General Chat

Any wildlife experts out there ? I inherited a 2'6'' x 5' pond with my new house a couple of years ago along with a host of local wildlife. Last year about a dozen frogs produced an unbelievable amount of frogspawn, which duly hatched into tadpoles. They swam around for weeks & weeks - well into summer. I looked up on the internet to see how long they should take to turn into frogs & it said 6-10 weeks. After about 3-4 months they disappeared all bar a few floating dead bodies. Never saw a single "froglet". This year there's even more frogspawn. My instinct is to leave well alone, but can anyone say if I should have noticed if they had successfully made to adultfroghood ? Or did they all die and could I have done something to prevent it ? Rick.

Rick for a start have you a filter in your pond they could have been sucked in to that also have you any fish in the pond they tend to eat them, what i do is take out some of the spawn in to anorther small pond i have when big enough so the fish dont eat them pop them back into the other pond i have loads of frogs

Hi Margaret, My "pond" is so small you can't fit much more than a few tadpoles in it !! There are no fish and although there's a pump with a filter, I didn't switch it on last year while the spawn or tadpoles were around to avoid making frog soup. My guess is that they didn't develop properly - never saw any tadpoles with proper legs growing although they got quite big. Just wondered it it could have been disease or their environment - something that I could have done maybe ? Rick.

Judith, I was told by a neighbour that frogs are very resouceful and will find another home fairly easily. The only thing you should never do is dig a pond up at this time of year without taking care to transport any spawn somewhere safe. I actually considered filling in my pond and putting a herb garden in its place when I moved in 2 years ago (didn't know about the frogs then). Glad I didn't now as it always makes me smile to come down to breakfast and look out of the window to see a dozen froggy eyes staring back from the surface of the pond ! Rick.

Hi. What a game I had with frogs in my pond. Last year they got out of hand. so I fished them out and put them in a large container and all the frogspawn in a bucket. Took them up to a large lake not very far away, and put them in there by the reeds. Had to go 4 times to the lake the total of the frogs was 376. This year I have not as many in there. By the way I have fish in my pond as well. Bye now June.

Judith - convuvulous=bindweed right ? If so, brute force to pull up/hack back the bulk of it & then you can get a systemic weedkiller that you carefully paint on the rest & bingo - it's gone in a couple of weeks. June - all I ask is one little tadpole to turn into a frog ! Living in the city it's nice to ge a reminder of the countryside in your back yard. Rick.

Hi Rick, Dont worry I still have frogs, and I would not harm them at all. Infact I am as daft as a brush when it comes to wild life. I feed all the birds and I even feed the fox that comes most nights. Bye now June.

we have loads of frog spawn, the tadpoles are just starting to wriggle. we just leave them to it. takes much longer than six weeks though before they are frogs. you will see each stage and it is fascinating. then the little b------ are hopping about everywhere. should add that hubby keeps the pond crystal clear, checking filter reguarly and pulling out the weeds. also we have lots of oxygenating plants. other than that nothing.

Thanks for the advice folks. The "frenzied activity" in the pond happened about 3 weeks ago. Tons of frogspawn there now, but no tadpoles as yet. I'll post some progress reports as & when something happens ! Rick.

Convulvulus I read in a garden mag recently - train it up a bamboo, treat it with systemic weed killer by rubing it down all the leaves stems etc, using gloves of course. it said you may need to do this several times before the roots die. If you dig up the roots and bits drop they will take root too. It is a nightmare!! Good luck Ann Glos

We have tadpoles ! I can see at least a couple of dozen of them - that was quick ! Rick.

Lynda, I'll email them to you ! Rick.

In fact everyone can have some......... http://cat.nyu.edu/~biermann/homepage_white/tadpoles/ :-)

Theres a stream at the bottom of my parents garden and the garden was often invaded by frogs! The cats favourite game was to play solo tennis with them I not been able to go near them since I accidentally ran over one with the lawnmower! Feel really guilty! Rach...

Hi Rick, Glad to hear at last you have some swimming tadpoles, Take care when the birds start to get near your pond as they like a bit of tadpole, so you will have to watch out for them. Have a nice day. Tat Tar June.

Looks like they've all hatched now ! The birds don't tend to come up this end of the garden because of the cat. She keeps going and drinking from the pond - must like the taste of tadpole soup ! Spent almost all day in the garden - can we have this weather for the rest of the year please ? Rick.

Just make sure the small frogs can climb out of your pond or they will drown, also keep buckets upturned or they can get trapped in them and die. When my cat attacked a frog it gave the most pitiful scream, an other cat used to bring them into the house, I looked up from reading and there were two jumping in the hall!

I was thinking of asking folks on here about my frogspawn - and then found the frogs header - must be something about minds thinking alike. I came back from a few days away about 10 days ago to discover more frogspawn than ever before (and later than previous years) in my garden pond. For a day or so it looked healthy - but now it seems to have disintegrated - and there are thins water splodges of ex frogspawn over the surface of the pond. There is possibly one patch that may be still developing into frogs - but even that doesn't look quite right - it should be heaving with black life by now before the tiny taddies wiggle away. There is a lot of blanket weed in the pond, along with oxygenators, and the water is reasonably clear where the blanket weed isn't! I have left the blanket weed in as a sort of protector for the small fish (and I hoped developing taddies) that I have seen in the pond. Thing is - should I let the non viable frogspawn decompose in the water as it is doing, or remove it? Will it do any harm if I leave it.? And should I make inroads into the blanket weed to increase the oxygen in the water? Advice anyone knowledgeable out there? Rosi

Hi Rosie, I think the heavy rain and high winds were to blame for breaking up a lot of my frogspawn. Very little of it stayed on the surface & I though I'd lost a load. Quite pleased today to see so many swimming about now. It seems less than last year though, despite having much more spawn to start off with. Hope they grow legs & hop out this year ! Rick.

Jeanie ! There's a load of Iris up one end of the pond for the froglets to climb out of it. The cat chases the frogs around but only ever "pats them on the head" with a paw - she never brings them in or tries to hurt them ! Rick.