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I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
Yesterday there were 11 distinct clumps of frog spawn in the pond and
I could see a fair few of the little luvvies inside wriggling a bit so was expecting them to hatch over the coming week or so. By this morning, though, the whole lot had hatched in one go and they've somehow merged into two masses. The empty eggs have formed themselves into two circles of gooey stuff around the two lots of wrigglers. I can't see even a single unhatched one though there may be some underneath the masses. I've never known everything to happen all at once like this. Usually I just leave them to their own devices but I'm now wondering if the pond will sustain them all - I gave it a real clear out last year so there's not that much for them to feed on. I know some people use fish food and was wondering if there's a "best type" to use and when I ought to start putting some in. There are no fish in the pond. I'm also wondering whether I should somehow break up the larger of the two masses which is well over a foot in diameter (the smaller one is about 6 inches) and is really a "solid" mass of babies, maybe by twirling a stick around in the mass to give the ones in the middle a chance to get out. Any ideas welcome! Cheers, Jake ======================================= Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay. |
I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
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I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
On 18/03/2012 13:51, Jake wrote:
Yesterday there were 11 distinct clumps of frog spawn in the pond and I could see a fair few of the little luvvies inside wriggling a bit so was expecting them to hatch over the coming week or so. By this morning, though, the whole lot had hatched in one go and they've somehow merged into two masses. The empty eggs have formed themselves into two circles of gooey stuff around the two lots of wrigglers. I can't see even a single unhatched one though there may be some underneath the masses. I've never known everything to happen all at once like this. Usually I just leave them to their own devices but I'm now wondering if the pond will sustain them all - I gave it a real clear out last year so there's not that much for them to feed on. I know some people use fish food and was wondering if there's a "best type" to use and when I ought to start putting some in. There are no fish in the pond. I'm also wondering whether I should somehow break up the larger of the two masses which is well over a foot in diameter (the smaller one is about 6 inches) and is really a "solid" mass of babies, maybe by twirling a stick around in the mass to give the ones in the middle a chance to get out. Any ideas welcome! Cheers, Jake ======================================= Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay. Congratulations! Hope you get lots of froggie friends to eat your molluscs. As Janet says, they live off the very nutritious jelly that surrounds them. As they get bigger, they will start to eat small pond critters and drowned flies. I believe they also eat a certain amount of plant matter. If you don't have pond plants (or if you do but you don't want them eaten), try floating some lettuce leaf and see if they nibble on that. I'm also fairly sure that, as they develop, they eat other taddies, so you will find that a) there is enough food, and b)you won't need to thin them out. -- Spider from high ground in SE London gardening on clay |
I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
Jake wrote in
: Yesterday there were 11 distinct clumps of frog spawn in the pond Chuck some my way! I have three new frog-ponds waiting to be populated. I even invested in some eBay water weed (starwort and pennywort) to make them extra tempting to froggy home-hunters. Al |
I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 14:12:31 -0000, Janet wrote:
Their first food is the jelly they hatched from. You'll notice them hanging on it and they will eat the lot. Janet That's the problem. In previous years, the little wrigglies have hatched on top of the jelly. But this year, and I've never seen this before, several clumps have come together in a mass and all the spawn seems to have moved to a ring around the outside. So the poor ones in the middle don't have any jelly to hang on to. And I think the (also unusual) mass hatching within a 24 hour period rather than over a week or two might be a problem as the babies don't have any unhatched spawn to feed on. It may be because whilst the spawn was laid in its usual places, the clear out last year means that there's more depth of water below the spawn - it's not lying on top of planting baskets whose surface is barely below water and so is more mobile. At least I managed with some netting to stop the blasted magpies pecking the spawn out of the pond before it hatched. Maybe that was a mistake. Still, I'll do what I can to give them (the taddies) a fighting chance. If I can get some decent photos later on I'll post them - so far I'm getting too much reflection from that bright thing in the sky. Cheers, Jake ======================================= Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay. |
I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:33:46 +0000, Spider wrote:
