Nature Study: Raising Tadpoles with Kids

Spring is here! And with the warmer weather comes a plethora of new opportunities to experience nature with your kids. One incredible way to teach children about wildlife, the phases of metamorphosis and caring for animals is by observing the life cycle of a frog. Today, we’re sharing the amazing experience of raising frogs, from spawn to tadpole to froglet! Ann Owen is here with the most beautiful images and the story of her family’s adventures with tadpoles. She’s also included everything you need to know before go and what you should have on hand if you want to collect and raise your own tadpoles this spring. Happy frogging!

Tadpole season

Last year was our first time raising tadpoles. Watching our frogspawn go through their metamorphosis into little froglets was such an incredible experience for our family, especially for my daughter, Phoenix, that we had to do it again this year. Spring is the best time to find frogspawn, so now is the perfect time to share all the lessons we learned last year on how to raise them.

I hope this blog post will help anyone else who would like to give raising tadpoles a go. I highly recommend doing this with your little ones, as it’s such a great way to observe the life cycle of a frog and learn about metamorphosis. Plus, it’s a great excuse to get outside and go on an adventure in search of frogspawn! We definitely had lots of fun collecting ours this year!

What you will need

You don’t need a ton of fancy equipment or specialty items to get started raising tadpoles. Here’s a short list of a few items that you’ll want to have on hand when you get started. Most of these items can be found at your neighborhood pet store (or online, of course).

• Water from the pond/stream where you found the frogspawn (you’ll use this for the initial water in your tank)
• A small fish tank (we bought a 6 liter one but this year bought another one due to having so many)
• A bag of aquarium gravel or rocks from the pond
• Some artificial foliage/plants (so that’s the tadpoles have places to hide, otherwise, they can get stressed)
• A few larger stones
• Bottled still water (tap water will kill them; however, you can use tap water if you let it sit for 24 hours)
• Tropical fish food flakes (for young tadpoles)
• Freeze dried bloodworm (for tadpoles when they begin to form legs )

Important things to remember

Here are a few things to remember and bits of advice that may not be obvious to you, particularly if this is your first time raising tadpoles. These are all lessons we learned last year from our tadpole experience.

• Once the tadpoles begin to form legs and arms it is extremely important that the gravel in your tank is at an incline so that they are able to get in and out of the water easily.
• When your tadpoles turn into froglets they will not eat for a few days because they get their food from eating their tail!
• Make sure you regularly clean the tank and add fresh water.
• Once they have transformed into froglets, release them back into the wild. Ideally, you should release them where you found the frogspawn.

Our tadpole experience

Our tadpole experience all began last year when we were on a walk in the woods and we came across some frogspawn. We didn’t know we were going to come across this and therefore hadn’t planned to bring any home with us, so we were unprepared. We only had coffee cups to put our frogspawn into, but it did the job until we got home! Since we weren’t prepared and didn’t have a tank we put them into a bowl until we could get one.

The bowl was not going to cut it, so we immediately ordered a tank. It arrived within a few days and straight away we added the gravel and foliage. We also added some extra water (bottled) to the water from the pond.

Due to our indoor environment being so much warmer than the temperatures outside, within a week the frogspawn began hatching. In just a few days we had hundreds of little tadpoles. This was incredibly exciting for my daughter, who was almost three at the time. She instantly fell in love with all of them called them her “babies!”

She took her feeding duties very seriously and it was something she looked forward to each day. We started with fish food flakes, once decent sized pinch a day usually, depending on how many you have (be aware that overfeeding them can kill them).

Tadpoles to froglets

A couple of months after we had found the frogspawn we finally saw little legs begin to form. We had also reached a stage where the more developed tadpoles began eating each other and many of our tadpoles didn’t make it. I was totally unprepared for this! Just know this is part of the lifecycle and prepare your children for the carnage.

About a week later more and more tadpoles developed their back legs and we had our very first froglet who we named Star. Isn’t she beautiful?

Sadly Star didn’t make it. I had found her dead in the water the next morning. She had drowned. It was an absolute tragedy in our house and we were all so sad. However, from her death, I learned the importance of the tank needing to be at an incline so as to allow the frogs to get out of the water and breathe air. We revamped the tank straight away. During this phase (when the froglets take their first breath of air and go out of the water), they are at their most fragile. During this time they also get all that they need from eating their tail, so you may notice they don’t eat their fish food for a few days.

From here on out, things began to happen fast. More and more tadpoles developed their back and front legs. At this point, we had to remove some of the water and give them space to get out into the air. Around this time is when we introduced freeze dried bloodworm and this they really loved!

Releasing our froglets

Unfortunately, around this time we lost a few more froglets. However, the ones that came after those were much more robust, hardy and healthy. About a week later we finally reached the stage where we could release a couple of them! You are supposed to release the froglets where you found them to give them the best chances of survival. However, the puddle where we found our frogspawn no longer existed, so I found a nice little stream nearby where we could release them. Phoenix loved being able to set them free. She carried their little container ever so carefully, constantly kissing them. We gave them a beautiful little send-off and thanked them for their time with us.

A few days later we had more frogs to release! From here on out we kept getting more and more little froglets and released them back into the wild a small batch at a time.

This was a very exciting time because pretty much every day we would have another new little froglet to love.

Fun with froglets

At one point, I had to clean out their tank, but with so many frogs I didn’t dare open it up! Even tiny frogs can really jump! I didn’t want dozens of little froglets jumping around our kitchen, which would have gone terribly wrong since we have cats! Instead, I just scooped out as much of the dirty water as I could and replaced it with bottled water. Phoenix constantly asked to hold the froglets, but I would always tell her they were too small. However, it was finally time! When she was finally able to hold them, we discovered how much fun they are. She especially loved having them on her face!

Operation Freedom

About three full months after we first found the frogspawn, it was finally time to do a big release back into the wild. We called it Operation Freedom! On this day we released about 22 little froglets back into the wild! But not before telling them goodbye and doing a little photo shoot. It was such an amazing experience for all of us and one I hope Phoenix will remember forever.

Have you ever raised tadpoles?
We’d love to hear about your experience.

I’m Ann. I live with my husband, Kevin, our 3-year-old girl, Phoenix (AKA Nixie) and our newest addition to the family (born in January of this year), our little boy Forrest. Craving a quieter, more peaceful life and one closer to nature, we relocated a couple of years ago from the big city of London, England to the beautiful New Forest a few hours away, where we are surrounded by the forest and the sea.

I’m a wanderer and a nomad at heart. I feel the most at home when I’m out in the wilds: the forests and the sea are my tonic. They are sacred to me. I’m a lover of love, synchronicity; of the unknown and its infinite possibilities, a lover of opposites; of light and dark, our mind and heart, our soul and spirit and discovering all the different ways they work together.

I’m a family photographer and I love finding the beauty in everyday moments. Since becoming a mama my most favorite thing to photograph is our own family life, it feels like such an honour and such an incredible gift to be by our children’s side as they explore and discover our world. I’m also a holistic massage therapist/bodyworker and have a deep interest in all forms of healing but especially people’s journey into their authentic, true selves.

You can see some of our adventures on Instagram @therisingphoenixuk.