Tons of Tadpoles and Tree frogs

[DEW]

Hello,

Here is a quick rundown.

I got a pool for exercise prior to knee surgery ( 9' x 18') we had a temp. RV garage to cove rover it.
Rain,Snow, hail and lots of wind... Bye-Bye cover, hello water and debris.
I being a procrastinator left the pool unchecked and uncleaned, you know, I'll just deal with it later.
Spring time arrives and I decide to tackle the pool.
Look in and surprise! Tons of Tadpoles. So, I start feeding them and changing roughly half the water in the pool out approximately every three days. Little tadpoles start to turn into frogs and climb up the side of the pool to rest and figure out what to do next. The birds and skinks are under the impression that the pool contains and all you can eat popcorn frog cafe, I am running around like a crazy woman yelling at birds and chasing off skinks. At this point we have a couple hundred froglets leaving the pool nightly and you can't take a step outside with out carefully examining every spot. There are tiny frogs in the planters, on the hose the wall, the handrail of the porch, all over the driveway there were even a couple on my husbands motorcycle and I would have sworn the one on the back had a tramp stamp

So by July most of them have gone on to do what little frogs do and I take all the stragglers out and put them in a baby pool, pressure wash my pool in hopes of getting at least a month or so of use out of it. My mistake was leaving a couple inches of water in the bottom when I finished up for the night.
Next morning, tons more eggs. So, I order pond plants for oxygenation and cover, buy more tadpole food and wait. But these eggs were laid in mid to late august. Now I have several hundred left, the water is 40 degrees and I have notice that many of the little guys just drowned rather than face the wind and cold out of the protected pool.

So, I started catching the ones that look like they are ready to go out on their own rather than let them die. Problem is there are so many of them and I am really not set up to over winter them if I really don't have to.

I just ordered pinhead crickets and flightless fruit flies and it looks like feeding these guys could cost a fortune it I tried to do it until spring and would they then be too dependent on being fed? Would they even know how to be a regular frog if released into the woods? And, mind you, this would be the least attractive choice. Is there anything else I can do to with them? It seems to me turning the little guys loose with temps dipping into the high thirties and low forties at night would mean certain death.

Help please?! Anyone?

Oh and these are American common gray tree frogs. And no, I am not selling them.

[jarteta97]

I know it may sound a little harsh, but it would actually be best to just leave them be. In nature, some frogs will lay eggs late in the season, and it may or may not result in dead tadpoles. Only about 1% of tadpoles actually make it to adulthood as a matter of fact. Letting nature run it's course is the best thing IMO. I hope this helps

[DEW]

Thank Josh.
I know that would be the wise, prudent, intelligent thing to do but, that's just not me, lol.
They are just too darn cute, and I have two months invested in them already.
Besides, I think it is Karma's way of allowing me to make up for all the ones I squished coming home one night. It was raining and the road was covered with frogs, I drove slow but there was no way to avoid them all.

[kueluck]

The grays are real easy to care for and believe it or not, inexpensive to feed. You can winter them over in a 20 long tank using eco earth and a think layer of leaves along with lots of fake plants and branches to hang out on. Just make sure you dust their feeders alternating it with calcium and then a multi-vita powder every other day. And there are tons of places to either pin head crickets or newly hatched red runner roaches (my preferred feeder bug). Also the frog safe water is so important in caring for any frog or toad. I personally use fresh caught rainwater for all my amphibians. Then once late spring hits you can release them back into the wild. They'll be fine and you just increased their chance for survival. Do this with tiny toads that I find.

[UncleChester]

I would release them. You're much warmer than the northern ranges for these frogs. They'll have no problems handling your weather this time of year. They're built for cold and can even withstand partially freezing solid. Compare the weather networks 14 day forecast near you: Raleigh, North Carolina - 14 Day Weather Trend - The Weather Network and closer to their northern limit:Toronto, Ontario - 14 Day Weather Trend - The Weather Network and feel better about their chances.

