Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My frog is starting to seem very thin, mainly in the back/top section. You can see his back/tail bones. I feed him alot every day so I don't know what could be wrong. should I feed him twice? Also, i'm using reptolife plus.

what are you feeding and how much?

How long have you had the frog?

Does it have tank mates? How many? What size tank?
-----
Josh Willard
www.joshsfrogs.com

Also, what specie of frog is it?
-----
Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
5 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
6 D. leucomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus
4 P. terribilis
4 D. reticulatus
4 D. castaneoticus

Blue auratus in a 10 gallon tank, feeding him flies from saurian. No tank mates. He eats fine i'm assuming, I have the tank weather stripped so no flies get out and they all disappear so I'm assuming he's eating, maybe i'm just being paranoid, but you can see his back bone and tail bone and his sides now have a )( shape. He's still very active and hops around all over the place, he's now shyer than he was before I started noticing his weightloss in the sense that he'll hide a little when he hears me coming when before he was very welcoming. I don't know, I'm just worried about him. I fed him extra this morning but I don't know.

I'd just keep him virtually surrounded with food. The blue auratus can be extremely shy, so you may not always observe them eating. I have one out of my four that I named Larry after a Garrison Keelor character who had been hiding in the basement for 15 years before someone found him. I have never seen my Larry eat, and have actually only seen him four times in the five years since he was transferred with the others from the nursery tank, but the last time I upgraded the auratus tank, after 5 years, I found him still alive. He's just not an entertainer, I guess.

You will get the usual advice to check out a fecal for parasites, etc. Of course you are dusting with the vitamin/calcium supplements as Patrick Nabors recommends.

Did you purchase only the single frog? I don't know that this makes any difference, but perhaps it is a factor? Anyone else have an opinion here?
-----
Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
5 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
6 D. leucomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus
4 P. terribilis
4 D. reticulatus
4 D. castaneoticus

How do you check a fecal for parasites, and how do you find a fecal?

The gold standard way is to pick up a very fresh stool sample, put this in a little normal saline, and take it to the nearest herp vet within 30 mintes. (Or you can also present the entire frog.) Of course, this is nearly always very impractical or impossible. The other way is to contact a herp vet who will advise you on his preferred preservative and obtain a vial of this from him. You may be able to also pick up a "Giardia/ova and parasite kit" from a local clinical laboratory or your regular animal veterinarian. I can't remember the exact formulas of each, but there are two different vials, one containing a formaldehyde solution for preserving cysts and eggs, and another that I believe preserves cellular material to an extent. Then collect the freshest samples possible, and mail or take them to a herp vet willing to do the fecal for you. I believe Dr. David Frye does these via mail. His brother Rich sometimes posts on this forum. You may be advised to send in a series of them, as parasites and their ova are sometimes shed only periodically. To find a veterinarian near you, search on the link below, then click on "members to find one in your area.

I don't know what the vet costs would be. I know from my years of examining for parasites, it is very time consuming if it's done right.
ARAV

-----
Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
5 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
6 D. leucomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus
4 P. terribilis
4 D. reticulatus
4 D. castaneoticus

Maybe EdK will have some better ideas here. I was having thoughts on using the media used to grow and detect trichomonas for testing bulls, but then discarded this, because although it would probably keep the ova intact, as well as some protozoan trophozoites, many of the perhaps innocuous protozoa would multiply in it and be confused with an infection. So erase that. Whenever I say something stupid, I can usually rely on EdK to straighten it out.
-----
Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
5 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
6 D. leucomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus
4 P. terribilis
4 D. reticulatus
4 D. castaneoticus

I don't think saying something stupid is correct (and I don't think we have disagreed that much at all).

If the fecal is collected from the enclosure then they will almost always be contaminated with soil nematodes potentially giving a false positive. It is better to place the frog in a plastic shoebox on damp paper towels for a couple of hours. This will almost always result in a fecal that is free of contamination. If the frogs are new to you, keep them in quarantine for at least a week before submitting the first fecal. This will give the frog a chance to get back to "normal" and give the best chance of detecting a potential parasite. Fecals from animals fresh from shipment are often lacking in parasites giving false negatives.
Refrigerating a fecal is also an option if the fecal will be read within a day or two.

I can't offer anything on shipping fecals as vets have their own prefences (and I can get mine done for free at work and they just have me refrigerate them).

Ed