Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've some tadpoles just recently turned to froglets in two of my 35gal. outside ponds. I don't know if I should feed them or let them fend for themselves. I'm in Florida, USA, so they're all native and summerbound.

My questions is, since these frogs are wild, should I attempt to give them some live food, and if so, what should I give them? There are plenty of insects crawling near my pond, but what do you feed a froglet anyway, or what do they eat in the wild?

To make a long story short, I scooped these tadpoles out of a pond behind my house, a pool surrounded by an office park. There were thousands of tadpoles, apparently offspring from a few that control the pond about 30"long and 20" wide. Few tadpoles will make it.

Hi there- As long as the pond which you took them from and the pond you place them into are of the same ilk then you should be fine. I don't know what you're raising but tadpoles eat algea, and tny bugs that live in the water. I feed my tadpoles a combination of freeze dried blood worms, koi pellets and tadpole 'drop' sinking food. My tadpoles are oriental fire bellies, and they are tiny, so I pound their food into a fine powder and sprinkle it in a few times a day.
If you don't have a filter in your pond, lots of live plants will help ensure that the water stays healthy. Adding food that goes uneaten can mess up your water, so you might want to get it tested (my local aquarium store does it for me) and then after you add food for a week get it tested again, and if it's abnormal, consider doing partial water changes. Good luck!

Hi Moore,

Thanks for the tips. I've got seven tadpoles yet to turn froglets. Yet the others I mentioned 'are froglets,' so my main concern is what to feed them.

The ponds are the same 'exactly.' I'm letting them hop around the yard if they want, for I've got a huge wooden fence they may or may not get through(it has some cracks.) Main thing is, they hang around the ponds and I want to find out if they'll survive on their own or if I should feed them?

Basically, they were saved and salvaged from the cannibalistic-soup-swamp of bully bullfrogs in the small pond I got them from.

In this case, i would reccomend trying to get your toadlets together in a central location that's fairly sparse (a slab of rock or something like that) and laying out some goodies- wingless fruit flies for little guys, or something appropriately larger for bigger babies (my toadlets are less then half an inch and they only eat that and pinhead crickets.) see if they take anything- my experience with these guys is it takes them a while to figure out this catching live prey business, and some may die due to the inability to catch food. If you are always going to be around your pond and are always willing to put out some food for them then it's a risk worth taking, that they may become dependant on you for feeding them. If you are not prepared to have that responsibility then I guess it's best to let them fend for themselves. Though toads tend to go for anything that moves, really, so as long as there's a good assortment of bugs around, few chemical contaminents and so forth from pesticides and the like, then they should be fine on their own. Basically I'm saying that with so few froglets to begin with you might want to take extra precautions to ensure their survival, so maybe introducing some store bought feeder bugs isnt such a bad idea
Just be sure not to let exotic feeders get away.
Good luck with the little guys, and be sure to update on how they're doing!

Thanks, Moorej, I've taken one inside and it's eating crickets, one other is still in the pond and the others have hit the road. I may take the one in that's left in the pond or see if it can make it, but your idea of it eating fruitflies I've all ready implemented. The one I took inside because it just kind of floated around and was missing a front arm.

I saw the outside one just last night, however, sitting by a little container I put some banana in. I'll tell you though, it looks very skinny. It makes me wonder how these babies survive.

I've got more coming up(about seven in all,) and I might concentrate them in a 29gal aquarium I have and then put them in the pond. We'll see.

Ya, they are skinny little guys. I can send you an email picture of my toadlets if you like- they are super tiny for the first little while... I'm glad your toadlets are doing ok