Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

[alane]

The first tadpole of this year is now free of it's egg. I suspect the rest will follow soon. Just 3 days for the egg to hatch!

I look forward to the tadpole-eats-algae phase, where they munch non-stop on anything green for many weeks.

They eventually get very active and the tank becomes bedlam with 'little dark colored grapes' swimming constantly every which way.

I'm hoping to set up a security camera to watch this tank for the next few weeks. An edited video of 12 weeks of development compressed into a minute might be interesting.

I have one male who _really_ wants to go. But I have only one egg laying female in a tank of five adults and fifteen subadults. So he ends up grabbing the Wrong Frog most of the time. Poor things. To be grabbed underwater and held there, underwater, whilst you are struggling to get away looks kind of scary to us humans. Nightmare fuel actually. But that's what these creatures do. Never seen one drown.

[alane]

this morning i can count six 'clinger' tadpoles. A few more eggs yet to hatch. And a new batch of a few eggs laid.

Last year had only a small population of cherry shrimp. But now I have a maximum population and it makes it hard to count anything.

I am surprised that they are coming in less than 'ten' at a time. I am gratified that it's not 'hundreds'.

As I recall, it's a few days before a clinger starts eating the algae on the side of the tank.

And two toads in solid 24/7 amplexus, probably gonna be like that for a week.

They love their crickets so much. The other day was not feeding time, but a cricket leg was floating in the water. One of the toadlets noticed this, got into position to hunt down this floating leg. It struck accurately. *gulp*. My they love their crickets, even the drumsticks.

[alane]

Well, they are free swimming now and eating all the time. I've started to put a few leaves of wilted spinach in the tank and they eat it up, as well as the algae. the 'coil' of their intestines is now apparent and they are a continual food processing machine. It's very hard to get an accurate count but I believe I counted twelve the other day.

It looks like the first batch of eggs is super healthy and 100% viable. no further eggs yet. but i've been feeding my tank well and my frogs are phat.

[alane]

Twelve or so tadpoles are doing fine.

Last night, quite a racket from the tank. I know what that means.
They are all over the place...
This morning, I figure at least 25 more eggs have been laid.

Yes, I saw that my female was way, way fat last night. But I didn't say anything so as to not hurt her feelings. I told her this morning she looked Very Slim Indeed!

[sambal]

Very nice that they're getting it on again! Mine are still a bit slow, it's rather cold here for the time of the year so I guess they don't have that spring feeling yet. Please consider raising the tadpoles to toadlets and selling those. I learned that almost all fire bellies sold at pet shops are actually wild caught. I think it's great if we can saturate the market with captive bread frogs so the wild populations can be left alone! In my area a lot of pet shops were interested as well as private individuals. I ended up selling about 60 juveniles over the time span of just a month. Also sold another 50 or so tadpoles. Btw; I am curious how your one year olds look like now, could you post some photos? You show me yours I'll show you mine!

[alane]

Yes, I believe I have to sell them. I've got one mailer from Josh's Frogs and there's enough unpacking videos on youtube that'll show me how to best pack these little fellows.
I'd better sell a few before I am overrun. Right now, my frogs are still comfortable at their population density.

I am accumulating pictures, but let my 'creative cloud' subscription expire. So I need to renew my familiar editing/publishing software to edit these pics. I've definitely been holding out as far as pics go, and should apologize to the forum for that.

Last year, I tried various forms of nursery tanks. The end result was that the tads that ate and frogs that emerged in the main adult tank were far healthier. Even after they emerged, the babies did better in the adult tank than on their own. It's just that when it came to fly feeding time, everyone eats. And the adults eat a lot. So you have to put LOTS of flies in the tank to keep them all fed. LOTS of flies. too many, really. *shudder*

[alane]

my female frog has deflated

uncountable quantites of eggs are visible. 50? 100?

:O

better get a five pound bag of spinach.