# Weird Kicking Behavior, Stress or Sickness?



## Anon123 (Jan 13, 2022)

I saw some strange behavior in one of my Leucomelas froglets that I obtained a two weeks ago. It's healthy, active and normally climbs everywhere, eats with every meal, and is pretty fat.

Image of the frog in question can be found here:








Leucomelas Froglet Too Fat?


I've had this Leucomelas froglet (3-4 months OOW) for about a week now and unfortunately only just now noticed that the froglet looks quite overweight while I was snapping some photos. To my amateur eyes, it only really seems grossly overweight from a side profile while from any other angle it...




www.dendroboard.com





My frogs, this one included, are usually active when the lights first come on and a few hours before lights out. But while this froglet was out and about the morning this behavior happened, the evening of the incident it hasn't really done much but sit in one place hiding between the vriesea. When it finally came out of hiding and saw me looking at, it did what I can only describe as a weird sputtering motion wherein it'd kick its back legs as though it were trying to jump but it got nowhere. Like the vriesea's leaf was too slippery for it to get a grip on or something (the leaf looked dry to my eyes). It did this at least twice.

Video of a similar behavior to what I've seen but they're obviously not my frogs:
Video Link

My frog's behavior was also no where near as extreme as in the video, only happening twice or so. And it was more kicky than just jerky. So more like the behavior at 1 second to 3. 15 seconds to 16. And 22 seconds.

After that it did a few small hops and disappeared for the rest of that evening. It was quite weird of it to be stressed out just because it saw me because normally when I'd stick my hand into the vivarium, right over its head, it'd just sit there and do nothing. I've also taken quite a few photos up close (as per the images linked above). Two days after the incident it's gone back to behaving normally: active as ever and I haven't seen it done that again. But of course I'm still worried about it happening even once.

Some explanations that I could conjure up to explain its behavior:

My parents were visiting on that day and they did get a good look at the frog and their voices could be heard by the frog. But I've found that the frogs don't particularly mind noise so that's probably not it. This doesn't happen when I play a video the speakers.
I added a new plant on that day and two days prior, but even when the plants were added two days ago the frog behaved as it normally does. I'd also used that as an excuse to add more leaf litter.

I believe this behavior to be frog-specific as it's only happened to one of them and I've basically been observing these frogs all day since then.

1. What species ? How long have you had the frog(s) and where did you acquire them ?

*Leucomelas "Fine Spot" that I've had for two weeks now. I got them from a local breeder*

2. What are your temperatures (day and night - highs and lows) and how do you measure those temperatures? Does the vivarium have any supplemental heating, and if so, what type?

*My frogs are kept at about 77f all day long because I use my AC. I measure it using a temp gun and an acurite thermometer/hygrometer. There is no supplemental heating.*

3. What lighting is on the enclosure (brand, type, wattage) and does the lighting add heat to the vivarium?

*Chihiros WRGB Slim II, turned on at 50% brightness. The amount of heat it adds should be minimal since I have a small fan blowing heat away from it.*

4. What is the Humidity like (percentage or guesstimate)? What type of water are you using? What is your misting procedure (automated or hand mister, how long and how often)?

*According to the Acurite, it's high 70s to low 80s. In terms of how fast the leaves of plants dry, approximately 1-2 hours after watering if I have my fans on through the entire process. I'm using RO water. I mist twice a day for 30 seconds each. Once half an hour after the lights come on (9:30) and once at 3:30. I mist by hand since I'm currently working from home.*

5. Describe your tank/enclosure and its lid or top, and give details about the ventilation (how many vents, where are they positioned, how large are they).

*It's an 24x18x24 ExoTerra with a cork bark mosaic background (with moss added) and gravel as substrate. There's a generous layer of leaf litter. There are two vents, one at the back top and the front vents provided by the tank. The back vent is about 3 inches. The vent no longer have fans over them. Instead I now have a top-side front vent that is maybe half a centimeter wide at most. The part of the vent directly above my Marcgravia is covered up to prevent water loss for it. I have a fan blowing air over the top of the back vents to promote airflow and get leaves to dry in a reasonable amount of time.*

6. What kind of food are you providing, how much and are you dusting it? What superfine powdered supplements (brand and exact product name) are you using and are they fresh (i.e. how long has the container been open, and how is it stored)?

