Hello, it's Anthony Chadwick welcoming you to another episode of Vet Chat on a very sunny. Warm day, we've had warm weather over the last week or two. It's cooled down a bit, but it's great to, to see the sun shining.

And it's great to welcome Dean Faler, who's the CEO of Exotic Vet Support, a British vet. He's going to tell us a little bit about his background and his history, but you're beaming in from sunny, I presume, or perhaps now dark at Sydney, it will be later on in the evening though, won't it? Thank you for having me on, Anthony.

Yes, absolutely, so from er Sydney over here, yeah, very, very hot today and just gonna get warmer next week. So yeah, looking forward to the summer coming up. Fantastic.

Dean, thank you so much for agreeing to come on today. We're we're gonna be talking about one of those animals that we as vets are, I, I feel probably neglected it. The whole group, amphibians, er, salamanders, newts, toads, frogs, a fascinating area and obviously one that you, you're really interested in as well.

Absolutely. So yeah, I love everything that's weird and wonderful, which is how I got into exotics in the first place. And I mean, generally less is known about these exotic species, over cats and dogs as well.

So obviously reptiles is a big thing in. In my practise, but yeah, amphibians as well, more and more people are, are more willing to learn about this, this group of group of animals as well, and I think massively interesting. I don't think enough people talk about it as well, so definitely looking forward to this conversation today, Antony.

Yeah, and I must admit, I'm a bit of a lover of frogs and toads. I remember in the 80s, and this is probably now, and it probably was then illegal, so I could be in trouble for saying it, but I remember collecting some spawn from my local park, Croxford Park, and I had a, a nice water, like a porcelain tub, and I put them in there and watched them over the summer as they developed into little froglets before I, I released them back into the into the lake. One of the things that amazed me at the time was, obviously that whole process of metamorphosis is, is a really tough process and not all of the spawn makes it, obviously a lot of it is predated, but, you know, in that situation that I had it in in my little yard, back at home in Liverpool in a porcelain .

You know, sink that that obviously there was no predation going on. There was still a lot of of dieback even at that stage. Similarly, now I live by the coast and I'm, I'm near, I think one of the major populations of Nasojack toads and 40 years on with the weather changing and drought and so on, the slacks are drying out this year before really the, the toads can actually change into toads that the.

You know, the spawn and the the tadpoles can change into toads, so I think it is a difficult world enough in the wild to be a to be an amphibian, but . There are more and more challenges now in the wild, we'll talk about that later, but perhaps start off by telling us a little bit, I mean, are amphibians kept a lot as pets in the UK and in Australia and other places? Yeah, absolutely, so just touching on what you said earlier about sort of collecting tadpoles and and keeping them and and trying to hatch them in effect or .

Let them metamorphosize. I think you've just hit nail on the head how difficult it is to, actually be successful in, in that, in that process because it's not as simple as you collect them, put them in water, and then job done. It's actually a more technical process than, than most people understand.

And even when I was back in the day, when I was at school, we did similar. Projects as well, and we didn't know any better, whereas nowadays more and more research goes into how we should be looking after these species. So I think, that is something that as vets and just members of the public, we should be aware of, especially when we're keeping these species in, in captivity.

We want to know exactly how we should be keeping them, and we want to be keeping them as close to their natural environment as possible. So just going back to your question that you asked me, yeah, lots of people do keep species, do keep amphibian species, and I've worked in various places around the world. I've worked in the UK, I've worked in Hong Kong.

I'm now obviously in Australia, Sydney at the moment, and everywhere I go, people tend to keep different species of amphibians. So there's people out there keeping them. In Hong Kong, I saw lots of South American horn frogs, very, very common species to keep out there, and actually quite a nice species to work with.

They're a good size, er, their husbandry is pretty, standard, and the clinical conditions that you see are quite a good, probably level for most vets to work at because they don't get anything too complicated and they're a pretty, hardy species to work with as well. And you can find that some species super, super sensitive, some species much, much easier to keep, I'm sure you're aware of that, Anthony. No, it's really interesting and I think again the, the, the animal husbandry, you know, the, the way that you keep the, the temperature, the humidity, etc.

Obviously presumably varies almost, you know, species to species depending on the areas that they come from and and the, the lives they live in the wild, and as you said, it's so important to keep them. In as in as similar a way as they would live in the wild as as possible to have success in keeping them for a long time and and hopefully even getting them to breed and so on. Yeah, absolutely.

