tiny tadpole saving

[danny boy]

hello. I got lots and lots of healthy tadpoles this year, but one or two of them are tiny, is there anything i can do? I know the other tadpoles will probably eat it, it natural and thats ok, but could i save it? Ive got a fishtank, could i use that to create a habitat for it and feed it individually? thanks for readin

[marvin]

hi

tadpoles often grow at different rates despite living in the same pond so no need to worry about them. however, there's also nothing wrong with raising a few in a tank either if you want and watching them grow and change is a great experience. good luck.

tim

[King Edward]

Since you've got lots of healthy tadpoles, the tiny ones may quite possibly be genetically weaker individuals which would naturally be expected to die anyway. Bear in mind that 99% (or even more) of the tadpoles are likely to die before adulthood anyway, due to predation or starvation or disease or whatever, so for the frog population overall it's best that it's only the healthiest individuals that survive. While it might seem harsh, it's best to let nature take its course in this case rather than trying to help out the weaker individuals.

If you did want to rear a few tadpoles in a tank separately, to observe their development, I'd take a few out at random with a net and look after them until they're ready to leave the water. If you search either on WAB or the web generally, I think you'll find quite a bit of advice on looking after tadpoles.

[Paul mabbott]

These may be smallish tadpoles which will grow into smallish frogs or they may have emerged later than others or they might be suffering from malnutrition. We might assume that the small ones will be the least likely to survive but in some circumstance smallness may confer survival abilities, or just chances (by being "out of sync" with the general population). We don't know and there's really little point in interfering too much - just keep the water level fairly high and throw them a marmite sandwich from time to time! We have to recognise that something like 90% of frogspawn will probably fail to survive into 'adulthood'. Many will die as eggs failing to hatch, tadpoles failing to metamorphose or young 'adults' failing to survive their first year. That's life, as they say.

[dampflippers]

It may also be that most of your tads are frog ones, but you also have some toadpoles. Toadspawn is laid later, so these would be smaller.
To check- frogpoles look brownish, toadpoles look black.

Apart from that- it's all part of the food chain. Emerging at different times means that if there is a drought after the first lot emerge and they dessicate, or a plague of blackbirds picking them off as they leave the pond, then some more will emerge later.