Disintegrating frogspawn

[fairy frogmother]

I found this forum a few days ago and have been reading it hoping to glean any useful info, and I have found out a lot It is also really nice to know that I am NOT the only mad person prowling round my garden at all hours of the night and day hoping to engage in some froggie voyeurism (and my husband said I was mad!!!!)

Last year I made a very very small wildlife pool. I thought I would just see what happened and although I had just brought a very small prefab plastic liner (triangular 3ft by 3ft it was a great success. I had some newts move in and breed and ended up with 5 baby newts. I also had about 4 or 5 frogs and toads at various times throughout the summer and after adopting some unwated tadpoles from the nursery next door managed to raise quite a few little forglets.

This year I went out and found two clumps of frogspawn and 3 dead frogs. After reading on here I guess they were probably females that drowned during mating. Anyway, because this pool was so small it had no gently sloping sides etc and was not ideal, so I decided to make a decent sized pond complete with shallow bits for more female friendly mating. I made the pond with a liner and am really pleased with it. The water is a bit cloudy from the set up but I already have a newt taken up residence and have seen a couple of frogs. Since then I saw two frogs mating (in the new shallow bit) and afterwards a very small amout of fresh spawn. Sadly this spawn is very weird. Lots of jelly with no splodges, some normal looking stuff and some with white bits instead of the black ones. Now I would be happy with the old spawn which I had gently transferred and floated in the new pond but the older stuff seems to be disintegrating - rather than a nice tight clump it is now more watery and stringy. Is it dead? Would tranferring it have killed it? Or would something eating it be responsible for this?

I am not sure when the old spawn was laid so don't know if we have had any frosts since then which might have damaged it. I was very careful with it, I used the water from the old pond and rainwater to fill the new one and made sure it was the same temperature, so I hope it is not that.

For the last couple of days I have seen single frogs in the pond, and they appear to be different ones but no sign of mating activity. Has the spawning season finished yet?

Sorry, lots of questions here and a bit rambling, but I wait any comments with interest

[Dogghound]

The spawn with white in it, has failed im afraid. It sounds like frost damage is the cause. Transfering it a short distance like this is unlikely to have played any significance.

[RED]

I read an article about Albino Frogs from the 30's not too long ago and throughout the article white spawn was mentioned, If I remember correctly some of the spawn coloured up within a few days & some produced white tadpoles (Some of which stayed albino, some of which slowly turned black)
This may or may not be the case here though.

Here's the link to the article. It's an interesting read if you're into amphibians etc.

[fairy frogmother]

Thanks very much RED, that really is an interesting article. I will certainly be watching this spawn with interest but I suspect I have a dud batch of normal spawn rather than albino stuff.

[marvin]

[quote= Lots of jelly with no splodges [/QUOTE]

hi

newts? they are pretty adept at eating the "splodges" and leaving the jelly.

cheers
tim

[fairy frogmother]

I don't think the newts are responsible for the jelly with no splodges as I actually saw that clump newly spawned before it had the jelly and over the next couple of hours it was possible to see that some of the jelly sacs were empty.

I do wonder about the disintegrating older spawn though, although with that it is the jelly that is disintegrating and the black splodges are still there. Well if I am lucky enough to get any more then perhaps I will do as some have suggested and take some out and keep in a bucket until it gets more developed, although at the moment that seems unlikley as I have two lone males who are hopefully hanging around and only halfheartedly giving the occasional croak. Don't they realise that it is the effort that counts

[fairy frogmother]

Update on the disintegrating frogspawn. I left it in the pond and it had now undergone a change - the full stops have turned into little commas

I am ridiculously pleased as this is the first spawn laid in my pond

[IcyGoats]

I have a small amount of toadspawn in a tank and exactly the same thing seems to be happening. I hope I have as much success as you.

[maiden_frog]

Originally Posted by fairy frogmother

Update on the disintegrating frogspawn. I left it in the pond and it had now undergone a change - the full stops have turned into little commas

I am ridiculously pleased as this is the first spawn laid in my pond

Hi
I counted around 40 adult frogs in my pond last weekend, i have loads of spawn laid in the pond, i also have some in a tank and buckets in my shed. I noticed tonight that some of the spawn has died in the buckets. The tadpoles had hatched out but they all look as though they have died. I dont know why, around where i live we havent had any frosts. I remember last year i had loads of spawn but it all gradually disintegrated. I dont know what is best to protect it? I kept tadpoles in the 80s when i was a child and it seamed to survive well back them. Could this be climate change? All i want is hundreds of tadpoles in my pond in the next few months.
Darren

[marvin]

hi

sometimes newly hatched taddies are very still and may look dead but they are in fact fine. however, if there isn't much light in your shed it may effect their development. i'd keep them outdoors in a sunny position if it were me.

cheers
tim