Dead frogs

[Geoffers]

We have had a fairly healthy frog, toad and newt population up to this year. Now no newts and lots of dead frogs......swollen abdomen and very dark skin. Toads at the moment seem OK. Chap next door using slug pellets, but that's all, he says. The frog pictured has died in the last twelve hours. Any ideas?

[deb13b]

Originally Posted by Geoffers

We have had a fairly healthy frog, toad and newt population up to this year. Now no newts and lots of dead frogs......swollen abdomen and very dark skin. Toads at the moment seem OK. Chap next door using slug pellets, but that's all, he says. The frog pictured has died in the last twelve hours. Any ideas?

No such thing as "that's all" with slug pellets. They kill pretty much everything that eats them. They should be banned. I'm not an expert when it comes to frogs but it wouldn't surprise me if it was the pellets that caused it. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will be along in a minute.

[Dogghound]

Lots of dead frogs doesnt sound good. This sounds like Ranavirus.

I think the best thing to do is to fill in the froglife form here

Froglife - latest news

[Kayleigh]

Can you explain to your neighbour that slug pellets kill wildlife hedgehogs and thrushes included and if he left off the slug pellets the slug population would go down naturally by predation..
Tell him to put grated carrot down and the slugs will feast happily on this and leave his prize plants alone..

[tameblackbirds]

Originally Posted by Kayleigh

Can you explain to your neighbour that slug pellets kill wildlife hedgehogs and thrushes included and if he left off the slug pellets the slug population would go down naturally by predation..
Tell him to put grated carrot down and the slugs will feast happily on this and leave his prize plants alone..

or a heap of porridge they adore and then let the frogs do their job

[2dogs2000]

Originally Posted by tameblackbirds

or a heap of porridge they adore and then let the frogs do their job

Or in my case, food for the hedgehog that doesn't turn up!

[Kayleigh]

Originally Posted by 2dogs2000

Or in my case, food for the hedgehog that doesn't turn up!

Bless emm....

[captaincarot]

i'm not convinced that the slug pelets would kill the frogs in the way you would think.

if the frog came into contact directly, for example by sitting on the pellets then they would be absorbed through the skin and poison the frog.
but frogs won't eat dead slugs as they only eat moving food. so unless they came across a slug in it's death throws they wouldn't recognise it as food.

also frogs will eat the odd slug but toads eat them far more readily. so if the slug pellets were the problem you should expect the toads to be affected far worse than the frogs.

not that i'm defending the use of slug pellets in any way as they will kill just about everything else that eats dead slugs also. personally i'd ban the things today.

[lottie03]

Is there such a thing as wildlife friendly slug pellets? We saw some at Wyevale garden centre which had a picture of a frog on, and were supposedly harmless to them. We thought about picking some up but decided not to risk it.

[nickyw71]

Hi

I got some crushed eggshells from a garden centre but it was quite a long time ago so I'm not sure if you can still get them - or you could try sinking a jar with beer in it into the ground and let them die happy!!