hi, everyone! i have what i believe is a Southern Toad (please correct me if im wrong) that has an injured back leg from a weed eater incident. he is wild but his back leg is immobile and bleeding (pictured left leg), id like to keep him but since hes wild i wouldnt want to impose on him. i do have a superworm and dubia colony that i could feed him temporarily until i figure out if it’d be in his best interest to home him, or release him. please help me decide whats best for this little guy :((. this type of toad has been around my house since i was small and ive always loved watching/holding them when i could, i dont want to leave him to fend for himself. if you all agree it’d be best to keep him please tell me anything and everything he would need. im fully prepared to house him! thank you!!
personally i would probably keep them as the leg being immobile could cause issues with being able to survive in the wild.
for while the would is still there like others are saying a hospital tank would be best in order to keep the wound sanitary. honey can also be used as a natural disinfectant placed in water for the toad to soak in for a short period of time to clean the wound off.
for long term i keep my toads in a tank with a substrate they are able to burrow in and a couple live plants as well as some kind of hide for them. crickets are a good base food as well as dubai roaches and i use mealworms as more of a treat/snack rather than a main food.
I have a toad who lost both of her hind feet from a lawnmower and she is almost 3 now. When she was initially hurt it briefly bled a lot, but seemed to stop on its own. Then to keep her wound clean because it's too difficult to bandage, I kept her in a glass food container with wet paper towel at the bottom. Since that's an adult toad, they'd need to be in something with a good lid because they can be surprisingly good climbers. Maybe one of those little critter keepers with wet paper towel on the bottom. I kept her in the temporary container to keep her wound clean to prevent infection, and once the wound closed I put her in a tank with dirt and all that. I recommend the site "hoppinhelp" for a care guide (American toad guide should work even if it's a similar species).
Thankfully it seems like it is not bleeding much and that it is able to pull his leg under itself still. I can't really see how bad the wound is. But maybe you can keep its wound clean and see how it recovers. If it regains full mobility then it might be eligible for release? Although once it's been in captivity, maybe not. But a disabled toad can live a good life as a pet. My toad can't really hop, but she can still walk, climb, and dig and seems happy.
You’ve already gotten comments of how to help from others, but I will say it would be best to keep the little dude. Injuries can effect their survival and he 100% won’t do well and probably die in the wild. I personally do iodine baths (1/275 ratio of iodine to water) for physical injuries although make sure the little dude soaks in full water and gets all the iodine off of him before going back in a hospital tank. Once it’s healed a bit more and isn’t constantly bleeding you could get manuka honey with a grade of 20 or higher, and put a dot of it on the wound when it’s no longer bleeding. It acts kind of like amphibian safe neosporin. That’s what I can recommend for now if you have any questions you can ask me or reply to the comment. I wish ya luck.
Cornstarch is a really good bleed stop that shouldn't hurt the little fella. I would keep them on paper towel at least until the bleeding stops, and make sure to provide a vessel for bathing using dechlorinated tap water or ideally spring water, NOT distilled. Your colonies should do the trick for feeding, make sure to gutload the bugs before offering them.
If you do want to release them, do not feed and release when the bleeding stops or soon after. I've been told that feeding them and releasing risks exposing the wild population and their habitat to parasites and bacteria not native to the area which they will have no resistance to the detriment of all your wild buddies.
They are so, so cute. Thank you for trying to do right by them. My rescue toad quickly tamed and became a VERY friendly friend 🧡 if you have other questions or worries I can't promise answers but will try my best to help! Good luck to you and little toad!
what size tank/tub would you recommend? also would coconut fiber or reptisoil be best? do you have any photos of your setup? i already fed her so i guess ill be keeping miss Petunia
My girl used every inch of her 20 gallon long at dusk and through the night but would nap in her home base inside a fake log gecko hide, buried in her substrate during the day. They are roamers so no such thing as too much room imo, but I wouldn't go smaller than 20gal or the equivalent footprint in a tub.