*I feed it Melanogasters on a daily basis. I dust with Repashy Calcium + that has been stored in the fridge. The supplement is freshly opened after I witnessed the incident since I feared it was caused by some calcium deficiency. I've also started spot feeding the frog in question since then. But even before spot feeding I've always made sure that it got at least 5 flies if not more as per Ed's froglet's basal metabolic need calculations.*

7. Any other animals in the enclosure currently or recently? Tankmates / other frogs ?

*It's in there with 3 other frogs. All fine spots from the same breeder. Three of the frogs are 3-4 months OOW. One of the frogs is 7-8 months OOW and approximately twice the size as the three other frogs. Regarding the bigger frog, I have observed no obvious signs of aggression (wrestling). Sometimes what looks like intimidation may have occurred wherein the frogs stare each other down, but nothing ever comes out of it. They just hop away and go on their own separate ways. The frogs also come together to eat at the same spot just fine. Other than Dwarf whites, tropical spring tails, miscellaneous mites, small white worms (not nemertean), and fungus gnats, there are no organisms that I know of.*

8. Any type of behavior you would consider 'odd' ?

*This is detailed above*

9. Have you handled or touched the frogs recently ? Any cleansers, paint, perfumes, bug sprays etc near the tank ?

*I have never touched the frog. The only chemical I use near the tank is rubbing alcohol. The only contact I've ever had with my frogs is indirect. I'm currently covering up one of my more troublesome plants with some saran wrap and I have to re-cover it with every misting. The frogs sometimes comes in contact with it. But before touching the saran wrap I've always made sure that I wash my hands with soap and then thoroughly rinse off all soap residue before drying my hands (bone dry) with paper towels (one time use).*

10. Take pictures of EVERYTHING -- the frogs, the enclosure, the vents. Take numerous pics of everything - that will be of great help.



















Leaf litter an hour and a half after misting:









The leaf where things happened:









Vents









More images, slightly out of date, can be found here:








Dark Grey spot(s) on my Leucomelas


I intend to take my frog to the vet, but unfortunately life has lined up in such a way that I'll have to wait until the weekends so I'd like some opinions on what to do in the meantime. The issue: yesterday I noticed a greyish spot on the frog's back, near one of its two back humps (I'm not...




www.dendroboard.com




This is a different frog from the one in that thread.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.


----------



## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

I would just keep an eye on it. My guess is that it has a bit of debris stuck to it that the frog was trying to dislodge.


----------



## Anon123 (Jan 13, 2022)

fishingguy12345 said:


> My guess is that it has a bit of debris stuck to it that the frog was trying to dislodge.


Thank you for your response. That'd probably be the most favorable outcome. And now that you've described it like this, I guess that makes sense. I have seen something similar to it before, but I'd written it off as trying to remove debris because I could also see the debris it was trying to remove. This time I didn't see anything but I could've just missed it/ it was very small.


----------



## Llehctim (9 mo ago)

One of my three terribilis did the same for about a week and a half. I thought it might be because he was not eating much and not getting enough vitamins. When he got more bold and started eating and exploring more it went away. Now he is the most bold and it hasn't happened in about a month. 

Maybe once a week or so they will emerge from the leaf litter completely filthy after having a party in the substrate it seems, and then they will sometimes do a kick to get the substrate off them, and I've seen it both as a kick away from them if it is on there legs/lower back, and also the other way up towards their head and forward if there is a clump on the upper part.


----------



## Anon123 (Jan 13, 2022)

Llehctim said:


> One of my three terribilis did the same for about a week and a half. I thought it might be because he was not eating much and not getting enough vitamins. When he got more bold and started eating and exploring more it went away. Now he is the most bold and it hasn't happened in about a month.


I see, so it could also be a potential supplementation issue. I'll make sure to diligently spot-feed the frog. Thank you. How often did your terribilis do this when it still did it?


----------



## Llehctim (9 mo ago)

Anon123 said:


> I see, so it could also be a potential supplementation issue. I'll make sure to diligently spot-feed the frog. Thank you. How often did your terribilis do this when it still did it?


Don't quote me on this, I am quite new to all this and don't want to be giving any false information. But I do remember reading something about legs not working properly due to a deficiency of some sort, perhaps some more experienced keeper knows more. 
It also could've been stressed from a day of shipping and took about a week to become bold enough to come out from under one leaf and wasn't eating much so there are a few variables. 

I was working from home but wasn't watching it all day, I probably witnessed it once or twice a day for maybe 10 seconds intermittently. By the end of the week and a half it was just one or two kicks and then completely stopped.


----------



## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

get your imbedded video working, so we can see the behaviour.


----------



## Anon123 (Jan 13, 2022)

Philsuma said:


> get your imbedded video working, so we can see the behaviour.


Youtube just doesn't seem to want to embed properly for whatever reason so I just changed it to a video link. Hopefully that'll work better.


