American toad tadpoles

Does anyone think there is any relevant concern regarding feeding these to fish? It would be neat to have a couple pairs, keep them nice and fat, and breed them for live food. One female can lay a few thousand eggs...

I read that there are potonitially toxins in their skin.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that they were toxic. No experience trying it though.
I don't know about you, but I couldn't stand the sound of the male's trilling inside the house. They are loud! Not a real pretty sound either.
Why not just collect a few thousand come spring time and freeze them? They're very prolific. You could take enough to last till next season and not hurt the population. Heck in dry seasons the tads die by the thousands when the rain puddles they were born in dry up too soon.

I couldn't stand the sound of the male's trilling inside the house.

I thought of that after I posted. I might be able to deal with it for a week or so...once. When I was a kid, before my voice changed, I could make that noise and get males to respond while sitting in my hand, pretty cool to see and feel.

I think I may try to find two pairs and do it once this winter. They are fun little pets anyways. I certainly could collect plenty, its just convincing the boss to let me put them in the freezer!!

Toads contain bufotoxins at every stage of life. If you want to use tadpoles as feeders, better to use hylids or ranids.

Toads contain bufotoxins at every stage of life. If you want to use tadpoles as feeders, better to use hylids or ranids.

I've got both bull and green frogs coming out of my ears! I can easily gnab a couple pairs in the spring.

Every May and June, I feed hundreds of these "toadpoles" to my pumpkinseeds and redfins. I've never had an issue.

Dean

I left a child's wading pool in my back yard with a couple of inches of water in it. Came out one morning and found two long strings of toad eggs. Put them in a little tank for my girls to watch them hatch. We had to let them go, my girls would have thrown a fit if I had fed them to the fish.

When the pool was full, the tree frogs would come and sit on it at night. Neat sound.

Breeding frogs/toads isn't really that easy!

Bump it up!

So, I have dug in six ponds (5-125 gal and 1-265 gal). I am raising and rearing australian and new guinea rainbows in all but one which has a couple pairs of local bluespotted sunfish. Every rain or even cool wet night I catch a few green frogs that emmigrate from my 1/4 acre pond....a never ending endeavor...a bit frusterating I admit but an enjoyable repass to my frog catching youth!

Anywho, when away last weekend a pair managed to spawn in the largest of the installed ponds. I collected a bunch of the very young, small tadpoles (<1/4 in) to try feeding to my fish.....not one would eat them. They would all eat, chew spit out and then ignore all others. Based on this fairly inclusive census I conclude that, however tempting and economical they may appear as live food....we have an overwhelming opinion of thanks but no thanks!!!

The fish I tried feeding them to were:

several new guinea rainbow species
several australia rainbow species
madagascar rainbow
peacock gudgeons
purple spotted gudgeons
blue spotted sunfishes
odessa barbs
pumpkinseeds
bluegills
eastern blacknose dace
rainbow shiners
yellowfin shiners
southern redbellied dace

Based on this fairly inclusive census I conclude that, however tempting and economical they may appear as live food....we have an overwhelming opinion of thanks but no thanks!!!

Interesting! I recently discovered my one of my female bettas is perfectly happy to eat tadpoles (based on the calls I've been hearing for the last two months, probably fowler's toads?) that got scooped up with mosquito larvae. She was the only fish big enough in the tank to try them and I didn't try any other tanks though.

Bump it up!

So, I have dug in six ponds (5-125 gal and 1-265 gal). I am raising and rearing australian and new guinea rainbows in all but one which has a couple pairs of local bluespotted sunfish. Every rain or even cool wet night I catch a few green frogs that emmigrate from my 1/4 acre pond....a never ending endeavor...a bit frusterating I admit but an enjoyable repass to my frog catching youth!

Anywho, when away last weekend a pair managed to spawn in the largest of the installed ponds. I collected a bunch of the very young, small tadpoles (<1/4 in) to try feeding to my fish.....not one would eat them. They would all eat, chew spit out and then ignore all others. Based on this fairly inclusive census I conclude that, however tempting and economical they may appear as live food....we have an overwhelming opinion of thanks but no thanks!!!

So are the tadpoles you were feeding to the fish the green frog tadpoles or the American toad tadpoles? I recall reading on a pond forum several years ago that several koi keepers had a similar experience with toad tadoples or "toadpoles" as they would call them. The koi wouldn't eat them, just suck them up and spit them back out.

I have a wading pool (5ft diam x 10inch tall) with pitcher plants, a few killies, and 2 to 4 greenfrogs that moved in from a neighbor's pond. Pool wall is apparently too high for Bufo toads to get in, and I rarely find toads in my yard anyway. I have fed the greenfrog tadpoles to a mudminnow, roanoke darter, and dollar sunfish repeatedly with no complaints, and i'm guessing the killies eat some too. With a ground-level or low-wall pool it might be hard to tell greenfrog from toad tadpoles when theyre little.

So are the tadpoles you were feeding to the fish the green frog tadpoles or the American toad tadpoles? I recall reading on a pond forum several years ago that several koi keepers had a similar experience with toad tadoples or "toadpoles" as they would call them. The koi wouldn't eat them, just suck them up and spit them back out.

They are greenfrog tadpoles. Very strange to me that the bluespots didn't even eat them!