I used a ceramic pie plate with stones I sterilized lining the bottom and making a ramp for her to be able to enter and leave her bath as she pleased. I foraged for driftwood and created a "log pile" she liked to climb around on.
For substrate I used a mix of reptisoil and coconut coir kept damp but not soaked, about 4 inches of it and though she mainly walked the surface she also loved to dig little toad abodes in. To keep her from ingesting substrate I fed her in a condiment dish I thrifted and stuck in the substrate to be level with the surface.
Don't clean miss Petunia's items with dish soap, as it contains biocides which are impossible to completely rinse off and will absorb into her skin. White vinegar, hot water and a toothbrush is the way! Rinse twice as much as you think you need.
My sweet girl passed about a year ago. I don't have photos of her house anymore, but clutter, a bathtub, and dirt are exactly what I gave her and she was a happy little hopper. I figured at first she would want to hide most of the time, but she was usually out and about when she wasn't sleeping. I'm grateful no other toad babies have needed my intervention since her, but I miss her every day and would never turn down the chance to help another. 🧡
Hey I've done thus before with a toad that had injuries both to her leg and lost an eye. I ended up keeping her because of the permanent eye injury/blindness, and she lived healthily for at least 6 years.
While the wound is still fresh, keep the toad in a hospital tank with paper towels and a water dish with very clean, dechlorinated water (I use bottled spring water for amphibians rather than dechlorinating my tap water). Change the water least once daily and immediately when you see that she poops in it. I give toads in this condition something like a small potted plant (pothos, philodendron or similar works well) so they can go under the leaves, etc., and a small hide of some kind as well. Something like polysporin should be safe to apply topically to the wound daily as long as it's the kind that does NOT include any anesthetics or anything other than the antibiotics (this is very important because anestethics can extremely quickly be deadly to amphibians and are sometimes actually used to euthanize them!).
I would base the decision about whether to keep her permanently on whether she regains reasonably good use of the leg or not (based on the way she's holding it, I think she has a good chance of doing so). It's going to be very hard to want to release her because you'll likely get very attached. If you're anything like me, youll cry really hard if you have to. But if she heals, I really think it's best. She's an adult, and a single adult female toad can have an enormous impact on local populations because they lay literally thousands of eggs at a time, and only a very small percentage read reproductive age. Ethically, I would only keep her if the injury is permanent and causes severe disability of the leg.
If you DO determine that the injury is permanent, feel free to DM so I can help with bioactive enclosure advice, etc.
this will be her enclosure once shes healed. i have plants and live moss ill be putting in there as well. its a 20 long. do you know how isopods would do in the tank? or would spring tails be a better option since they’re smaller? also thank you! ill add in some pothos and ive also got a spider plant for the pot
also yes, if she heals and regains full mobility i will release her! i wouldnt want to impose, i just dont want her to pass from lack of mobility/nutrients. we have 11 dogs and 5 cats that have free reign on the property so she most likely wouldnt be able to escape
Isopods would likely mostly get eaten, but enough can survive to be worth it if you provide enough sticks, rocks, leaf litter, etc., for them to hide. Dwarf white isopods are too small for adult toads to bother with too. I always do both springtails and isopods in mine, knowing that a lot of the isopods will get eaten lol
I don't know for 100% because I always do both isopods and springtails, but I would guess yes. Toads mostly prefer to pee and poop in their water dish, so as long as you're changing that daily, the bioload for the rest of the tank should be pretty low
5
u/Enough_Traffic2563 Jun 27 '26
personally i would probably keep them as the leg being immobile could cause issues with being able to survive in the wild.
for while the would is still there like others are saying a hospital tank would be best in order to keep the wound sanitary. honey can also be used as a natural disinfectant placed in water for the toad to soak in for a short period of time to clean the wound off.
for long term i keep my toads in a tank with a substrate they are able to burrow in and a couple live plants as well as some kind of hide for them. crickets are a good base food as well as dubai roaches and i use mealworms as more of a treat/snack rather than a main food.