# Deaths due to expired supplements?



## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

Over the past 3 months, I've lost: 2 Bribris, 1 fant, and 2 Panguanas. Some got a little thin before kicking the bucket, others were still fairly plump. I was racking my brain as to what could have caused it. They were all in QT when they died, and were supposedly all clean. I didn't think to check my supplements until last week, when I found that my calcium had expired in October. Needless to say, I tossed it right away, and bought all new Repcal/herptivite. But seeing that I can't afford a necropsy right now, is this a feasible explanation for my losses?


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## cbreon (Apr 25, 2005)

Dane, if your frogs died from expired supplements its the first time I've ever heard of such a thing. Weird!?! Can you come up with any other explainations? The frogs you had in quarintine, were they from different breeders? I've had frogs in a quarintine room before die, but they were from several different breeders. My guess was that the frogs from one breeder contained a diesease or infection that the others had never been exposed to. Since the frogs were never in direct contact with each other I theorized that escaping fruit flies were the mode of contamination. I'd be interested to hear a further explaination. Best of luck and sorry to hear of your deaths, they sound quite expensive. 2 bri-bris, ouch!


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

Yeah, ended up being about $650 worth of frogs that I lost. Most distressing. They were indeed from 3 different sources. The vets and breeders that I've spoken to said that it would likely be attributed to a virus, something that wouldn't show up in a fecal exam.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

What were the behaviors before death and was the temps below 76 F 

Ed


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## Frank H (Nov 3, 2005)

ed, are you getting at the ''c'' word?


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

I only keep temps above 74 for a few pumilio morphs. Most of them looked pretty normal beforehand, and were definitely eating. A couple stopped eating and wasted away over the course of a month or so. They didn't seem to be showing signs of Chytridiomycosis, no lesions or sloughing of skin, externally they looked pretty normal except for the fact that some lost significant weight.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Well the c word was one possibility but if the supplements had expired then I would also seriously consider hypovitaminosis of A as this would prevent them from feeding and cause the weight loss symptoms. This is why I was asking about the behaviors.... 
It doesn't sound like there were any MBD issues as seizures or tremors were not observed (although these can also be symptomatic of severe hypovitaminosis of A). 

As I understand it (from talking to our pathologist who did a lot of work with it) not all deaths due to chytrid have the classic symptoms of lesions, sheds, and discolorations. The animal can be infected and due to the stress die of other problems before the chytrid kills them. 

Another C problem would be coccidia as (while it hasn't been shown that ffs can transfer it from cage to cage, insects are known to be vectors for it). 

These are just hypothetical guesses as necropsies weren't performed so we really have no clue. 

Ed


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