Discussion
I set up a nursery pond this year next to my main one , fished out all the frogspawn and dumped it all in the nursery ,most turned into froglets and legged it , i still have some tadpoles that don’t appear to be progressing? Is this normal ? Normally the fish eat them so i hoped to save more this year .
Didn't sound normal for me - have a few ponds myself and have only ever seen spawn for a few months in the early Spring usually.
So I looked online - this site said:
I still have tadpoles late in the the year (into autumn), is this normal?
Tadpoles / larvae usually develop into young amphibians and leave the pond during the summer months, but occasionally you might still see them in the pond throughout autumn and winter. These 'overwintering' tadpoles complete their development the following spring. There could be several reasons for this slow development:
The pond may be so crowded that the tadpoles are short of food.
The pond may be too cold, due to a shaded location or steep-sided construction.
Crowding is likely to resolve itself over time. If the pond is shaded, consider cutting back some of the overhanging vegetation to increase the amount of light and warmth reaching the surface of the water.
At this stage, do not attempt to help these 'slow-growers' by providing extra food or taking them out of the pond - you could end up with them completing their development in the middle of winter when there is no food around to support them. They will be fine in the pond until next spring.
So I looked online - this site said:
I still have tadpoles late in the the year (into autumn), is this normal?
Tadpoles / larvae usually develop into young amphibians and leave the pond during the summer months, but occasionally you might still see them in the pond throughout autumn and winter. These 'overwintering' tadpoles complete their development the following spring. There could be several reasons for this slow development:
The pond may be so crowded that the tadpoles are short of food.
The pond may be too cold, due to a shaded location or steep-sided construction.
Crowding is likely to resolve itself over time. If the pond is shaded, consider cutting back some of the overhanging vegetation to increase the amount of light and warmth reaching the surface of the water.
At this stage, do not attempt to help these 'slow-growers' by providing extra food or taking them out of the pond - you could end up with them completing their development in the middle of winter when there is no food around to support them. They will be fine in the pond until next spring.
Interesting, I’ve had ponds for over 35yrs and never seen it before , looks like I’ll have to leave the nursery pond over winter.there were thousands of them which i fed and spread around to another pond hoping to have a plague of frogs by the end of the season !
Edited by bimsb6 on Saturday 21st December 23:47
Yes, we get this quite regularly. We have a couple of ponds, the first is tiny and sits under the outflow of the natural spring that feeds the house so remains cold all year round. It's quite normal to see tadpoles at almost any time of year in there.
In the big pond, which is fed by a burn running down off the hill behind the house, it's never happened but then I guess there's much more predators on the go in there and it probably does warm up during long sunny spells despite the cold fresh water feed.
In the big pond, which is fed by a burn running down off the hill behind the house, it's never happened but then I guess there's much more predators on the go in there and it probably does warm up during long sunny spells despite the cold fresh water feed.
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