What are the sort of, what are the, the, the, the sort of key husbandry factors that you've got to, to look at, you know, what are the things that people get wrong when, when people are bringing animals into you that are unwell or not doing well? Yeah, so, obviously very similar to reptiles, so I'm gonna relate it to reptiles because lots of people are more aware of how to keep reptiles and amphibians. And to be honest, it's very, very similar in some ways and also different in other ways as well.

So in terms of the most basics, we want to be talking about temperature, lighting, humidity. Those are very, very similar to reptiles. Similar and different.

Most amphibians don't tend to bask like reptiles do, but they do want a certain, like ambient temperature to be kept at. Most of them sort of mid-20s or so, really, but there's certainly some, differences like Baxottles I mentioned earlier. They want to be kept a lot cooler, so we're talking maybe 12 to 18 degrees.

You don't want them to be too cold, but certainly you don't want them too hot either. So, yeah, from like a, from a veterinary. Sort of clinical point of view.

Before you see your consultation, you certainly want to be looking at the species and determining what the husband requirements are because you want to be making sure basic things like that are corrected if they're, if they're not right from the, from the client's point of view. And also at the same time, you don't want a client to be saying, oh, I keep my, tree frog at this temperature, at this humidity, and you don't actually know what the. Normal requirements are for that species.

So I've done it before, I've dropped myself right in it. So take it from me, you want to be knowing what these, what these basic parameters are before you walk into that consultation room. So certainly temperature's a big one.

Lighting, lots of these, amphibian species are tropical rainforest species, so they are under, canopies, so they're not always in direct sunlight. But I do feel like lots of them benefit from, low. Grade UVB bulbs or UVB lighting, that can certainly have health benefits.

And I think psychological benefits for these amphibians as well. Like I said at the start, we want to be creating as natural environments for these as possible. So certainly some UVB, and then humidity, again, depending on the species.

Is it fully aquatic? Is it semi-aquatic? Is it terrestrial?

Again, you want to be knowing these things and you know, you want to be knowing where you want to be, keeping this humidity at. So those are probably the top 3 that are similar to reptiles. And there's lots of ways sort of you can maintain these, in terms of temperature, you obviously wanna have them on a thermostat, so it's, controlled and it's not gonna deviate too much beyond what the what the owner sets it at.

Humidity wise, you'll be setting up automatic systems or you can just miss them multiple times through the day. And then lighting, obviously, you can either manually turn that on or off as needed, maybe like a 12 hour cycle or a 10 hour cycle. Also that can vary if they're breeding.

. So yeah, so easy ways to to do that. You can also put lighting on like a timer as well. Other things that are quite important, er water quality, massive one with amphibians, their skin or their, their body is so sensitive to slight changes in, in water quality.

Many of them go in the water for, for long periods of time, and their, their skin is actually, very active. So that's how they help regulate their, the hydration, their elect electrolyte levels. So if they have poor water quality, they can become, or it can.

Really affect them. So for, for instance, if there's too much ammonia in the water, that can really affect them and can actually cause toxicity and death quite, quite quickly. So we want to be regulating those, those, those, the water quality as well.

Other things, stocking densities is a big one as well. Yeah. So if we have too many frogs or too many, salamanders in a, in a, in an enclosure, how is that gonna affect the, the, the patient or the animal?

Certainly, . You can have aggressive behaviours, there's too many in a, in a short, in a, in a small tank, and also that can actually have an effect on water quality as well if there's. 5 frogs in the enclosure, and the, there's obviously gonna be producing more waste, so more ammonia, more nitrates, than if it's just one frog in there.

So I feel like it's very important, to be checking or the, the owner to be checking the water quality, certainly on a weekly basis. So I'd say those are probably the top 5 things we want to be aware of as vets of how owners are, are keeping their enclosures. Thanks team, what would you say?

Are the most common diseases that you see in frogs, and are these things that you should be treating, you know, as individuals or, or often are you treating collectively? Yeah, so I feel like in clinical practise it's probably gonna be different to, to wild populations. So in clinical practise, like I said, husbandry is a big thing and unfortunately not everyone gets it right.

So factors that are that are affected by husbandry are, are very, very common that I see in in clinical practise. So malnutrition, big one. So we do see, nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism or, or metabolic bone disease.

That can be a big one, lack of vitamin A, so hypovitaminosis A can be a big one as well. So those are sort of the main nutritional deficiencies I see. You can actually see acute deaths from inappropriate husbandry as well, like I said, .

