Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi everyone my little homestar jumper hasnt been looking too good, i think for a while the other frogs were more aggressive eaters and he wasnt getting enough food. so i put him in a container by himself on moist paper towels and fed him lots of termites for a feew days. He seemed to fatten up but after the 3 rd day he looked bad again and would not eat. He seemed dry so i figured he was dehydrated. I have since moved him back to the old viv where he seems to have rehydrated, but he is not eating even when there are termites right infront of his face.

a while back i remember someone posting about fource feeding a tink and i was wondering if anyone could give me some info on how to do it. i cant imagine how hard it is going to be to get his mouth open!

i wouldn't attemp force feeding any amphibian, let alone a dart frog. could you be over reacting to the situation?

Getting the mouth open is not the difficult part although with small frogs you may need a second person to hold the animal while it is tube fed.
you will need a small catheter tube and an easily digested supplement (we use feline clinicare at work), and a thind credit card to open the mouth. You need to have this demonstrated to you as if you are not careful when you forcefeed the animal you can cause it aspirate the food resulting in aspiration pneumonia and possible death.
I would suggest seeing a vet before attempting this on your own.

The movement back and forth may have stressed the frog out causing it to go off feed. I would suggest placing it into quarantine in a shoebox with some hide areas so it will feel more secure. This will allow for a high relative humidity while allowing the frog to feel secure.

Just some comments,
Ed

I did put it in a quarantine box first. with hiding places with lots of termites but after a few days he started to look worse, so i put him back in the planted tank hoping he would feel more comfortable with his regular hiding spots.
as for force feeding i would feed him smooshed up termites with dendrocare suppliment, I actually do have experience force feeding but not with frogs.

thanks for the advice on using the credit card that is what i use with pain in the butt baby snakes.

I'm going to observe him for a day or two more and if he doesnt start eating again i will have to try force feeding.

Hi: I did the force feeding on the tinc. Dr. Brad wilson had given me some very intricate details on how to do it. He gave warning that doing such a thing could be so stressful as to cause death in the frog. I would only resort to it as the last possible effort. It didn't sound like you had gotten to that point. But in short, you have the right idea. I used 20 mushed FF and a tiny syringe. I wrapped him in a wet paper towel to keep him still. The credit card is what I used to open the mouth, and I had to be careful to put the syringe far back enough to ensure he swallowed. Are you making sure that in the quarrentine box you have increased humidity and temperature? I experienced my tinc going off feed from being moved as the other person suggested. If he is still dehydrated, increase water in the box and add a little pedialyte. You want to decrease as much stress as possible, give him a chance to acclamate to encourage going back onto the feeding by himself. IF not and he is beginning to be too weakened, then consider the forced feeding. I think you might find that a more positive reponse with other reptiles might be seen with forced feeding, but with frogs this size the outcome isn't always as promising. A vet, unless their experience is amphibian based and not reptile based as so many exotics are, I found was not helpful. Contact Dr. David Frye for email consult. He is most experienced with Amphibians and can offer you the right meds, fecals with photo records, and more definitive answers then our combined guesses.

I also have tried force feeding a dendrobate. It was a pumilio and it hadn't eaten in over a week so I figured I had nothing to lose. He did ok initially, I was able to get a few flys down him and he seemed to bulk up a little bit. It was difficult to get enough flys down him though. A syringe might have worked better for gettting more flys into him. After a few more days or force feedings he only did worse and ultimately died. Hope this gives you some ideas.