Help! Frog spasms!

Akuma223 · 01-24-13, 03:35 PM

I have a little wild caught wood frog I found in late august of last year and he started having weird spasms. I scooped him out of his hole to feed him and he started to writhe around. He clawed at his face a bit, screamed, and his legs would straighten out completely suddenly. He cant right himself and he is siting still now but listing to the side. My friends wood frog that I gave her also has these problems except far less. His legs would straighten and he couldn't seem to bend them, he didn't look like he was in pain. I thought it was a freak incident but now my little one is having the problem. My other wood frog seems fine but I will have them in quarantine from the others. I pick him up and he just moves his legs erratically. It almost looks like he had a stroke!

They eat crickets with an occasional earthworm. They have a UV light. Their substrate is Eco-earth covered with moss. They have a water bowl they can submerge in a flat rock, and branches to sit and climb on. The two wood frogs are housed in a ten gallon with three WC toads, and a adult WC grey tree frog. All the toads and wood and tree frogs have been together for months without problem as they are all around the same size. Please help me figure this out. I love my little wood frogs to death and need to now what I might be doing wrong or what is wrong with them.

GarterPython · 01-24-13, 03:41 PM

I'm sorry I can't help you out because I know nothing about frogs and I think the majority of people here don't really know to much about them... I could be wrong maybe there are some frog enthusiasts that I don't know about but I would try asking in a amphibian forum or something.... If they even have those lol or just look it up on google. Anyway I hope that he is ok and that he ends up surviving.

Zoo Nanny · 01-24-13, 04:13 PM

My sister and nephew raise toads and frogs for release in RI. They had one of the wood frogs do the same behavior. The vet said that it was a neurological disorder non-contagious to the others. Unfortunetly hers passed. Her others are fine and have shown no issues to date.
I spoke with my sister. Her frogs and toads were wild caught tad poles and were more than likely exposed to pesticides which would cause the neurological disorder. There is currently a great deal of research on going with wood frogs and environmental contamination effects on them.

poison123 · 01-24-13, 05:10 PM

I had a couple frogs do this (green trees and horned frogs) i only took the pacman to the vet and i was told it had chytrid (If i spelled that right) it is a fungal disease. Are his back leggs twitching or is he molting more?

jarich · 01-24-13, 05:21 PM

You spelled it right poison. And the skin shedding is a good sign of it, as well as reddened or discoloured skin. A lot of the other signs are pretty non specific though.

You said you are feeding it crickets and earthworms. What kind of earthworms? Do you dust your crickets? If so, what do you dust them with?

poison123 · 01-24-13, 05:21 PM

I've had a pretty terrible time of it lately...
I've lost two little froggies in two weeks. The first was an accident, one little morph leapt too hard from one branch to the other and smacked his head on the glass side of the tank. (This is what I assumed happened as I found him on the bottom of the tank, bruised head and stretched out like he was still mid-leap). The second one was a little fellow who had always been very slim.

The symptoms I noticed:
Uncoordinated
Lethargy
Colour loss
Uneven pigmentation
Unresponsive
Refusal to eat
Glassy eyes
And last, a tiny lime green spot.

Now I had no idea why he was sick and unfortunately during the waiting process for the swabs sent away to the lab, he passed away.

The swabs came back negative for everything and I decided it was just poor care on my part and cleaned out his cage to start over.

It wasn't until his room-mate Bubba started to get ill with the same symptoms that I thought there might be something else going on. As Bubba began showing the same sympt

poison123 · 01-24-13, 05:24 PM

I waited for the autopsy results for Nova to come back. However she was getting more and more ill by the day and I simply couldn't wait. After much internet searching, I came to the conclusion that her symptoms matched Chytrid, late stage as she was losing control of her legs. Now every single treatment page has said that Chytrid is untreatable at the stage of paralysis. I have found this not to be the case.

Using the medication:
1ml of Lamisil (1% Terbinafine Hydrochloride) to 200mls of water. Soaked for 5 minutes every day for 10 days (I'm only up to day 5).

Now Bubba was in a very bad way when I started this medication, NO hind leg movement, NO coordination, curled fingers and toes, sloughing constantly... She still came through. I've seen so many posts saying they just had them put down, but now in my experience I can say that these symptoms do not always mean the end, at least not all of the time. Keeping in mind, Bubba was a very chubby, healthy frog who had quite a bit of weight on her when she fell

jarich · 01-24-13, 05:27 PM

Wow thats really impressive man. Ive never heard of anyone rehabilitating their frog that late in the game either. I know some species are more resilient to it apparently, but thats a crazy recovery. Nice job.

poison123 · 01-24-13, 05:27 PM

oops sorry that did not turn out as i planed lol hopefully we can get a mod to delete those 2 posts. Heres a thread on a frog forum that im on Chytrid: Don't let anyone tell you it's too late.

poison123 · 01-24-13, 05:30 PM

wasnt my words lol yes he was trying to copy and paste it didn't work out so good lol.

Akuma223 · 01-24-13, 05:39 PM

His color is much darker than usual, he does get darker sometimes but not this dark he is also kinda dull too. He leans to one side and side of his mouth hangs open a little. One eye is half lidded and both pupils are smaller then they should be I think. Both frogs legs are pinkish but I think thats normal for them. The healthier ones colors are nice and bright still.

I did dust my crickets for a short time but stopped when I got the UV light for them, should I continue dusting them?
The dust I have is Zoo med Repti-Calcium with D3.

As for medication how would I get my hands on some?

jarich · 01-25-13, 03:25 PM

No, I asked about the dusting just because D3 toxicity has some of the same signs.

As for the Lamisil, I think you can get it from your pharmacist over the counter.

shaunyboy · 01-25-13, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jarich

You spelled it right poison. And the skin shedding is a good sign of it, as well as reddened or discoloured skin. A lot of the other signs are pretty non specific though.

You said you are feeding it crickets and earthworms. What kind of earthworms? Do you dust your crickets? If so, what do you dust them with?

as i read the thread chemical exposure came to mind,as it sounds like neurological issues the frogs displaying

could the earthworms have be in ground exposed to pesticides or other garden chemicals ?

cheers shaun

Akuma223 · 01-25-13, 09:13 PM

Its a possibility I suppose but I haven't fed the very much earthworms at all. Maybe 1 or 2 each the entire time I've had them, and we hadn't used any garden chemicals for quite awhile.

Don't know why I didn't think about the danger of that before though thank you for pointing out that possibility. I feed my little garter snake earthworms from the yard all the time. Who knows what that could do to my little ones!

Akuma223 · 01-27-13, 09:13 PM

He died. I found him on his back with his legs stretched out when I checked on him this morning.