Water quality, if the water quality is suddenly changes or even slowly changes, you'll probably notice that by a sudden death of a, of a reptile, of a, of an amphibian. It's probably not gonna slowly get worse over a week or two. Having said that, if you do get a sudden death from a, from one of your, your own collection or one of your, your patient's collections, I wouldn't just put that down to poor husbandry, you can get highly infectious agents that can, cause you sudden deaths as well.

Probably the big ones, commonly known, red leg is, is, is probably the, the, the generic name. But another name for it would be sort of bacterial dermosepticemia, which is where you get reddening of the, of the skin. Obviously bacterial, bacterial cause.

Usually it's like a gramme negative or a gramme negative, sorry, a gramme negative or gramme positive bacteria, usually Aeromonas or pseudomonas is, is probably the top ones that I see. But that is probably, one of the, the main ones we see in clinical practise. So very, very obvious if you have a, a light coloured frog, if it's white underneath or light green underneath, very, very obvious to see it.

And despite the name red leg, it can be red throughout its ventrum. So you can get, other diseases, fungal infections is a big one with, with, amphibians as well. Chytrid is quite a, quite a well known one.

And again you get that in captivity and you get that in, in the wild as well. And then you've got rhinovirus. So those last two actually can be quite difficult to distinguish between each other because you see quite similar signs.

So you can get dermal lesions, you can get ascites or, or hydroceum, as well as the, the frequent. Non-specific signs, nonspecific clinical signs like anorexia, lethargy, things like that as well. So those are the top ones.

I know with global warming, certainly there's been loss as an extinction of some er frog species, and this seems to be linked in with, You know, catching things like fungal diseases which as the temperatures grow, it makes them more prone and suddenly they've disappeared, obviously habitat losses is part of that as well. I mean they are in in danger aren't they, you know, amphibians almost seem more fragile than a, than a reptile in that sense in that they do need. They're globally, globally, the amphibians are declining unfortunately.

Yeah, yeah. Going back to the, the, the feeding, you know, getting the feeding right, some of those nutritional diseases you were talking about and obviously anorexia, happening as well, how do we, what sort of diet do do frogs and, and other amphibians need and how can we make sure that we're preparing a balanced diet for them when we, we take them into captivity? Yeah, good question, and I think that depends on different species, vast majority, so anurans, so frogs and toads, generally are carnivorous, so.

There's commercial diets out there, those are probably like the backbone of what we should be feeding them because they're commercially formulated to be nutritious for them, so it should have all their nutritional needs. And so that's certainly the backbone of what I would suggest for clients to be feeding their, their frogs and toads, and again, salamanders as well. .

But I do like to again go back to, I like to make things as er natural as possible for them, so I like enrichment, so I do feel like we should be feeding other protein sources, insects obviously, so things like crickets, er you can feed er dubio er er dubia roaches, you can feed wax worms, you can feeder bloodworms, things like that as well. But just bearing in mind when we're feeding these items, if there's a couple of issues with those as well, which is not so bad with the commercial feeds, if we're feeding these, these prey items, we do need to be careful that they obviously don't turn around and start munching on the actual amphibian themselves, because sometimes if the amphibians start hungry or it's actually sick from another disease process, it probably won't technically go for these, these prey items and if there's nothing else for prey items to eat, then they can have a munch on your, on your frog or your toad. So just bear that in mind, so just let owners know to keep an eye on that, maybe just put a few prey items in at first, wait for the, wait for the, the frog to, to eat those, and then you can put some more in.

The other thing to think about is that when you put feed items like that in there, it can affect the water quality again. So if you're putting bloodworm into er into the water, and the, the patient or the pet isn't actually eating all of that, that's just gonna decompose and that's gonna be causing. The ammonia and the nitrites to increase quite quickly.

Yeah, yeah. And of course I, you were mentioning it before, if you overstock, I think cannibalism can happen amongst amphibians as well, can't it, with, with the spawn, but also with the, the young tadpoles and, and absolutely froglets. Yeah, absolutely, and some species more than others, like I said, the, the horn frogs don't put another horn frog in with, with a horn frog cos they will eat each other or try to eat each other.

So yeah, so just watch out for that. But if there's increased, density, there's certainly gonna be aggression. You're certainly gonna have, maybe not eat each other, but definitely gonna cause, some, some nasty bites, that you might see in, in, in your, in your practise as well.

We do see trauma, as in like fractures, not just small abrasions. But yeah, if the stocking density is too high, they, they may well try and cannibalise each other, yeah. Do you want to become a part of the largest online veterinary community in the world?

