# He poops in the water bowl



## back2eight (Dec 19, 2005)

Lately my male tomato frog has been pooping in the water bowl. I think he spends pretty much all night in it. Now I am having to clean it out every day as opposed to once a week or every other week like I was doing. Why would he do this?


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## Guest (Feb 14, 2006)

To anger you. :wink: 

Matt


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## back2eight (Dec 19, 2005)

lol, well it is exasperating me, thats for sure.


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## Darks!de (Nov 16, 2004)

Could be that the humidity falls during the night and he needs to sit in there to rehydrate, or maybe he is having trouble passing his food, what are you feeding him?

Luke


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## back2eight (Dec 19, 2005)

Large crickets and occasionally meal worms. How does sitting in the water help with passing food? The other frog doesn't sit in the water bowl. This one is more aggressive with feeding, and I'm sure he overeats. The humidity can drop to 70 at night, but I haven't been worried about it since during a dry season it is okay to let the humidity stay around 50. I haven't induced a dry season for them yet, but plan to for breeding as they get older. Right now I'm trying to keep the humidity at 80 during the day.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

This is common in many terrestrial frog species and should not be considered unusual. 

Ed


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## Guest (Feb 14, 2006)

Darks!de said:


> Could be that the humidity falls during the night
> 
> maybe he is having trouble passing his food, what are you feeding him?
> 
> Luke


Thats not possible unless shes opening the tank at night. Humidity always rises when the temp falls.

I would think its more likely he over eats and its helping him to pass the BM.

Matt


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## back2eight (Dec 19, 2005)

He does overeat. How does sitting in the water help? The humidity actually does fall at night, it is sitting close to the air vent, and since the heat runs more at night, I think this helps dry it out some. I've got a screen top partially covered by plastic wrap.

If its just normal behavior like Ed said, thats great. If he's overeating I'm not sure how to stop it. I try dropping the crickets in front of the female so she will get them before he does, but she just is not aggressive at all. The male will actually go after the crickets, which is sort of abnormal for a tomato frog. They usually sit and wait for the food to walk in front of them, which is what the female does. But with the male going after them and her sitting and waiting for them to come to her, he usually winds up eating some of her share of the food. I do try to guide the cricket back to her by poking it with a stick or something like that and it usually helps. My only other option would be to seperate them for feeding time, which I am considering doing.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Anurans are typically hard wired to take advantage of periods of food abundance and will eat as much as possible (after all, they do not understand that the food god will be by with crickets on a schedule.....). 

The female may be shyer or a little more stressed which is allowing the male to outcompete her for food. 

How did you determine the correct amount to feed the frogs? 


I have seen many different species of anurans defecate in the water bowl (and this does include animals that were not overfed). 

Ed


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## back2eight (Dec 19, 2005)

> How did you determine the correct amount to feed the frogs?




Well, they came from a pet store and at the time they were the size of quarters. They are not quite as big as my fist yet, but they are getting there. In the pet store they were feeding them three small crickets each. I kept using small crickets, just upping the amount that I gave them, until one day I went to get more crickets and the only ones they had were the large ones. I got them and gave them only two each at first. Now I will sometimes give them up to four large crickets each. If I do that, then the next day I might just give them two each, or give them some meal worms instead. I'm just guessing, I guess, is what I'm saying. There is suprisingly little information on the internet about these frogs, and I'm learning as I go. I did find a site that told how one zoo had managed to captive breed these frogs, and that is the one I go by when I have questions. Most of these frogs seem to be WC. I have no idea if mine were or not. I must be doing something right though, because they are fat and healthy, and the male calls at night. They seem to be doing good! I wish I had someone else to talk to that also keeps these frogs so we could compare stories.


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2006)

You know I think we can easily answer this question. Everyone take a moment and think, think back to when you were a child and got that urge to pee in the pool! There it is, thats it. mmmyeaaaehhh!  

Matt


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2006)

Perfectly normal. They're going to defecate regardless if where they are--they are just spending some extra time in the water bowl lately, so that's where it's happening.


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## back2eight (Dec 19, 2005)

Okay! He didn't do it last night, but he only got one cricket yesterday, too. He does it more whenever he has eaten more that day. He overate the day before so I didn't want to give him too much yesterday. They burrow, and after they have moved from the spot they burrowed in I always see poop where they were sitting. Apparently they don't mind sitting in it.


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