# Surinam Toads/African Bullfrogs



## Uromastyxman (Jan 28, 2009)

People have been asking me for ages to put some pic’s up of my Surinam Cane Toads and African bullfrogs so here they are. I have 2 female Surinam Cane Toads, A male and female African Bullfrog pair and a single large male. 

I have had adult cane toads several times but these are the biggest I’ve seen and people tell me that the ones from Surinam are markedly larger than Cane Toads from other place. This may or may not be true but the ones from Surinam that I have seen have been huge. 

My experience of large WC cane toads is that they can be nervous and do not easily accept food from tongs, unlike African Bullfrogs and Horned frogs, who will do so with a bit of coaxing. This means that feeding large cane toads can be expensive. The large cane toads I have acquired in the past have all been skinny and underweight when they arrived and I believe that this is because people throw a box of locusts or crickets in with them once a week that are not even gut-loaded. I also believe that they are not given adequate access to fresh water daily, which is essential. 

My goal was to get my toads to eat food from tongs. I tried a vibrating Vivicator dish which didn’t work because it was noisy and seemed to alarm them. I noticed that if I left a bowl of Morio worms in a dish all the time that they would lose interest and eventually stop eating them so I then started to put in a bowl of food only once a week. This worked and they would finish the whole bowl. I then bought some sausage casings made from animal gut and I filled them with various Items including dead mice and chicks (I am personally not comfortable feeding live rodents and chicks to toads and frogs) processed pet food such as moist dog biscuits and dried mealworms from the garden centre which are quite cheap and are designed for feeding garden birds. I would seal the sausage with a morio worm inside. The movement from the morio worm attracted the toads and they ate the sausage. This meant I no longer had to buy loads of live food as I only needed one or two small insects to attract the toads to the sausage. In fact I now have a colony of Dubia roaches which are great and they very in size so I can use the smaller ones to go inside the sausage. 

I feed the toads once a week with one sausage sized package. I use the same bowl I used to feed their live food in and when they see the bowl they realise it’s lunch time and it acts like a trigger. One week will be dog biscuits, the next will be Dubia Roaches and once a month I will feed a mouse or a chick. Too many rodents will cause kidney and liver problems and will eventually kill your animal. Use rodents in moderation. Trying to get your animal to the size of a football will kill it and is tantamount to animal cruelty in my opinion.

While feeding one of my sausages once a week may seem too little, I have noticed that the Toads have doubled in weight since I got them 2 and a half years ago. They now weigh over 2 kilos each, are healthy and not at all fat. Furthermore, feeding one inanimate item a week means that they can have a much more varied diet as I can supplement the sausage with any food items I want. This also means that there are no feeder insects soiling the cage and stressing out the toads. I have started to be a bit creative with my sausages and occasionally put in bits of raw lean meat, however I do not overdo this and use my discretion about what I feed them. I have noticed that they watch me preparing the sausages through the glass in their cages and eat the sausage within minutes. This also means that there is no waste.

While the feeding regime is extremely important I believe that providing them with access to fresh water every day is essential and equally important to promote a big healthy toad. Toads drink in water through their skin and I provide mine with the largest ceramic dog bowl available from Pets at Home. Mine sit in the water every night and also defecate in it. This is also convenient as the cage stays clean. I believe the water helps them defecate. 

I keep my African Bullfrogs on the same diet and in the same Vision vivariums as the toads however they are at about 80% humidity where the toads are at about 50%.

I have included pictures with a 12 inch ruler to give you an idea of their size and there are some pictures of a toad coming to the bowl for its sausage only 30 seconds after I put it in. I keep my animals this way because it works for me and my experience has led me to do things this way. Other people will have their own way of doing things and I am always interested to listen to other people’s methods and ideas. 

I have Uromastyx Lizards and indigo snakes, Blood Pythons and an anaconda and an albino Boa, however if I was forced to only have one or two animals I would keep the Toads And The African Bullfrogs. They are simply amazing. 


Andy:2thumb:


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## Ron Magpie (Oct 11, 2009)

Fab piece- this sould be a sticky!:no1:


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## Uromastyxman (Jan 28, 2009)

Ron Magpie said:


> Fab piece- this sould be a sticky!:no1:


 
Cheers Ron:2thumb:


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## TIMOTHY AND MATILDA (Oct 31, 2008)

Thats amazing,what wonderful photos,you should do a piece for a sunday newspaper supplement,the toads are lovely,I want them :2thumb::2thumb::2thumb:


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## spencerburgo (Dec 1, 2010)

excellent post with amazing photos, the sausage idea is also good will be giving it a go when i get some skins lol:2thumb:

cheers spencer............


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## bobo10 (Sep 10, 2010)

*surinam toads*

they are awesome toads, thanks for the pics.
the thing with the sausage sounds really good aswel.


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## Uromastyxman (Jan 28, 2009)

Thanks folks.

Andy:2thumb:


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## pac (Apr 18, 2011)

hey man will this work for pacs and nice bulls and canes


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## samurai (Sep 9, 2009)

Wow love the cane toads in particular, they're amazing! How big are their vivs?


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## zekee (Sep 14, 2011)

Wow, they are huge. Love them.


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## CPT BJ (Oct 30, 2010)

They are absolute BEASTS!!


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## fardilis (Mar 22, 2011)

pac said:


> hey man will this work for pacs and nice bulls and canes


the setup or the food?


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## Uromastyxman (Jan 28, 2009)

pac said:


> hey man will this work for pacs and nice bulls and canes


Hi Pac,

I've not tried the sausages with horned frogs but I've kept horned frogs as well and I think it would work, just be patient and try different ways if placing the sausage so the can see the movement. They may be nervous at first but when the get used to it it should be fine.

Andy:2thumb:


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## Uromastyxman (Jan 28, 2009)

samurai said:


> Wow love the cane toads in particular, they're amazing! How big are their vivs?


They are in visions which are 28" long by 23" deep by 12" high.

This is actually a little compact in my opinion and I am considering transfering them to a 36" long by 28"deep by 18" high.

I also prefer to keep one toad to one cage as I have found they are less stressed, eat better and the cage stays cleaner.

Andy:2thumb:


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