Good Morning Board Members,

We are a special needs homeschool family of four. I am captain of the ship, AKA Mommy. I have autism and speak very literally. Sometimes I come off as rude even though I am not trying to be rude. My husband has severe ADHD. My almost five year old son has moderate to severe autism. My three-year-old daughter has mild autism and severe ADHD. Our lives are pretty hectic with all of our regular therapy appointments every week. We started homeschooling at Age 3 with our oldest child. Right now we are on a home school break for the summer. I thought it would be a great opportunity for a metamorphosis science project. We collected tadpoles from the pond at my grandfather's house a few weeks ago. I did a lot of research on the internet to make sure that I set up the environment that we placed these tadpoles in correctly. I'm a very thorough, analytical and organized person.

We have somewhere between 9 and 13 tadpoles. We've been watching them grow for several weeks and now we have two frogs approximately the size of a pinky fingernail. As the tadpoles have grown I've done much research on the internet to find out exactly what species of frogs we have. I have determined that we have mostly Southern leopard frogs as well as a few bullfrogs. The bullfrogs are still in the tadpole stage and are growing much more slowly than the southern leopard frogs. I am here to gain more insight and knowledge as to the best possible ways to take care of our frogs before we release them back into the pond from which we collected them at my grandfather's house.

If I'm feeding the tadpoles goldfish flakes as well as changing out root plants every few days. All of the water exchanges we have done in their current housing have been dechlorinated as well as some rain water. They are currently housed in a 12 gallon kiddie pool with screen covering the top. The land area for the tadpoles is built up tall enough so that the screen makes a sort of teepee over the whole pond. There is an air pump in the water but no filtration. We exchange about 2 gallons every other day as well as rain water that comes in naturally. The pond is in a section of our yard that is shaded by large trees all but one hour out of the day.

I've researched the southern leopard frogs and found that they take 85 to 90 days to go from egg to froglet. I have also researched the larger tadpoles which are darker in color and they seem to be bullfrogs. The bullfrogs take approximately 12 months to turn into frogs, so soon I will need to change the housing to avoid the cold months. I'm assuming that they will not survive the winter if the temperature drops too low.

My children have enjoyed watching the tadpoles grow. Now that we have two frogs I need to know what to feed them. Any suggestions and advice are greatly appreciated.

Thank You,

AutismADHDMom