Feeding tadpoles

I collected some eggs from a western spadefoot toad for my grandchildren to watch grow. I notice they seem to be eating the jelly that the string was made of once they hatched. I dropped a little bit of spinach in the tank and am wondering if raw egg white might somewhat mimic the nutrients found in the frog jelly they came packed in. It has a similar look and feel. Also wondering how long before I could expect egg white to become ransid and fowl the water.

You can get tadpole food at a pet store that carries fish supplies. Tadpoles can stand some pretty filthy water, but the water needs aeration, for a while. They can start gulping air at the surface pretty early on in development.

Insert standard disclaimer about capturing and keeping wild animals without a permit here and add the moral dilemma of interfering in natural processes. Then, hit the pet store for aquarium food such as algae tabs or even standard goldfish flakes. As they get older toad tadpoles in the wild will switch from a primarily vegetarian diet to more carnivorous fare like mosquito larvae (also available freeze dried and frozen at aquarium shops) slugs, earthworms, and assorted insects you can collect outdoors. . They are also likely to cannibalize each other if the food source isn’t sufficient.

When I raised some tadpoles as a kid, we fed them lettuce.

One thing to be careful of: as they mature, they’ll be able to jump even while they still have tails. If you are raising them on the kitchen counter next to the toaster… :smack: not the desired outcome.

We are actually raising them in a small outdoor pond. My grandson and I have a secret mission to re establish the pacific tree frog and the western spadefoot toad into my housing tract. We sneak the tadpoles into front yard ponds and will dispurse the young toads on to front lawns in the whee dark hours. Some of them will find back yard ponds eventually.

Tadpoles eat almost anything. Pond plants and insect larva in the water will feed them. Don’t add egg whites and foul the water. They will be well off with pond or marsh water with it’s creatures and plants put in their habitat.

I divided them into several test groups and tried several varieties of household food items as well as fish food and tadpole food from the pet shop. The winning candidate was floating dry cat food by a very large margin. They went nuts over it while everything else they showed only minimal interest. The egg white they seemed to like when fresh but by the next day they had mostly lost interest.