Frogspawn anyone????

[Nicos]

I completely forgot about this years frog spawn with the weather having been so crazy- this time las year there was quite a bit of frog spawn about. With the past couple of days warming up in places, I wonder if the frogs think it's safe to start making babies???

Anyone seen any yet???
Also- if you do find any and we have another sudden coldsnap- is it a good idea to over it over so the top layer doesn't freeze??- anyone tried that?

[ladylottie]

I completely forgot about this years frog spawn with the weather having been so crazy- this time las year there was quite a bit of frog spawn about. With the past couple of days warming up in places, I wonder if the frogs think it's safe to start making babies???

Anyone seen any yet???
Also- if you do find any and we have another sudden coldsnap- is it a good idea to over it over so the top layer doesn't freeze??- anyone tried that?

Yes, I saw the first frogspawn of the year yesterday near to my house. Took a photo as well! (Can't get it to upload, sorry). Haven't ever thought of covering frogspawn over. Last night we had a frost too.

[Pumpy]

Haven't seen any myself but someone on my local freecycle group is getting rid of some.

Read on another thead that the frogs are late in making the stuff.
Went to a museum a recently that had frogs (I think - could have been Toads) in a tank and a little boy watching said it was really nice that one of them was giving a friend a piggy back. Bless!

Pumpy

[Nicos]

My OH went for a walk through a forest in his lunch hour yesterday - and said that the puddles in the muddy tractor tracks were full of frogspawn!!

Not much hope for them there then

( next year we'll have a pond- so at least we know where to get supplies from!)

Oh- and just a reminder-maybe someone can fill us in in more detail- but you're not really supposed to move frogspawn from one pond to another because of introducing 'something' to the water.

I'd have thought it was better than overcrowding though???

[organic]

The issue with moving frogspawn (ditto tadpoles) as I'm aware is that frogs are pretty particular about the kind of environment they live and breed in.

Moving spawn from one place to another could effectively make that an invasive species which (as is so often the case with invasive species) then out-compete the "native" ones who were in/would have been in that environment.

In short, the idea is to make conditions idea for frogs to inhabit and then let them move in on their own.

As for overcrowding - I don't think that's an issue. They lay a mountain of spawn, most of which never makes past tad, more still never make it to maturity, and that's exactly how it's meant to be. Start messing around by protecting it and/or relocating it and you run the risk of really mucking about with the gene pool and proper species distribution.

Even the conditions in next door's pond and your own can be different enough to provide habitat for two different species.

This is all going off my memory of what I read about 6 months ago when planning what to do with my allotment. I intend to make room for wildlife on there and that led me to reading about frogs and how to attract them in.

[Headfry]

Hi Nicos, I put a post on about seeing frogs in my pond. No frog spawn yet though- I feel we are about 3 weeks or more behind as far as the seasons go.
Normally I would have frog spawn by now.

I think there is some nasty disease that frogs seem to be suffering from these days....something to do with red legs? They say not to move frog spawn from pond to pond.

[Nicos]

Red legs...hmmm- that rings a bell!
*goes off to find Headfry's post!

[Madasafish]

As our pool is still iced over, there is zero chance of frogspawn..

[ginger ninger]

OH's Dad lifted some out of his pond last year and put it in an old plastic dust bin in the out house to stop it freezing, he kept taking out some of the old water and adding fresh, so when everyone else just had frog spawn...he had taddy's.

[OllieMartin]

We used to get literally hundreds of clusters of frogspawn in our swimming pool when I lived with my parents (as it went green and nasty during the winter). The problem was that the sides were so high they couldn't get out and I remember one year there being hundrends of dead and decaying, floating frog bodies. all bloated and about the size of a tea mug, all over the surface.
Was pretty creepy

[roitelet]

Pond still iced over from time to time but I HAVE SEEN A FROG so there is hope.

[DaveJ]

Not at the moment, however this year chances are that it will be later due to weather.

[Snadger]

Don't understand the red leg thing? If frogs get it whats to stop the ones who take up residence in your pond not being carriers anyway?

I imported frogspawn into my pond last year and had loads of frogs on my allotment and never seen a slug!
Hopefully their offspring will return again this year!

[dogsbody]

Me neither, last year this time it was 2 weeks old at least.
Large amounts of rain have left a thin blue film over a large area of the pond this year. Doesn't look like oil or petrol etc. not that would be a source nearby - anyone got ideas?
Fish seem fine though.

[sparhawk]

Haven't seen any myself but someone on my local freecycle group is getting rid of some. Pumpy

It could transfer diseases & border on being against the law...

I got it banned on our local freecycle...

Oh & overcrowding shouldn't be a problem, canibalisticly anyway...