Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Thank you for taking a moment to answer my questions. I am an owner of 6 tadpoles. I did all the research, and to my happiness, they are all growing each and everyday.

One of them has already grown into a frog/toad. It seems like over night he grew his front arms and BAM, climbed the rocks to get out of the water.

I would like to know how to care for him. I did read that they use the remaining part of their tail as a food source, but its been 24 hours since his true transformation, his tail is basically gone.

Should I take him out of the tank that contains the other tad poles? What should I feed him? And attached is a picture of my new baby, and if you could, please let me know what he is.

Thank you again in advance for taking your time out. I do have other animals in the house (such as a bearded dragon and a red factor canary) so I am well aware of all the effort needed to make my pet happy.

Sincerely,
Kerri
Virginia Beach, va
kdollva@yahoo.com

It looks like you have a new baby tree frog to care for. I would guess that it is a gray tree frog, but you might consider looking online or in field guides to see if green tree frogs (H. cinerea) are native to Virginia too, as that's another possibility.

I would suggest moving it to another cage away from the remaining tadpoles. This new cage can be very simple, and should contain a safe substrate, shallow water dish, and a hiding spot or perch. Moist paper towels or sphagnum moss work well as substrates for young frogs, and a small fake plant or a few fake leaves can be used as hiding spots or perches. The cage itself should be small at first to allow the tree frog to easily find food. Often plastic storage containers used for keeping food or little 2 1/2 gallon aquariums work well for housing. If a plastic container is used holes will need to be drilled in the side to provide ventilation.

You can begin offering food now in very small quantities, although it's likely that the frog won't start eating for another day or two. Try feeding live insects that are about the width of the frog's head or smaller in size. Young crickets and flightless fruit flies are available from many pet stores and work well. Over the next week the frog should start to feed, and once the frog is eating consider using a high quality calcium and vitamin supplement on the food. Good luck,
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Devin Edmonds
devin@amphibiancare.com
www.amphibiancare.com

Thank you so much! I am so excited about the other tadpoles also. They are all soo close to becoming "lil" frogs.

Currently I have the tadpoles in a ten gallon tank. And the only other thing I have is a smaller size cricket keeper, which will be fine for one lil froggie, maybe even two. At that point I thought about switching the remaining tadpoles to the cricketkeeper and the frogs back to the ten gallon tank, so that I can make them a nice enviroment.

Would the ten gallon tank be to large for the frogs to find food? Also - can you tell me approx. how large a tree frog would get to be?

My boyfriend found a bunch of tadpoles in a new construction site (hes an electrician) which was surrounded by woods and trees. Plus the lil guy clings to EVERYTHING, including the glass of the tank ect. So I too assumed he was a tree frog.

Again, any other suggestions would be welcomed. Like at what size I should be mixing calcium in his diet. Or does it work like my breaded dragon. Not only do I dust the crickets, but I feed the crickets calcium inriched supplements?

Thanks again!
Kerri

I think that switching back and forth between the plastic critter keeper and ten gallon aquarium should work fine. Keep an eye on the young frogs in the ten gallon aquarium to make sure they are locating food easily, but I doubt they will have problems. If they do you may consider moving them to a smaller aquarium for the next few months.

Different species of tree frogs grow to different sizes. I located a list of Virginia's amphibians at http://www.dgif.state.va.us/wildlife/species/index.asp?tax=amphibian I think it's safe to say that you are keeping either Hyla squirrela, cinerea, versicolor or chrysoscelis, all of which mature to a similar size of around one to two inches. Out of the above four species I think squirrel tree frogs stay the smallest as adults.

You can start offering crickets that are coated in a calcium supplement as soon as the frog will begin feeding on them. Most frogs that I've raised usually spit out their first meal if it's heavily coated in a supplement, but once they get a few down they generally start to accept the ones that are supplemented too. And just like your bearded dragon, feeding the crickets a healthy diet prior to being fed to the frog will be beneficial. Calcium rich cricket foods often don't keep the crickets alive for long so I avoid them and just use powdered calcium supplements instead, but feeding a wide variety of veggies, fish flake, dog good, oats, etc. is certainly better than not feeding them at all or only feeding one food. Good luck,
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Devin Edmonds
devin@amphibiancare.com
www.amphibiancare.com