Congratulations! Hope you get lots of froggie friends to eat your molluscs. As Janet says, they live off the very nutritious jelly that surrounds them. As they get bigger, they will start to eat small pond critters and drowned flies. I believe they also eat a certain amount of plant matter. If you don't have pond plants (or if you do but you don't want them eaten), try floating some lettuce leaf and see if they nibble on that. I'm also fairly sure that, as they develop, they eat other taddies, so you will find that a) there is enough food, and b)you won't need to thin them out. Thanks. I've already got loads of frogs (and some newts with a death wish). See my reply to Janet about something I've never encountered before which is the massing of the babies and the moving of the jelly to a ring around that mass. I'm not thinking of thinning out but want to give them all a fighting chance. Meanwhile the cat's intrigued. He's spent hours today just sitting beside the pond looking at them. I know he's sort of scared of frogs and wonder if he realises what he's in for if a lot survive. Cheers, Jake ======================================= Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay. |
I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
On 18 Mar 2012 15:52:50 GMT, "AL_n" wrote:
Jake wrote in : Yesterday there were 11 distinct clumps of frog spawn in the pond Chuck some my way! I have three new frog-ponds waiting to be populated. I even invested in some eBay water weed (starwort and pennywort) to make them extra tempting to froggy home-hunters. Al Didn't you have some frogs somewhere in your garden a while back? You probably didn't get the ponds dug in time. But don't worry - if you had frogs anywhere in the garden this year they will come back next year and you may well find spawn then. It took a year or two before my pond got colonised. But once you get spawn, you won't look back. Frogs return to their birthing pool to lay so if you get one lot of spawn in the first year, you'll get 2 or 3 clumps the next and it grows from there. Cheers, Jake ======================================= Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay. |
I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
On Mar 18, 4:19*pm, Jake wrote:
On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:33:46 +0000, Spider wrote: Congratulations! *Hope you get lots of froggie friends to eat your molluscs. As Janet says, they live off the very nutritious jelly that surrounds them. *As they get bigger, they will start to eat small pond critters and drowned flies. *I believe they also eat a certain amount of plant matter. *If you don't have pond plants (or if you do but you don't want them eaten), try floating some lettuce leaf and see if they nibble on that. *I'm also fairly sure that, as they develop, they eat other taddies, so you will find that a) there is enough food, and b)you won't need to thin them out. Thanks. I've already got loads of frogs (and some newts with a death wish). See my reply to Janet about something I've never encountered before which is the massing of the babies and the moving of the jelly to a ring around that mass. I'm not thinking of thinning out but want to give them all a fighting chance. Meanwhile the cat's intrigued. He's spent hours today just sitting beside the pond looking at them. I know he's sort of scared of frogs and wonder if he realises what he's in for if a lot survive. I've got two clumps of frogspawn so far. The first was laid at night on top of my water plants in my fishpond. I transferred them to my little fishless pond as I feared for their lives when they hatch and they were rather exposed to predators in that position. This afternoon I watched two frogs mating in my fishpond and they have laid the second clump of spawn mostly submerged and seem to be hanging around, to protect them maybe? Anyway I have left those to fend for themselves and there are places where they can hide when they hatch. So its all looking good, my four fish have done well over the winter, there are small newts around and now frogspawn. Can't wait for them to hatch. So what happens should I get masses of tiny frogs, or will most of them be killed or just die? What I thought were bats on my night CCTV have turned out to be large moths which trigger the motion detector. Doug. |
I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
On 18/03/2012 16:19, Jake wrote:
On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:33:46 +0000, wrote: Congratulations! Hope you get lots of froggie friends to eat your molluscs. As Janet says, they live off the very nutritious jelly that surrounds them. As they get bigger, they will start to eat small pond critters and drowned flies. I believe they also eat a certain amount of plant matter. If you don't have pond plants (or if you do but you don't want them eaten), try floating some lettuce leaf and see if they nibble on that. I'm also fairly sure that, as they develop, they eat other taddies, so you will find that a) there is enough food, and b)you won't need to thin them out. Thanks. I've already got loads of frogs (and some newts with a death wish). See my reply to Janet about something I've never encountered before which is the massing of the babies and the moving of the jelly to a ring around that mass. I'm not thinking of thinning out but want to give them all a fighting chance. Meanwhile the cat's intrigued. He's spent hours today just sitting beside the pond looking at them. I know he's sort of scared of frogs and wonder if he realises what he's in for if a lot survive. Cheers, Jake ======================================= Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay. Ah, yes. Understood now. That massing is wierd. One of Nature's puzzles. Taddies and frogs do seem to intrigue cats. A previous cat used to play tiddlywinks with frogs, but didn't harm them. Current cats are a bit more feisty so, although I miss having frogspawn, I'm relieved of that particular burden. If your adult frogs get a bit peckish, I can always send you some of my slugs .. very juicy they are! -- Spider from high ground in SE London gardening on clay |
I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:05:25 +0000, Spider wrote:
