reptilecity.com

White's Tree frog with a missing toe and one falling off!

I ordered two baby White's tree frogs AKA Green Australian Tree Frogs AKA Dumpy Tree Frogs. I had gone to them because the website/breeder I normally order things and animals for amphibians, reptiles and various bug species were out of stock for these adorable frogs, all morphs, so I turned to ReptileCity. I was amazed at the prices, especially with the "Buy 1 Get 1 Free" deal since I wanted a pair of males anyway. I ordered with standard shipping, so they would fulfill it in 30 days, and ship it. I ordered and happily awaited. I then decided to do some research on them since their "Free Range, 20 acre all natural farm" story seemed too good to be true. I stumbled across all the reviews about animals not showing up, or coming sick or even DEAD. But, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. When they arrived today, first red flag, it wasn't in a live animal box, not even a sticker or label. I opened the box to find a few pages of crumpled news paper as "padding" and inside was a container with less than a hand full sphagnum moss (the container was cylinder and was on it's side might I add), one of the frogs was up on the side peering out, the other had nestled itself into an alcove in the minimal moss. I was a bit concerned about how the one up on the side was a bit skinny, but this is my first time owning them and I thought I may be overreacting since he wasn't that skinny , so I wasn't too concerned. Took them both out, both were extremely friendly and seemed quite excited to be out of that box. Other than the one being a bit skinny, both looked fine. THAT WAS WRONG. I took them out later, to show to my little brother who was at school when they arrived, and to feed them the extra small crickets we got. As we were feeding them on the table, the seemingly normal one hopped around inspecting things on the table, like my mom's purse. My mom suddenly began to stare at his foot and said something looked wrong with his toe. She picked him up and part of his toe was literally almost hanging off, only hanging on by a thread of flesh. The wound looked old, so we knew it hadn't been caused by the other frog in transit. We realized that he was also missing a complete toe on his front foot. So, yeah. Never ordering from them again. I am taking him to the vet tomorrow.UPDATE: We took him to the emergency exotic vet in our area. They didn't have in specific amphibian vets on shift that day, but did have an exotic vet that deals with reptiles and such, but she was busy, but the vet we were working with went and spoke with her after we gave her the whole spiel and they had examined him and the other one (we brought him along for company and to make sure nothing was wrong with him). She explained that the injured toe that it could've been chytrid or trauma from something else (such as fighting with another frog at the breeder). They thought it may have been chytrid because he also had lacerations on his lip. He also may have had a broken or fractured front leg because it was swollen and another fractured toe, which would've been caused in shipping because it wasn't a live animal box, so they didn't handle it with extra care. The injured toe also had exposed bone. They explained that they could do surgery on the toe, put him antibiotics, and that if it is chytrid they could try antibiotics, but there was no guarantee. The cost was enormous if we got everything, and again no guarantee he would get better. We decided the best thing to do for him was to put him down, and even though I only had him around 36 hours, I was still distraught, thinking it was my fault for ordering from these people, but I realized that it was better for him that I had ordered him, because he probably would've sat there and suffered from his exposed bone and gotten infection, or literally rotted alive if he had chytrid, or he may have gone to someone who would've ignored it. We decided to "quarantine" the other one, and wait a few weeks to see if he may have had chytrid as well because he also has lacerations on his lip before we order him a friend (DEFINITELY NOT FROM THESE PEOPLE), so he doesn't get another frog sick if he does

Date of experience: Mar 12, 2019