Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,

We are a homeschooling family, and have just spent the last three weeks raising tadpoles... they have been turning into toads since yesterday... I do not know what to feed them now. they've been eating turtle food, lettuce, fish food and algae while in the water.. but now they are not in the water-- and I can't seem to find anything online about what to feed them... I don't know if they'll eat ants but I thought about putting some fruit out to attract them... can someone please help?

I know once they are a bit bigger that they'll eat live crickets etc... but i have about 100 or more of these little guys and I don't want them to die!

thanks in advance...
ShRivver

I know that small American Toads(Bufo americanus) eat various small insects when they are toadlets. Among these are ants,aphids,woodlice,centipedes,milipedes,and small flying insects. Just make extra sure the area you're getting the bugs from doesn't have insecticides or other chemicals near it. Good luck with the little ones.

Yikes, 100 Baby toads!!!
Your either going to have to find a whole lot of pesticide free small bugs, or you can go the easy way, and go on the internet and buy a whole load of wingless fruitflies/pinheads.

Those toadlets are going to take a load of effort, to feed, take care of, etc.

I advise you get rid, or near all of them in a good forest.You can keep all of them but be ready to spend much time a day making sure each toadlet, gets enough fruit flies, or pinheads, or whatever.

Goodluck,
Steven

Well, I ordered 1000 1/8th inch crickets, and 2 "cultures" of flightless furit flies... The local Reptile store said they'd be there tomorrow.... Should cost me a small fortune... all in the name of science and homeschooling! LOL

Thank you for your responses... you're right, this should be a trip!
Antoine

You'll go through the crickets way too fast. And the ff need 7 days to reproduce if its the smaller kind, and 14 or more days to reproduce if its the larger(Hydei)type. Depending on what type of toads you got you need a few months of food at that size. So you might want to buy some good cultures and begin making your own. Get some springtails too from Eds Flymeat online, and some flour moth larve. Easier to culture and extra food sources when your low on ff. You can also get aphids and culture them from Bershire Biological.

yes, I did run out. I let most of the toadlets go in three different gardens with instructions on how to attract bugs for them to the garden owners... hopefully they all survived...

The rest are still in my tank-- some stil tadpoles, and the others little toadlets-- we fed them eoungh tiny ants to make them full yesterday-- and we have the FF cultures going now-- we'll only keep one or two in captivity when the rest are done we'll set them free at the pond site where we first got the tadpoles... it has been a fun experiement-- and a very expensive one, I'm embarrassed to say.

thanks for your responses..
ShRivver

So the Toadlets were naturally from the area anyways? Good. Though it might have been an expensive experiment, I'll bet it taught your kids good values in being responsible for the live things we were entrusted with. The fact that you went to the trouble of acquiring food and when you had no more found a natural area for them to be released teaches your children some values that I'm sure you are interested in passing on as a homeschooler. Maybe it was a bit expensive monetarily, but I know they will look back on it having gained respect for life, no matter how small. Try to find some aphids in an area that is definately not sprayed. Be sure to have the kids wash really well if they touch the toads.

By the way, my 10 year old told me today that if we did not have our Dart frogs(I spent close to $1000.00 on set up, frogs, food, supplies already) he would not have learned so well this year to get up in time for school because he sees for himself that his frogs depend on him to "wake up the sun" (turn on the light) and this has given him a feeling of reward for getting into a good routine. He feels good that he can take care of himself and some others too.

Good luck with the Toads and Homeschooling.