----------



## IShouldGetSomeSleep (Sep 23, 2021)

Anon123 said:


> Youtube just doesn't seem to want to embed properly for whatever reason so I just changed it to a video link. Hopefully that'll work better.


You have it toggled to prevent it from playing on 3rd party websites.


----------



## Anon123 (Jan 13, 2022)

IShouldGetSomeSleep said:


> You have it toggled to prevent it from playing on 3rd party websites.


Ah, I created the account just to upload the video and I don't normally use Youtube so thanks for pointing that out. I guess it being toggled by default is so Youtube can bring more people onto their platform.


----------



## thedudeabides (Mar 3, 2015)

By any chance was this during or directly after misting? My tincs exhibit a similar behavior when I mist and they are sprayed directly. Also I've noticed it if they are walking through supplement powder during feeding and it gets on their skin.


----------



## Anon123 (Jan 13, 2022)

thedudeabides said:


> By any chance was this during or directly after misting? My tincs exhibit a similar behavior when I mist and they are sprayed directly. Also I've noticed it if they are walking through supplement powder during feeding and it gets on their skin.


No, I believe this instance happened about 4 hours or so after misting. When I mist the frogs usually just run away to hide. Nothing out of the ordinary, In believe? They come out immediately afterwards though. I use RO water to mist.

Regarding supplement powder, it happened in an area where I've never fed the frogs. I also currently use a tea strainer to remove most of the loose powder from the flies before letting them loose in the tank. I pour the flies into the strainer then tap it a few times against the cup to sift away the loose powder. Would this act drastically reduce the amount of supplements my frogs get? The flies still appear to be completely white (covered in powder) by the time they're in the tank. The act's a relic of back when I was less confident in my ability to dump the flies into the vivarium without dumping the powder in as well. But now I think I have the technique to separate flies from powder down. Granted I'd still rather not risk it unless the tea strainer is really messing up my supplementation routine.


----------



## ForgottenPast (Dec 18, 2021)

I am new as well and one behavior that I wasn’t expecting was them shedding their skin. I have learned that if my frogs are coming out later than usual then they are probably shedding. 

There has been a couple of times they have done it in the open (saw one of them doing it this morning actual) and it looks rather distressing. They eat their dead skin and do weird motions while this is happening.


----------



## thedudeabides (Mar 3, 2015)

Anon123 said:


> No, I believe this instance happened about 4 hours or so after misting. When I mist the frogs usually just run away to hide. Nothing out of the ordinary, In believe? They come out immediately afterwards though. I use RO water to mist.
> 
> Regarding supplement powder, it happened in an area where I've never fed the frogs. I also currently use a tea strainer to remove most of the loose powder from the flies before letting them loose in the tank. I pour the flies into the strainer then tap it a few times against the cup to sift away the loose powder. Would this act drastically reduce the amount of supplements my frogs get? The flies still appear to be completely white (covered in powder) by the time they're in the tank. The act's a relic of back when I was less confident in my ability to dump the flies into the vivarium without dumping the powder in as well. But now I think I have the technique to separate flies from powder down. Granted I'd still rather not risk it unless the tea strainer is really messing up my supplementation routine.
> View attachment 307341


Sounds like good practice to me. The amount of powder lost would be a non factor I would think.


----------



## Anon123 (Jan 13, 2022)

Managed to get a personal video of this happening today, but to a different frog:




(Sorry I still can't seem to figure out how to get it to play on third parties.)

I spotted something similar happening to all of my frogs the day before in a similar location (possibly even on the same leaf if memory serves me correctly). It's the first time I've spotted this happening since I originally made this post.

All core husbandry principles should remain the same with the exception of stress and misting. The frogs should be under significantly less stress as my parents have long since gone back. Regarding misting, I've been misting less this week due to my life's circumstances (I hand mist), but I make sure that the tank gets misted at least once daily for about a minute first thing in the morning. There's a vriesea in the tank in case the frog gets too dry for their liking.

The video in question took place when the lights first came on and it's been about 24 hours since the last serious misting (I've been lightly misting the walls a few hours before lights out to avoid leaf rot). I'd like to hope that the frog's failure to hop is due to a lack of humidity and the leaf's surface being too dry to provide traction for the frogs or something since if memory serves me right, most of the time I witnessed something like this it was on this leaf. But if that isn't the case then what could it be due to? Vitamin A deficiency? I've been feeding them with Calcium Plus on every feeding so that should be the only thing that's lacking if there's a deficiency? Do you think a vet would be able to diagnose the problem given its lack of consistency?

Thank you.


----------



## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

If you're referring to the kick at the very beginning of the video, it looks like what my frogs do when they have something on them (usually a fruit fly).