If your adult frogs get a bit peckish, I can always send you some of my slugs .. very juicy they are! No thanks. Once they get that big they can fend for themselves! I did drop a small slug into the pond last year. The water boatmen swarmed over it - I could almost see them biting chunks out of it before a frog popped up and took it in one bite. I'll be checking later in the week to see if I still have frogs in the pond - they'll probably devour a lot of the taddies if there are. Usually by now, though, they've moved back into the big heap of bark chips I keep beside the pond for them. The other side of that heap are my hostas. Never have a slug problem with the hostas! Cheers, Jake ======================================= Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay. |
I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 10:22:34 -0700 (PDT), Doug
wrote: So what happens should I get masses of tiny frogs, or will most of them be killed or just die? What I thought were bats on my night CCTV have turned out to be large moths which trigger the motion detector. Doug. The survival rate is, unfortunately, miniscule - maybe 3 or 4 mature frogs from a load of spawn. They eat each other and other wildlife loves them. It takes a few years before a frog is mature enough to lay but somehow, the year after you've found spawn in a pond, older frogs will find the place and once the original few get to laying stage they'll be back as well and wahey! So you'll have increasing amounts spawn each year after the first as long as you maintain the right conditions. I've even read that if an old pond is filled in, it's not unusual to find spawn laid on the ground where it used to be for a few years. Last year I'd drained the pond a bit at spawning time as it had to be cleared out. Things got a bit crowded and one frog jumped out of the pond and laid on the path beside it (with the cat and me watching somewhat bemused) then hopped back in. Bats are a mixed blessing. Noticed some flying round the house in circles every summer night some years ago. On one or two occasions one has flown in through an open window. Spoke to local bat people. Turns out there are some males "nesting" in the cavity wall of the house. Sensible creatures are bats! There's a roost of females down the road in the church tower. The males fly down there for their bit of fun and then leave the ladies to get on with the job whilst they return here for some peace and quiet. I've been told that the number of males here will never fluctuate. If an old one dies, a youngster will be invited to replace him but any extras will be turfed out. Downside is we can't get the cavity wall insulated. But that's a small price to pay I think. Cheers, Jake ======================================= Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay. |
I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
On 18/03/2012 18:38, Jake wrote:
On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:05:25 +0000, wrote: If your adult frogs get a bit peckish, I can always send you some of my slugs .. very juicy they are! No thanks. Once they get that big they can fend for themselves! I did drop a small slug into the pond last year. The water boatmen swarmed over it - I could almost see them biting chunks out of it before a frog popped up and took it in one bite. I'll be checking later in the week to see if I still have frogs in the pond - they'll probably devour a lot of the taddies if there are. Usually by now, though, they've moved back into the big heap of bark chips I keep beside the pond for them. The other side of that heap are my hostas. Never have a slug problem with the hostas! Cheers, Jake ======================================= Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay. Oh stop it! ;-)). I do envy you your amphibious friends .. and your hostas (turns green with envy). I suppose your lawn is greener than mine, too :~). -- Spider from high ground in SE London gardening on clay |
I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:27:13 +0000, Spider wrote:
Oh stop it! ;-)). I do envy you your amphibious friends .. and your hostas (turns green with envy). I suppose your lawn is greener than mine, too :~). Nah, back lawn's currently crap, despite a lot of work over the last 2 years which has seen most of it lifted, the soil underneath dug over, pumped full of grit to improve drainage, and then relaid or resown. Looked lovely last year. This year, no weeds and very little moss but the grass is sparse. Will soon be overseeding and feeding like mad. The front lawns look good though.Tiny one was relaid completely last year whilst the other's untouched original except where I've removed shrubs to open it out a bit. I've noticed that whilst last year the grass was all the same colour, the bits that were seeded when shrubs were removed are currently darker than the rest. Weird. As well as froggie (and hoggie) slug eaters, my secret slug deterrent around the hostas is shredded CDs and DVDs. I offer to remove the CD/DVD waste from offices on estates I manage and have a shredder that pulverises them into confetti. These are scattered around the plants like crushed eggshells. Plus points are that they don't decompose and in the sun you get a multi-coloured glint shining through the plants. And, of course, slugs and snails don't like the sharp edges. I can also dig the shards into the ground whenever and they act like coarse grit to improve drainage. There are lots of uses for unshredded CDs and DVDs as well. Cheers, Jake ======================================= Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay. |
I'm a step-froggie-daddy again
"Jake" wrote in message ... I'm also wondering whether I should somehow break up the larger of the two masses which is well over a foot in diameter (the smaller one is about 6 inches) and is really a "solid" mass of babies, maybe by twirling a stick around in the mass to give the ones in the middle a chance to get out. Any ideas welcome! Let nature take its course .. Bill |
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