If you're interested in keeping a few as a pet for the rest of their lives (and it's legal where you are), I'd say keep a few (care article here Frog Forum - Gray Tree Frog Care and Breeding). But you can release them all with a clear conscience. Some (many!) will get eaten by skinks, birds, and other predators a little higher up the chain, but that's part of a frogs purpose- they wouldn't lay thousands of eggs at a time if they all had a good chance of surviving to adulthood!

[DEW]

The grays are real easy to care for and believe it or not, inexpensive to feed. You can winter them over in a 20 long tank using eco earth and a think layer of leaves along with lots of fake plants and branches to hang out on. Just make sure you dust their feeders alternating it with calcium and then a multi-vita powder every other day. And there are tons of places to either pin head crickets or newly hatched red runner roaches (my preferred feeder bug). Also the frog safe water is so important in caring for any frog or toad. I personally use fresh caught rainwater for all my amphibians. Then once late spring hits you can release them back into the wild. They'll be fine and you just increased their chance for survival. Do this with tiny toads that I find.

Hi Gail,

I have found the pinheads, and purchased fruit flies. Problem is I have about 30 froglets in a tank now and there are another 200 + in the pool.
The ones in the tank were ones that I knew should have gotten out but there were quiet a few that just died when they supposed to be gone, that did not happen with the first bunch. I need to take another 20 or 30 out now. I also foster cats and kittens for the local humane society and have just been crazy busy. I just vaccinated 43 cats and kittens and am treating 14 cats with L-lysine liquid twice daily (and they just love it) I am taming feral kittens, taking pictures and writing little bios online to get them adopted, so raising a couple hundred + froglets is not something that fits nicely in to my schedule, never the less I am still considering it. I would love to keep them all over the winter, they are so adorable and it just seems so cruel that nature puts such a fragile little thing out to fend for itself. I put scarecrows around the pool so the birds would stop picking them form the top rail of the pool just when they finished the long climb to the top.

How much space would a couple hundred + need until spring?

Why do you prefer the red runner roaches if you don't mind my asking?

[DEW]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the information and links. I read the grays can survive freezing for a few days at a time, but even ones this small and young? They are so delicate and some smaller than my little fingernail. How does something so small establish a place to hibernate in such a short time? The first group still had lots of summer left to establish themselves.

I know that they have a large range but don't they acclimate to the climate they live in?

We live in what is now a retirement area, lots of developing going on, fragmenting habitat, probably the reason I had to run over so many that night on the way home, they were trying to get to the river and the nearby lake. Now there is a road between them and their breeding areas.

When we moved here 17 years ago there was so much wildlife, we regularly saw fox, deer, bobcats, bears, raccoon, possum, chipmunks, rabbits, turtles, frogs, toads, squirrels, snakes, skinks, gorgeous salamanders... Now it is rare to see much of any of the large animals, and even small animals are becoming scarce. I just thought if I could give some of these little guys a better chance...

[UncleChester]

Thanks for the information and links. I read the grays can survive freezing for a few days at a time, but even ones this small and young? They are so delicate and some smaller than my little fingernail. How does something so small establish a place to hibernate in such a short time? The first group still had lots of summer left to establish themselves.

I think all the studies I've seen about their freezing involved adults, but we've found pretty small ones alive in the spring up here.

I tried to find when the normal breeding times in your area are, and did find Gray Treefrog - North Carolina which mentions their calling time extending into August in NC. Which would suggest that fresh October froglets a normal thing down there. You might try to get in touch with some local herpetology groups to see what they say about this timing being normal or an oddity.

Amphibians are pretty awesome- they don't really hibernate like mammals do where they need to have fat stores to burn as energy over the winter. They essentially just slow down in the cold and come pretty close to shutting off. Gray's mostly just head for a crook under tree roots or burrow into the leaf litter as the days get shorter, food gets scarcer, and the temperatures get colder.

I know that they have a large range but don't they acclimate to the climate they live in?

I've seen one study that pulled frogs from Indiana, Missouri, and Minnesota and concluded their responses to freezing temperatures were basically the same.


I do applaud your concern for the wildlife. But never forget that every one of them that gets eaten is a meal for another critter, sad though it may be for frog lovers.