Taddies

This year we have managed to make taddy time much more interesting.

The first tadpoles we found were the typical small, black kind and as far as I remember, we caught eleven of them.

The next time we went, we visited a different place, not far from here, where we saw frogs last year. It is amazing the quantity of tadddies there were. The place, originally maybe a drinking hole for farm animals, was alive with hundreds and hundreds of them.  And they are not black but brown and speckled. I think 'tawny' would be an appropriate word to use. And they grow BIG. We caught one whose head part is as big as my thumbnail! AND we found spawn. So now we have two different varieties of pollywog at all the different stages of life.

They fascinate me. We have them on the porch window-sill and I could sit out there and watch their activity all day! They like the sunlight and wake up about mid morning.

We also caught some water snails to help keep the water fresh, clean and oxygenated and do you know what? They have also spawned and left little lumps of transparent jelly all over the aquarium! I am interested to see how they hatch and grow, too.

BIG tadpole!

In the tank there are a few bits of slimy weed, a rotting leaf and, of course, their own poo which they feed on. It is very important to keep that in the tank as it is their staple diet. Every three days or so, I throw in the water a couple of turtle pellets which they turn wild for. Also, I change part of the water every other day, taking out a litre or so and replacing it with a litre of the water I took from their original habitat. The snails do the rest of the cleaning!

The nursery!

Here is a photo of the spawn and some recently hatched mini taddies. They are 24 hours old. (I'm sorry the photo is not so clear, it was difficult to get a close-up without it blurring.) We have these ones separated, but still on the porch window-sill, until they get a little stronger, because the elephant sized ones could well nibble at the spawn or even eat the tiny taddies.

When they start getting legs and changing into frogs I will post a taddy update!

And here we are, fishing...