Toads are said to attract good fortune and prosperity

 If it is true that toads attract good fortune, we're in reall good shape! 

I usually think of tadpoles as a "spring thing" but it seems a mama toad in our neighborhood was inspired by one of our recent rain showers. 

August 13 - A couple of days before we left for Fredericksburg (see earlier post) I was cleaning and filling our bird water pots. I had two cleaned and refilled when I had to stop. The pot in the front yard was full of toad eggs! Lovely strings of them. Ok, no disturbing them!  

When I checked the next day they had already started to hatch. In two days they were all hatched out and swimming merrily around their little 3 gallon world. Yikes! Three gallons is not big enough for this many babies!

We don't have a pond on our property, so for the sort term solution I scooped up two measurings cups of tadpoles and moved them to the pots in the back yard. Temporary for sure, they all now had a total of 9 gallons to swim in.  They looked so tiny, I thought I had a little time to figure it out. 

August 25

It was becoming obvious that I needed another "temporary solution", so Steve reminded me we had a wading pool under the porch - instant pond! It took a little time to furnish it properly with resting places and hiding spots. I moved all the tadpoles from the original water pot into this wading pool, as I had only put a few in the other two small pots.

I learned that this species (which I strongly suspect is the Gulf Coast toad  "Incilius nebulifer") likes a vegetarian diet in their first few days and that can include carrots and cucumber. I had some of each, so that was easy. 

That made them happy for about two days, at which point I went to the pet store and found algae tabs forumlated for ominvore fish (no frog food was available) so I tried the algae tabs and they flocked to them. I don't know if pollywogs typically "flock" but these did.  They also scrubbed all the algae off the rocks that had been in the bird water pots and growing algae on their surfaces. 

Considering their size those little critters can really eat!  It soon became a twice a day routine to drop in some thinly sliced veggies and algae tabs. Even so, I suspected they could have been eating more. 

All went well and the little wigglers grew rapidly, though the few tadpoles that remained in the two smaller pots in back seemed to be growing a little faster than those in the wading pool. 

By August 31 it was time to clean out the two small water pots in back. Some ripe Texas Persimmons had fallen in a started polluting the water.  While changing the water I noticed a couple of the larger tadpoles had started developing hind legs. That meant they were developing their breathing and needed access to air, so I made adjustments to the various rocks etc. in the "pond" and smaller pots. They were all growing so fast, and eating so much! that it was clear some of them needed to be thinned out if any were to grow to a good size and be healthy. 

September 1 - We live near a small natural pond, which seemed like a likely spot for relocation, so I dipped up a larged number of pollywogs from my wading pool pond and put them in a bucket full of rainwater.

One quick trip down the hill to the pond and they were happing settling in to their new home. The water is lower than I've ever seen it, due to our ongoing drought, but it will work for them I think. I hope they enjoy the space! I don't think there are any fish in this little pond, so their only dangers would be larger frogs and birds, and maybe the occasional water snake. I plan to move a few more in a couple of days, perhaps to a different site if I can locate one that's close enough. I do want to keep a few to see them into the adult stage. 

If you are interested in a few more photos of these little creatures check out the photo album. There are even a couple of short videos of them exploring their environment.