How can I protect young newts still in the pond during winter

[wendyspeariett]

I am fortunate enough to have all three types of newt making use of the garden pond I built. (I also have frogs and common toads by the way). This year there have been hundreds of newtlets in the garden, and are now, I am hoping, safely tucked away for the winter. However, the pond still has a lot of youngsters still with gills, and am concerned about their survival. I was adviced last year to leave them in the pond despite the freezing temperatures, which I did until I realised that many of the young newts had died. The remaining newts I netted out of the pond and put them in a quickly made tank with both water and a built up dry area. This was kept indoors for several weeks on my kitchen window sill, the 20+ newts were fed 2 or 3 times a week on dried meal worms crushed finely. The first fine day after the severe frost we had last year I put them back into the pond. Has anyone done anything similar? I am looking for an easier way as this year there are such a lot still with gills ranging in size from 5mm to 1.5 inches. Any suggestions will be appreciated

[GCN lova]

hi

if you have all three species it is illegal to disturb Great Crested Newts anyway. you could catch the smooth and palmate newt larvae though im not sure if thats illegal in a pond of great crested newts. can't you float a ball ontop of the water so the ice doesnt cover the water.

GCN lova

PS: I share your concern of the overwintering amphibians as they are very easy to get close to. Welcome to WAB BTW.

[Billabong Karen]

All my baby newts seem to have disappeared... Though they were very small and some of them still with gills when I last saw them at around the beginning of October. Wonder if they are just hiding...

[King Edward]

Since you've already had a lot of young newts metamorphose from the pond this year (if I understand your post correctly), I'd be inclined to let the rest take their chances in the pond over winter without intervention. They might die, they might not, but there does come a point where you have to let animals just get on with doing what they do.

[davedotcom]

This may be a load of old tripe but, as a practical suggestion I heard a couple of days ago on the Beeb, if you have something like a rubber duck bath toy or spongey dog ball, put it in the pond.

Apparently (I haven't tried this but there seems to be logic to it), the movement of the duck or ball being pushed around the pond by the breeze helps to keeps the water moving and therefore helps prevent it freezing over.

Obviously if there's a big drop in temperature or heavy snowfall I guess no rubber duck will be sufficient to stop the freeze!

Someone on here who is more knowledgeable that me (ain't hard) may be able to confirm if the above is true or just a load of gobbledigook!

[Billabong Karen]

I really cant believe it's necessary to stop the water freezing over. I mean, think of all the ponds in Scandinavia, Germany, Poland etc, where it is much colder than here. Somehow their frogs, toads and newts survive... While I completely understand the wish to help the newtlets, I'm with King Edward on this one. Let nature take its course...

[Kayleigh]

Newts that have not developed fully go on to over winter (hibernate) in the bottom of the pond their body almost shuts down so they need little oxygen to survive so I am in the leave well alone camp..

[galanthus]

If your pond was built as it should be, it'll have 2ft of water at it's deepest point. This will be very unlikely to freeze to the bottom and they'll snuggle into the debris and hibernate until spring as they would in the wild. This combined with the protection guidelines of the Great Crested Newt would leave me inclined to leave well alone and let nature sort it out.

[dampflippers]

Don't worry about them. A few tadpoles regularly overwinter in the pond, and baby newts do too. Chances are they will be fine.

If you want to you can melt a hole in the ice (don't break the ice as this damages eardrums). You can also remove snow if it builds up so that pondplants can still photosynthesise. Froglife did a survey last year and they decided that darkness due to snow buildup caused more deaths (of adult frogs) than no hole in the ice.

[wendyspeariett]

I thank every one for tips and advice. I should like to point out though that for two years, 2009 and 2010, the weather was appalling the below freezing temperatures literally hit us over night and lasted a considerable length of time. The spring of 2010 and 2011 was devastating everything had died. Frogs froglets and the young newts. Last winter was mild, but when frost threatened I netted about 30 of the young newts out of the pond with some of the water and put them in a tub on my kitchen window sill. I fed them once every other day on mealworm and a little cat food, cleaned them out daily and replaced them two weeks later.
To assist the frogs still in the pond I threw in tubs and polystyrene pieces bits of wood and weighted some of them down slightly. It looked a mess but pockets of air trapped among all the above prevented the pond from completely freezing over.