depending on how long it’s been since they soaked in their water dish. In comparison to what I’ve read about captive P.sauvagei, I might be having to feed them more (or more often) in order to maintain their weight.

Once I had their weights I went to a different vet and they did the calculations and came up with .1 mL of 100 mg/mL panacur. I administered it by injecting the fluid into wax worms and then feeding it to the frogs. (I really didn’t want to pry their mouths open) I was wondering though, if a frog does have parasites do you usually see dead worms or something in their poo after deworming?

The doseage definitely sounds right...and if there were parasites in their system, the poop would come out as it always has been...there might be a little discoloration from the panacur, but other than that you're really not going to notice anything different. I think my frog's just had yellowish colored waste. The parasites are too small to really see...worms you could probably see though if that was the case. Also very understandable you don't want to pry their mouths open...I didn't like doing it either and I'm sure my dad didn't, but having to do it for 3 frogs it was the quickest way without overfeeding them. But good luck with that. After you have done the panacur, keep looking for the eggs in the poop. Or you can try this: pick out the males from when you buy your crickets and only feed those to your frogs. See if that changes the contents. I still have eggs in my frog poop...again sometimes a lot sometimes a little, but the frogs are healthy and show no symptoms of parasites.