Raising tadpoles - part 1

Like most kids, my son has a fascination with animals. The problem is that while we used to have a ton of pets, we got rid of most of them before he turned a year old because with a baby in the house, we just didn't have time for snakes, lizards, rabbits, etc. We still have a dog and two cats, but he wants a turtle. Or a horse. Or the bird at the pet shop. Or the squirrel climbing a tree. Mainly he wants a turtle, and oddly enough I've seen two turtles crossing the road in the past week that I could have taken home with me instead of just moving them away from traffic. The problem is that I don't want a turtle or any other animal that I have to feed and house and possibly even buy.

A few weeks ago our tomato plants got attacked by tobacco worms, which are fairly attractive, very destructive caterpillars that turn into plain-looking brown moths. They reeked havoc on my plants but also provided me with a unique opportunity- a  completely free pet. I saved one of them from being a skid mark on the bottom of my shoe and put it in a plastic jar. My husband found a stick and some moss and drilled holes in the lid, and we dropped in a few of the already half-eaten green tomatoes. For almost a week, Ronan was ecstatic. he talked about his caterpillar (which he called a crap-pillar), all the time. He walked around with his jar showing it to anyone that would look. Then the darn thing cocooned and it was back to "Mommy! Mommy! Turtle. Hold it?" Even when there were no turtles anywhere nearby. (My son just turned 2 last month, so his vocabulary and sentence structure are understandably limited) I still hadn't figured out what I was going to do about Ronan's recent pet fascination when the answer forced itself on me.

Now for anyone that doesn't know me, I am a tree-hugger. Not literally, but I am more of an animal/nature lover than anyone else I know. I still go outside sometimes after it rains to save the worms from drying up and dying on the sidewalk. So when I went to clean my son's swimming pool and found hundreds of tiny tadpoles, there was no choice to make other than what I was going to put them in and where they were going to go. I think I ended up with about 300 miniature tadpoles, each approximately the size of a flea. Trust me, it was fun trying to separate them from the -even more plentiful- mosquito larvae. I put 200 of them in a ten gallon aquarium and the rest in a large fishbowl. I went to two of the local boat ramps but couldn't find any suitable pond plants, so I ended up adding some sphagnum moss instead. Now if you haven't used sphagnum moss before, let me just say that it is a good staple to have around if you are the sort of person that takes in random creatures from outside. It is very versatile. It can live in water or on land and if it doesn't get enough water, it will just dry up until it gets more and then quickly become lush and green again. It available at most pet stores, though I would recommend a reptile store if you have one nearby. We bought a block of it (It came in a cube shaped bundle, tied together and covered in plastic) at least 5 years ago, and even though we have used it for many things, we still have most of it left. it lasts a long time for three reasons: 1- It EXPANDS when you get it wet. (You should soak it for at least 20 minutes before you use it so that it reaches its full size and becomes more pliable) 2- You can reuse it. I soaked WAY too much for my tadpole tanks, so now the portion I'm not going to use is drying in sun and will be put back away later. 3- You can't kill it. I mean I'm sure you could burn it or poison it or something, but you can't accidentally kill it because of its completely flexible water and lighting needs. So:

aTank

aPlants (to hide in)

aNon-chlorinated water (We have well water, but if you don't, you can just let some sit uncovered for a few days)

rFood

What the heck do you feed a tadpole? In the wild they eat pond scum, but I didn't have a good way to bring any of that inside. And it's gross. So my husband did some research and found out that they love boiled letuce. He chopped a couple of leaves and boiled them for 10 minutes. Then he froze it in icecube trays so that I would have single servings. After it was frozen, I popped them out and moved them to a ziplock.  If I have to make more later, I will probably just spread it out on some wax paper so that I can break it all up and have more more control over how much food they get at a time. Anyway, they love the lettuce. I've had them for about a week now and they've grown a lot off of it. They still attack the lettuce with tenacity every time I drop some in, which is once every few days. I haven't read anything about tadpoles and iceburg lettuce (the kind that comes in a round head like cabbage), but iceburg lettuce has basically no nutritional value and you should never feed it to turtles, iguanas, or other animals that live off mainly greens. I gave my tadpoles Romaine lettuce, but I assume they would also enjoy other types of greens. If you don't have lettuce, you could even try using chickweed or dandelion greens, both of which are non-toxic.

Ronan doesn't seem very excited about the tadpoles. I don't think he understands what they are and they are too small to catch his eye. I'm not sure how big they will get since the full-grown tree-frogs are only a little over an inch long, but he loves seeing frogs no matter how small they are, and with 300 tadpoles, I think we're going to get a LOT of frogs.