We have a critter! - - Toad Study - Part 1

Weeks and weeks ago we rearranged our aquarium situation here so that we could have a larger aquarium for fish and a small one for critters that we may find during our nature walks. We thought it would be fun to bring something home once in awhile, study it for a week or so, and then release it back into the wild. Frogs, Toads, Snakes, Salamanders, Newts... anything cool and interesting.That was our plan... BUT the problem was that we couldn't find a critter to save our lives!! Well, Daddy came through for us today! He found us a critter while mowing a lawn this afternoon.

Meet our new friend the American Toad...

Daddy carefully captured him and put him in his minnow bucket for us. Meanwhile we were at the park playing with our SMpls HUG friends... so he delivered the Toad to us there and then went on with his work. After we all peeked in at him, I made sure he was in a safe, and shady, spot while we finished playing at the park and then we loaded him up for the ride home. After a brief stop at the pet store for some crickets we quickly got him inside and set up his new temporary home. Here are a few things we learned about Toads just in researching how to set up his habitat...

• Toads need a place to hide... a shelter made from driftwood or rocks will work fine. We grabbed a shelter from the pet store that is a half of a hollow log. Toads like to hide and lie in wait for their food. We bought some crickets for him to eat.

• Toads need dirt or some sort of material in the bottom of the habitat. They like to bury themselves, so the material should be about as deep as they are high. We used some chipped wood that we had from a fallen tree that we ran through our wood chipper. I'm not sure if this was a good idea now that I read how they like to bury themselves, if he seems unhappy we'll switch to dirt.

• Toads need a bit of water... not a lot like frogs. They need a dish of water big enough for them to sit in. They absorb water through their skin, so you will not see them actually drinking the water. Never us tap water since it usually contains chlorine. Use distilled water... or you could boil tap water to remove the chlorine. We used bottled water and a spare food bowl that we had here for our Hamster.

• Sort of off topic, but we also learned that Hamsters can have crickets once a week or so as a treat. Most really like and enjoy them... and they are a good source of protein for the Hamster. Looks like our Hamster, Killer, might have a treat coming later this evening!!

Learn more about American Toads and listen to their call HERE.

So that is the start of our Toad Study. We hope you learned a bit about Toads. They seem to have been given a bad, creepy, name... but I don't think he's all that bad!!

To be continued...

Check out all of our Toad Study posts HERE.