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Even when you're, you know, my, my garden doesn't have any water and it is something I keep on threatening to put in to, to see what, what comes, but obviously you can find toads and frogs. In your garden sometimes, you know, particularly in the autumn as perhaps hibernation is, is being thought about. How can we as that, give good advice to clients if they're bringing in these, these animals, perhaps they've been injured.

Is, is there things that we can do on a sort of first aid basis for wild frogs and toads that that maybe would come into the practise? Yeah, so I think, from like, the public's point of view, they're always trying to do good, always trying to bring in these these injured animals for us. I think first things first, we need to help educate them as well because we don't want them coming in, picking up these frogs with their, with their bare hands and just sitting in the car and transport, transporting to the vet practise, touching everything with their with their, with their hands after they've, they've touched these species cos firstly, that's actually very, very harmful to the.

To the, to the frog, for instance, like I said, they've got super sensitive skin, and if we've got our oily human hands like picking them up, that can actually cause some, some real irritation. To their skin, and that's something you can even see in your consult. Whenever you do a consult for, for these, these amphibians, you wanna be checking them over before you even touch them.

So as soon as you start touching them, you might start seeing some, erythema on their skin, which wasn't there before, so that could be like a, a false positive you've got there and it's sending you down the, the wrong end, you think, you think it's got red leg, but no, you've just been touching it. So we want these, we don't want the public to be picking these up with their bare hands because yeah, it's gonna irritate the. The skin of the, the amphibian, and then they can have this, bacteria or fungus on their skin, and they're gonna start sort of touching themselves, touching the, the car and, spreading, spreading disease that way as well.

So, they should be ideally picking it up with a bucket or, or some gloves, and then transporting it to, to the vet practise that way. And then when it comes to actual vet practise itself. Pretty much exactly the same.

We want to be making sure we're wearing gloves. Ideally you want to be rinsing these gloves with dechlorinated water or distilled water or, or mineral water, just when you're handling, handing the, the patient, it's gonna be nicer to their skin so they don't dry out and, and accidentally tear some of that skin. So that is a big thing, and again, so you're not walking around the practise touching things and, and spreading, spreading diseases as well.

And especially that's gonna be really bad if you're getting amphibians in as pets. So you're getting wild patients in or wild, wild, amphibians in, and then you're mixing out of the same environment as, as pets because that is just a disaster waiting for happens spreading, spreading disease there. So very much a biosecurity thing, that's a really useful er tip, which I have to admit I didn't know.

So obviously wear gloves when you're handling amphibians. Can you just use all the tap water or you should be using distilled water to put on your gloves to to keep them moist as well? Yeah, I think, depending on where you are in the world, ordinary tap water has probably got .

Chlorine in there, so you, that's, that can cause toxicity in amphibians. So I would always say just have some mineral water, er you just get it from, from the supermarket and use that on your, on your gloves. You do have to watch out because some gloves can have powder, so you obviously want the powder free gloves, otherwise, again, that can cause irritation to their skin as well, but always wear vinyl gloves.

That's probably the the least problematic because they can get reactions to just the latex, latex gloves as well. Oh no, that's really fascinating, and I think it's another good point. Obviously, from a biosecurity and a zoonotic potential, but also reverse zoonosis, throw those gloves away, wash your hands before you deal with with any other animals, or as you say, start patting your way around computers and door handles and things.

Exactly, and to be honest, that's the same with many exotic species. I don't see why everyone doesn't wear gloves when they touch birds, when they touch reptiles, because that can just create a bit of a, a breeding ground for, for bacter and other pathogens, especially when a lot of these pathogens don't just sit in the environment for a few hours. It's gonna be in the environment for, days, weeks, sometimes potentially months as well, so.

So definitely good to, to use, gloves for that purpose, but also you want to be disinfecting your hospital as well. So, we tend to use like the F10 bombs or the F10 sprays to, to, to make sure everything's as clean as possible, because no doubt, no matter how careful you are, using gloves and throwing those away, disinfecting surfaces, you wanna routinely be sort of disinfecting your, your contact rooms and, and wherever these species, these egolic species are gonna be. And, and another good point, obviously keeping .

Wild amphibians and and captive amphibians apart because disease can spread very quickly between collections, this must be, you know, incredibly important also in zoos where perhaps animals are being brought in and quarantined and so on and biosecurity is. Well, we've seen it very much with the COVID pandemic, the importance of infection control. Yeah, absolutely, and, and just two points whilst, whilst you've made me think about it.

