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great shots!
What does your pond look like ... Today?
- Thread starter JBtheExplorer
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Troutredds
You can call me Red
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Thanks! They’re not half bad for an cell phone camera.
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Wow, really neat to watch this
Do your turtles and frogs over winter naturally in your pond?
At my old residence I used to feed the frogs earthworms. Some of the frogs would catch them out of the air if I threw the worm at them.
Although, it can be a little disconcerting when I was around the pond and had no worms for the frogs. An army of frogs would just appear around the pond staring me down.
Never really started feeding the frogs in the pond here at the new house.
Yes Tula, they have been over wintering in the pond for the past 6 years, and I've been hand feeding them for as long. They can and do find a certain amount of natural food in the pond area they can find but not really even enough to sustain them, by hand feeding I can ensure that they are getting filled to satisfaction and can build up their fat reserves in preparation for their winter dormancy periods and in the case of my two female frogs, they need those reserves for their egg development. Both of them lay an egg mass that is about two or three times their body size every spring. Exactly how they do that I don't quite understand?
As for the turtle, hand feeding is the cleanest way to feed the turtle that I have found. Unlike the fish, or more correctly, because of the fish, I can't just throw food on the surface of the pond for the turtle, although he can and is sometimes able to eat a few of the food pellets thrown on the surface of the water, the fish generally find and consume it all before the turtle can get anywhere near enough. In fact, even the food I hand feed the turtle the fish often steal it literally right out of his mouth, as you can witness in the video the dark-colored koi stealing one of the mealworms out of the mouth of the turtle.
Sounds like your frogs have some physical dexterity,,,,, mine can be rather clumsy and a little dense sometimes, but what they lack in adeptness and brains they makeup in tameness and acquiesce. Our frogs generally don't mind being handled, they seem to even like being petted. They'll sometimes even make a sort of light croaking sound when you rub their back or pet them that is similar to the purring that cats make when you pet them.
Watch the videos below to see examples of how clumsy they can be when just trying to take worms out of my hand, and the frog purring noise they make when you rub their back.
As far as feeding goes, one difference we probably have is my frogs can't leave the confines of my pond area, our pond is inside a walled courtyard area and no turtles or frogs can naturally wander in (or out). The turtle and frogs we have have been placed in the pond by us and we are solely responsible for their care and feeding, and hand feeding is the best way I've found to ensure they get enough. Fortunately, reptiles and amphibians don't really need to be fed every day, they can, and do, gorge one day and then they may not be interested in eating for a week or even in some cases (like come Fall and Winter) for months at a time. But like bears, it's very important I make sure I fatten them up as much as I can before the cold comes and they lose interest in eating so they can survive the months without eating.
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This is pretty darn cool, having tame frogs and turtles !! I love that your pond is in a walled courtyard.
JBtheExplorer
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The pond and rain garden.
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Picked up a yellow snowflake plant, love the little yellow flowers.
JBtheExplorer
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Awesome!
JBtheExplorer
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Forgot to post this yesterday. This was one of multiple downpours that gave us 4" of rain in less than 24 hours.
Sounds like your frogs have some physical dexterity,,,,, mine can be rather clumsy and a little dense sometimes, but what they lack in adeptness and brains they makeup in tameness and acquiesce. Our frogs generally don't mind being handled, they seem to even like being petted. They'll sometimes even make a sort of light croaking sound when you rub their back or pet them that is similar to the purring that cats make when you pet them.
Watch the videos below to see examples of how clumsy they can be when just trying to take worms out of my hand, and the frog purring noise they make when you rub their back.
As far as feeding goes, one difference we probably have is my frogs can't leave the confines of my pond area, our pond is inside a walled courtyard area and no turtles or frogs can naturally wander in (or out). The turtle and frogs we have have been placed in the pond by us and we are solely responsible for their care and feeding, and hand feeding is the best way I've found to ensure they get enough. Fortunately, reptiles and amphibians don't really need to be fed every day, they can, and do, gorge one day and then they may not be interested in eating for a week or even in some cases (like come Fall and Winter) for months at a time. But like bears, it's very important I make sure I fatten them up as much as I can before the cold comes and they lose interest in eating so they can survive the months without eating.
My pond is fenced in, so the frogs can come and go, but they seem to just keep showing up and not leaving. My turtles are tame, climbing out of the water and following me around if I don’t get there food to them fast enough. They could careless if you pick them up as long as you feed them at some point.
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Can you tell us a little about the setup you have that allows for the turtles and frogs to over winter in your pond? How long are they dormant? Do you provide an area for them to dig in somewhere underwater? How deep is your pond, and how deep underwater is the area they dig into?
I have thought of providing a large container of sand underwater just for that purpose. I have in the past had turtles overwinter in my pond, but have also lost one over the winter. It hadn't occurred to me that it may not have gotten enough to eat to put on enough reserves to overwinter. I thought the turtles did pretty well competing against the goldfish I had, but maybe not.
What type of turtles are you keeping?
Mostly, by distracting the fish with food, then feed the turtles at the other end of the pond. The pond is roughly 35’ long x 16’ wide so they get a few minutes of eating their food with out fish stealing it.
They get fed various turtle pellets and sticks as a staple. A couple times a week I hand feed them what they eat in the wild. I keep northern diamondback terrapins, so their natural foods are crabs, shrimp, mussels, clams, snails and fish if they can catch them. Living near the Chesapeake Bay I can get a constant supply of their natural food April-October.
That is pretty cool how you got the frogs to be tame enough to handle. Even at my old house where the frogs wanted me to feed them, they wouldn’t let me pick them up.