Anyone built their own frog ramp?

[brokensword]

Becky; I'm also in the driftwood/log/natural wood camp. I have two in mine, not for the frogs especially but for the turtles. Looks natural and I'm sure the frogs could use it if they needed to. If you go to any natural lake/pond, there should be some well weathered pieces of tree ready for your use!

Michael

 

[Becky]

Thanks so much for all the ideas everyone! It's interesting to hear the different solutions that you have each come up with. We decided to give the gutter guard a go (because it fits in with the 'look' of the existing net frame) and it was a quick and easy solution. We've yet to see it in use, but it does at least provide a way out for any small critters who get stuck! Here are some photos:

Here's a view of the new ramp - it rests on the iris container, so should hopefully be good and sturdy. The row of cable ties are there because we previously cut a larger hole for the plants to poke through and our neighbour's cat kept poking her little head through to drink! We were worried she was damaging the net, so we closed it up a little:

View from the other side:

The whole pond:

What do you think?

 

[addy1]

Looks great, they will find it. I made mine more for a turtle escape, every now and then a land turtle ends up in the pond, if they don't have a way out they drown. The frogs seem to have no problem, but mine is not netted like yours.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

I don't think I have ever seen your pond Becky, it is very cute!

Your new ramp looks great and I think it will work well to help give the little critters some traction so they can climb up and out of the pond.

 

[Becky]

I don't think I have ever seen your pond Becky, it is very cute!

Your new ramp looks great and I think it will work well to help give the little critters some traction so they can climb up and out of the pond.

Thanks very much! We would love to have a bigger, more natural looking pond, but when we moved into our current house this pond was already here. When we moved in it was chock-a-block full of pond weed, so after a big clear out and clean we started from scratch. Got a couple of irises and lilies, and 10 goldfish/shubunkins/comets which seem to be very happy. Plus one frog now it seems!

Maybe one day we will have the pond of our dreams, but we'll need a bigger garden first I think!

 

[Becky]

Look who we saw today!

 

[addy1]

Yeah! they like your ramp! way to go

 

[bettasngoldfish]

How cool to see the ramp is being used

 

[Tula]

This is so cool

 

[Becky]

Thanks! I never thought we'd actually see it in use, so it was a bit of a surprise!

 

[keikoasmom]

I love this thread, so much info!
We have Willows, a Poplar and an ornamental Pear all close to
the pond. We thought the skimmers would handle the problem,
but keeping the leaves out would be nice.

The nets don't look that bad, and I'm sure less scooping is nice!
Good luck with your frog!
We had leopard frogs for years but I think mosquito dunks killed
them all.

 

[Becky]

The nets don't look that bad, and I'm sure less scooping is nice!
Good luck with your frog!

Thanks @keikoasmom! The net keeps out the leaves pretty well, but we have a nearby Yew tree and lots of Lime trees (not the fruit kind) which both produce very small flowers/seeds etc which always end up in the pond. I think the net strikes a good balance though - we put it there after a heron attack so that we didn't lose any more fish, and it has certainly worked well on that front.

 

[johan]

Really really excellent. I have a (bad) bird ramp on mine made out of a small pet's 'fun stick'. Had 3 birdies drown in my pond this year

 

[Becky]

Really really excellent. I have a (bad) bird ramp on mine made out of a small pet's 'fun stick'. Had 3 birdies drown in my pond this year

Oh no, sorry to hear about that! Has the stick helped?

 

[johan]

No more dead birdies, so I'd very much hope so...