One of those is that you said, captive and, and, . Wild amphibians being brought in together, I feel like the amphibian enthusiasts, if they see a, a sick frog or, or a sick amphibian in the wild, they're certainly going to pick that up and take that home and try and care for it themselves. So again, we just need to be letting the public know that's not a good idea because if you do bring that in and you give a disease to your collection, you may have a.

Quite a high mortality from your collection if there's something significant that's infectious going on at the same time, if you then rehab it, and your collection's got something, and then you just release it into the world, again, you're just adding to the problem really. So I do think it's something, the average member of the public thinks about, and I don't blame them unless they're told, it's, it's not gonna be something you're gonna think about really. Yeah, no, I think it's, I, I, you know, even for ourselves as vets because it's not taught a great deal at college.

We have to go out and and find information for ourselves. I mean, what are the, what's the, what's the bible of the amphibian vet's world? What, what's the textbook that every aspiring amphibian vet needs to have on?

I don't think there's a, I don't think it's a standard textbook. I'm sure BSAVA have got a a a an amphibian book out there. That's certainly a, a go to one, back in the day, honestly, I don't know, I've not practised in the UK for a few years now, so I don't know what the, what the latest book is there, but certainly the BSAVA, are gonna have a, have a good amphibian one out there, and that'll probably be like your more, your more basic, care.

I say basic, it covers the vast majority of, of, of what you need to know, especially in first opinion practise. But definitely if you want to go the next step, the divers, stall and Mada, they've got a great reptile amphibian. Like I said, Bible out there, and that is a lot more detail.

So I have that book, I think it's fantastic. And if you want to do a bit more, bit more reading, then that's certainly a good one to go for. But one thing to know about the amphibian world, so much new information's coming out there.

Best thing to do is if you have a patient that you're not sure what the disease is, yeah, you can look up these textbooks, but if you're looking for certain doses. Do a PubMed search or or do some literature reading so you can have the the most up to-date information up there. That's great, Dean.

Obviously, you're the CEO of Exotic Vet Support. Is that is that purely a, a person, you know, a person to person consult or do you do some digital support as well? Yeah, so, at the moment I have webinars, much like the webinar vet, to be honest, so I've got some, some webinars out there, some teaching videos of clinical techniques, and some case studies of, of how I like to work out my cases as well.

So that is the, the backbone of, of what I've started doing. And then the other part is quite rightly, so if someone wants more support, like a more, 1 to 1 sort of mentoring service, then, I, I, I do that as well. So, I think that works quite nicely.

So I always go back to, when I was first graduated, and this is probably more who I, who I aim to help if you first graduated or even students, but mainly if you first graduated and you're first maybe 5 years after, graduation. If you're stuck, I didn't have anyone to, to sort of, to go to and help really, as in to help me or a second opinion or anything, so, if, if you're stuck with a patient, whether it's a frog, a toad, reptile, bird, even if it's just what do you think of these blood results, what do you think of these X-rays, where do I go next, what sort of protocol would you use in this situation for this surgery, for instance? I can help as best as I can.

Fantastic, Dean, that's, that's a really great and perhaps at the end of the podcast we'll have some contact details so people know how to get in contact with you. Oh absolutely, absolutely no problem at all. Yeah, brilliant.

Dean. It's certainly, I, I, I love the fact, . By doing podcasts and doing webinars, I learned so much, just by being on them as, you know, chairing and things, and if, if you learn one thing from a podcast or a webinar, then it's been worth doing that piece of CPD that you can bring into.

That's right. Free CPD for you there. Yeah, so I, I do hope those vets who are listening and I'm sure there will be some amphibian.

Aficionados who are not vets who are listening, you know, the points on things like gloves are really important, and, and that's certainly one of the tips that I'll be taking away if I do spot any frogs in my garden and, I want to have a closer look at them, I'll make sure I get the gloves on. Absolutely. But yeah, if anyone's got any questions, feel free to reach out to to myself or or Anthony, you can pass any questions on, I'm sure.

Yeah, if you've got any questions about anything we we covered today, more than happy to, to go through those in more detail or answer any questions that you have. Dean, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed, listening to you today, and good evening to you.

I hope the rest of the evening goes well. And thank you so much for for your generosity and coming on the the podcast. No problem at all, absolute pleasure.

Thanks everyone for listening. This is Anthony Chadwick from the webinar vet, and this has been another episode of Vet Chat. Thank you so much.

OK, thank you.