Thursday, June 2, 2011

tadpoles.

Jonah came home from soccer camp yesterday with tadpoles...



A LOT of tadpoles...



I'm not sure what to do with them. I googled "what to feed tadpoles" and read to boil lettuce for 15 minutes, chop it up and freeze it. So we did...



It also said it takes 8-12 weeks for them to develop into frogs... not sure I have that much patience.



Anyone have tips on raising tadpoles?

12 comments:

Andrea said...

My uncle gave my son some tadpoles because, "every little boy needs some tadpoles." We feed them frozen lettuce, he said you could just put it in the freezer, you didn't need to boil it, or occasionally a piece of cat food. Unfortunately for us, we've had our tadpoles since LAST YEAR. Apparently when I asked him about this he said oh, if you have really immature BULLFROG tadpoles... it can take them two years to change. So I'm thinking your 8-12 weeks sounds like a cakewalk! Haha! Even now only one of our tadpoles is getting legs... so we might have the other one for another year. *sigh* P.S. We live in the Chicago suburbs, what am I going to do with full grown bullfrogs!!??

Rachel @ Finding Joy said...

No tips! But, I've had friends who've raised them and it was an awesome experience for their family. And yes, you need patience.

Great pictures as well. :)

Musings Of A Gem said...

My brother did the same thing!

We've been feeding them lettuce and a little fish food. Once they've grown their legs we are going to release them back to where he found them.


They eat each other as they get older so the numbers should go down!

Gemma x

Laura @ live.laugh.photograph said...

hehe i have no idea! but good luck! this sounds really fun!

jaquelyn {mama thoughts} said...

Oh, this brings back such fond memories of tadpole raising! My sisters and I loved it. :)

One thing - you'll probably want to put them in an aquarium with a lid. Otherwise, they may jump out overnight & you won't get to see the froggies! And we always just fed ours fish food. :)

An Oklahoma Girl said...

I've babysat a family for years that raises them every summer. They found that a plastic swimming pool from Walmart, or wherever, is enough space for all of them to swim and grow!

Sarah-Anne said...

no tips, but awesome photos erin!! can't wait to see how these things grow! :)

Shantell said...

We raised tadpoles on fish food, the kind that looks like flakes. as they got older, we put rocks in there so they can start to climb out. Watch out though, some developed sooner than others and jumped out and were in my house :)

TheCorbinStory said...

I'm thinking: a bigger bowl :D

Spendy Wendy said...

Oh my GOSH! Seriously how fun is THAT? Wonder if I can get tadpoles in AZ? LOL. Your kids will NEVER forget how cool their mom was and let them do THAT!

Spendy Wendy said...

Oh my GOSH! Seriously how fun is THAT! I wonder if I can get tadpoles in AZ? LOL - Your kids will NEVER forget how cool you were in letting them raise those! AWESOME!

Mama Musings said...

I raised tadpoles when I was younger. I fed them the boiled lettuce and also bits of raw hamburger.
They were in an aquarium and I put a clump of grass in there for them to hide in the roots of and when they turned into frogs/toads they were able to get out of the water.

Once they turned into toads though, I released them. I couldn't get them to eat after that.

Good luck, it was a fun experience! :)