----------



## ForgottenPast (Dec 18, 2021)

As an aside I take videos of my frogs for TikTok nearly everyday of my dart frogs I must say your dart frogs looks very cute!

Honestly though the video you made just looks like normal feeding behavior I have no idea what you mean by weird kicking behavior at this point. I went back and watched all 4 frogs in the video and I don’t even know which one you think is acting oddly.


----------



## Anon123 (Jan 13, 2022)

fishingguy12345 said:


> If you're referring to the kick at the very beginning of the video, it looks like what my frogs do when they have something on them (usually a fruit fly).


Yeah, that was what I was referring to. Do you know of any other causes for weird, similar-looking kicking behaviors? This instance was recorded right after feeding so it could be explained away with that, but I've seen it happen the night before when there most likely weren't any flies around since they were dumped in over 11 hours ago.


----------



## Anon123 (Jan 13, 2022)

ForgottenPast said:


> I went back and watched all 4 frogs in the video and I don’t even know which one you think is acting oddly.


It was the kick that happened at the very start of the video, should be the frog in the middle. 

Hopefully I'm just over thinking things, as the other instances of it happening wasn't during feeding time (no videos to compare the kicking styles to, unfortunately as it's rather sporadic).

I guess I'll start supplementing with Vitamin A once a month to be on the safe side?


----------



## ForgottenPast (Dec 18, 2021)

Hmm me dig through some of my videos to see if I can show you that it’s pretty normal it just looks like the frog had a fly on him. They also do it if them have some debris on them.


----------



## ForgottenPast (Dec 18, 2021)

Forgottens_Frogs on TikTok
Forgottens_Frogs on TikTok
Forgottens_Frogs on TikTok
Not exactly like what’s happening in your video but sometimes a fly will crawl on the the frog and the frog may get starting and fling the fly away. (Also excuse the music this was meant for entertainment).


----------



## Anon123 (Jan 13, 2022)

ForgottenPast said:


> Not exactly like what’s happening in your video but sometimes a fly will crawl on the the frog and the frog may get starting and fling the fly away. (Also excuse the music this was meant for entertainment).


I must admit that the way your frog moved in that second video would've had me concerned.

Okay, here are two final videos that I've managed to capture just now. It's been many hours since the last feeding and there are no flies in sight. This is the exact frog that originally made this post about.










Do you think it's just substrate? It's affecting a different leg in each video. The videos were taken about 3 minutes apart.

If you folks still think it's just substrate then I'll leave it at that and stop worrying about the frog. Thank you.


----------



## ForgottenPast (Dec 18, 2021)

If you watch carefully in the first new video you posted there is a tiny white stick next to it’s leg that falls of of the frog after it kicks. It wasn’t there before the kick after the it’s there.


----------



## Anon123 (Jan 13, 2022)

ForgottenPast said:


> If you watch carefully in the first new video you posted there is a tiny white stick next to it’s leg that falls of of the frog after it kicks. It wasn’t there before the kick after the it’s there.


Sorry, could you screen capture and point to where the white speck is?

If you meant this one then that's a part of the frog's skin. It has a random yellow spot near it's butt.


----------



## ForgottenPast (Dec 18, 2021)

It’s a thin white stick


----------



## Anon123 (Jan 13, 2022)

ForgottenPast said:


> It’s a thin white stick


Thank you. I hope that all instances this behavior is just the frog trying to remove debris from its skin and that this act appears repeatedly in this particular frog because this frog is especially susceptible to being annoyed by debris (personality).


----------



## ForgottenPast (Dec 18, 2021)

I mentioned shedding earlier and given your anxiety about your frogs I think I will show you one of the few videos I have gotten of it. They do this all the time mostly in the morning wherever they slept. If you notice one of your frogs that is normally up by a certain time isn’t out yet it is probably shedding.

It does look rather disconcerting and I was very worried the first time I saw this behavior. Keep in mind it is completely normal, they eat their shed skin while they pull it into their mouths for extra protein.

Forgottens_Frogs on TikTok


----------



## Anon123 (Jan 13, 2022)

ForgottenPast said:


> I mentioned shedding earlier and given your anxiety about your frogs I think I will show you one of the few videos I have gotten of it. They do this all the time mostly in the morning wherever they slept. If you notice one of your frogs that is normally up by a certain time isn’t out yet it is probably shedding.


Yeah, I've seen shedding before, but there's no way this is the result of shedding — its almost the frog's bedtime.


----------



## ForgottenPast (Dec 18, 2021)

I agree, I knew it wasn’t shedding once I saw the video just wanted to share it in case you hadn’t had the opportunity to see it yet.


----------

