[Janos]

Hey all.
Hope everyone doing well.

I was just wondering, I know that they're fossorial frogs and all, just mines stays buried for days at a time. Was just wondering if there was a way to encourage her to be more active?

 

[Ron Magpie]

You could try a sneaky: make her substrate more shallow, and give her an open-fronted shelter (half a plant pot or a conveniently curved piece of cork bark, for example). So long as they have the comfort of walls and a roof, most 'shy' frogs accept that without too much stress, I've found. Kaloulas are mostly nocturnal, as I'm sure you know, so don't expect too much activity, but this way they seem to learn that your approach and opening of the viv means food, rather than threat, pretty quickly.

 

[OlyFroggyBoy]

Like ron said, lower the substrate a little bit. Mine has loads of hides to hide under, but for some reason its always out, never buried. Do you hand feed yours? I hand feed mine and that could be the reason its out more.

 

[Janos]

Could be, since I usually just put a few crickets into her enclosure when she's out.
It'll be ashame to reduce the substrate, since it's got a rather well developed colony of woodlice and springtails in it, but hopefully I won't kill the culture.
Thanks for your help all. Any other replies would also greatly be appreciated, I'll keep you all updated.

 

[UrolithicTitan]

Chubby frogs will spend all of the day berried deep in the substrate and come out at night to hunt. You should see that thei water bowl has got a fair bit of substrate in when you go to change it the next day. :2thumb:

 

[Janos]

I know they're nocturnal and stuff, and due to the fact that I'm pretty much nocturnal myself these days (unemployment, yay -_-; ), I'd catch that. That and when I do change the waterbowl half the time it's completely clean and I can see the substrate hasn't been moved from where she's buried at the moment.

 

[firebelliedfreak]

feed them :lol2:

 

[UrolithicTitan]

Do you keep them at wuite a high temperature?

 

[Janos]

Between 24-27C during the day, about warm-room temperature at night.

 

[UrolithicTitan]

Temperatures sound fine. :2thumb:

 

[Janos]

Cool ^^;
I should also mention that about 2 months ago, she had her eye surgically removed since it was infected. I have checked, it's not infected or anything, in fact the vet mentioned the wound was healing quite well. It does mean she has a blind spot and won't always hit the cricket with her tongue, but she's managed fine, and was rather inactive before as well, but I just thought I should mention that.

 

[Ron Magpie]

Funnily enough, I had a one-eyed painted frog years ago- within the viv, it made no real difference, although I expect it would in the wild.

 

[Janos]

Funnily enough, I had a one-eyed painted frog years ago- within the viv, it made no real difference, although I expect it would in the wild.

Ahh, cool. How did it do after the operation?

I'm suddenly paranoid that it's some delayed reaction to it or that there's something else wrong >.<

 

[Ron Magpie]

Ahh, cool. How did it do after the operation?

I'm suddenly paranoid that it's some delayed reaction to it or that there's something else wrong >.<

It healed up fine, and only having one eye didn't seem to make much difference in the long run.

 

[Janos]

That's cool to hear ^^.

Sorry, I just get a little overly worried sometimes if I think something could be wrong. Hell, the main reason I'm even worried to be honest is if the frog is spending most of the time buried, she doesn't even come across her food, said crickets could be wondering around the tank for days before she eventually feels hungry enough to surface and get them all. I leave them in so she'd know that there's food around and hopefully that would encourage her to surface.