sick pacman frog?
bought an albino pacman frog last November. She's about 2" long and 1 1/2" wide and I don't know the sex yet but because I named her Bitsy, I refer to her as a female.
In the past few months, I've noticed an extreme drop in her eating habits--she hasn't been eating much and she's been moving around less than usual, but she hasn't been losing any weight. Starting about a month ago, there have been times where I would check on her or pick her up and her legs would be sticking straight out behind her and she wouldn't move. Her body would get hard and I figured she learned a new defensive move. Two nights ago, I fed her for the first time in almost 2 weeks (she hasn't been eating much anyway and it's really hard for me to get crickets right now) and I gave her 6 small mealworms. She only ate 3 in the couple of hours I had her in a seperate cage (her travel cage) with the mealworms.
Yesterday morning, she was laying in her water dish with her legs sticking straight out but when I picked her up, she moved her legs back and started moving around more. Last night, she was again in her water dish with her legs sticking straight out and when I picked her up, she was completely limp. While I can move her body myself, I was unable to make her move.
When I flipped her over, I realized that her body looked even more transparant than usual I can see a red vein running down the middle of her body which I never noticed before.
She has been on a strict diet of crickets and mealworms (more crickets than mealworms) since I got her but I did give her a feeder fish that my friend bought for her pacman back in January.
About a month ago I went to the petstore and asked about her, one of the workers suggested to me that maybe she is hibernating but her tank has always been about 78 degrees F. The only change that she's experienced is when I went home for the summer, she went from the large critter keeper to a 10 gallon aquarium (I go to school and keep her "illegally" in my dorm so I am putting off buying her a larger cage for school until she is fully grown)
She also has only burrowed under the dirt once or twice in the past 3 or 4 months and she used to burrow completely under to the point where I wouldn't be able to find her.
I had always kind of chalked up her weird behavior to the fact that she wasn't used to her 10 gallon tank, but even now, in her familiar home, she's acting the same way.
Can anyone tell me what's wrong with her before I try to find and take her to an exotic vet? (I'd rather not do that unless I have to because of my lack of transportation and lack of money, but I will if people advise me to do so)
Also, from everything I've read, she should be fully grown by now. Is there any reason why she wouldn't be? I don't know if it is because she hasn't been eating very much lately, but I try to always keep a couple of crickets running around her cage because she's never been the type to eat because the food was available. The crickets are always gutloaded and I try to put calcium powder on them but it always rubs off before she eats them.
Thanks so much for any help I can get!
jes
|
Linear Mode
