Frog catastrophe

[Patsy]

Went down the allotment today and found at least 6 frogs dead in my bath pond. Felt so guilty as I presume the water has frozen over and suffocated them. Why can't they hibernate like my toads do in the bottom of my compost heaps! Will a floating rubber ball stop the pond from completely freezing or anybody got any more ideas please?

[blue411]

Oh no....
I looked this exact thing up a few months ago when i built my own small pond and it said that frogs should hibernate and only go into the water to mate, it also mentioned floating a tennis ball to stop it freezing over but it just froze mid float!!

[Hans Mum]

yeah ive been worried about the pond at the lottie, put a ball in but it froze in as blue says, will be interested to hear what others do

[lynda66]

put more balls in, i have 4 in mine now, small rubber footballs are better, but even with that i lost one fish last week, the balls help, but if it's frozen for an extended period, you do need to make a hole in the ice ...... don't smash it, as the shockwaves will kill them too.

[tamsin]

Depends how cold it gets and how fast it freezes. Balls help but won't stop it freezing if it gets very cold. Disturbing the water surface with a pump helps to but only the surface don't set it so it's mixing the whole water volumn or it makes the warmer water at the bottom colder.

How deep is the pond? About 2' is the minimum to keep things alive in cold weather.

[burnie]

Is the bath sunk in the ground?if not it will have frozen from the bottom.For fish to survive in an artificial pond unaided(no heating),five foot is the recommended minimum .Floating a ball will only absorb the expansion damage it does not allow for frogs to breath,you would need a permenant hole for that,plants round the edge keep some surface area free,thats what happens in a natural pond.

[Helen Johnson]

Not sure if this is true.....but, my mate saw the same,dead looking frog frozen in ice on his small pond, but as ice defrosted, frog dissapeared. He reckons that frogs can cope with being frozen for short amount of time, as they can lower their metabolism. Frogs can breathe through their skin,whereas toads need to breathe air, so do not hibernate in ponds.
Is this true or does my mate have really good storytelling abilities?

[BrideXIII]

Not sure if this is true.....but, my mate saw the same,dead looking frog frozen in ice on his small pond, but as ice defrosted, frog dissapeared. He reckons that frogs can cope with being frozen for short amount of time, as they can lower their metabolism. Frogs can breathe through their skin,whereas toads need to breathe air, so do not hibernate in ponds.
Is this true or does my mate have really good storytelling abilities?

depends which bit you mean, frogs do breathe through their skin, toads don't, toads tend to live on land more than frogs. I think, so don't quote me, that frogs hibernate at the bottom of ponds , but toads hibernate on land.

as for frozen frogs , well i had read about that too, so maybe it is possible, suspended animation? would need to look it up.

[FB.]

Silly question, but is it possible that the frogs can't get out once they're in?
Frogs will eventually drown if they can't get out - as will the tadpoles once they're ready to move onto land.

[Patsy]

Frogs can get out. I'm very careful on that aspect and have always had a biggish piece of tree trunk going down into the water. All the little froglets have been able to get out in the summer . Wondering whether having some fleece stretched over chicken wire suspended a few inches above would stop it freezing but still allow pond life access? I should have wire over it like that anyway to comply with allotment regs ( and me the secretary too!) to stop any children taking a header and drowning.

[Flummery]

As I understand it (although, maybe I don't!) a wildlife pond needs to be at least 18" deep. The top will freeze but there is enough water below to keep things going. The water below is not going to freeze, something to do with 4 degrees - someone mentioned it on here a while ago - and I did know when I was in school but I've had a few sleeps since then!

[Sue]

Hi
During the last freeze, my water butt - home to goldfish Dennis and Bob, froze over to a depth of 6"+. I had branches in it as a climb out post as an emergency exit for any stranded insects etc. I managed to get these out of the ice - which left a hole, in desperation I put a plastic funnel in the hole. The water that welled up in the funnel kept freezing but it was quite easy to wrench out the funnel every day and then knock out the ice inside it - then put it back.
I was very pleased to see that Dennis and Bob survived their incarceration beneath the ice.
So - perhaps a plastic funnel would help?
Sue

[Flummery]

What I meant was, it's warmer beneath the ice. Really it is!

[Eden]

Hi all. just another froggy question. I'm going out most mornings to gently break the ice on the pond I have, now, the other day when we were peering into the pond we noticed 2 weeny frogs, literally just 1.5cm long! Now, I thought a lot of my tadpoles this year were really late changing, but is this normal? Even October time we had tadpoles that showed no signs of turning into frogs!? Ooo errrr!

[Flummery]

They can last out till their second year as tadpoles. It depends on how much food there is. They like fish food!