Two days ago, we noticed that two of our grey tree frogs have their front legs too! Oy vey. Lol. We had to drain over half the water from the tank, so the frogs that will all soon have their front legs will have a place to sit, above the water. And soon after that, the toads will follow suit, seeing as how they are about 5 days behind the others. Give or take a few days per each actual tadpole.
Note: these are not the same frog, it is one of each of our frogs that have their legs.
We decided to put the ones we wanted, or were considering, in our fish bowl, so we could tell them apart. This includes the two that have their front legs already. One of those that we also chose, has his front legs ALMOST out. From what we can tell, the ones in the tank aren't quite there, but getting there. :) They LOVE the algae discs that we have for placos. They attack the damn things the moment we put one in.
We're beginning to wonder how these guys are gonna survive in the wild, because there is NO way we can keep that many frogs and toads.
I don't think I blogged about this yet, so here I will try. About a week ago, Kash and I were doing our usual thing, walking the woods, taking in the scenery, when we came across a BUNCH of tadpoles, swimming in a nasty marsh, that was drying up and being consumed by nasty pollutants. Mainly, anti-freeze by the looks of it. So, we took it upon ourselves to save the day.
Kash and Khai, to the rescue dodoodeedooo! Anyway, we rushed home, and grabbed our nets, along with a couple of buckets and fresh creek water, then back to the marsh we trotted. First, we grabbed 21 total, because we did count once we got home. Then we emptied the ten gal tank Lestat was solely living in by this time, since Rhett had passed a couple weeks back, and put him into Emi and Dha's tank.
He didn't like that too much, but oh well. He's lived with it, and he's pretty much fine by now. Though, we still think he's gonna die, but more on that later...maybe. Anyway, so we cleaned the tank and put creek water in it, fresh from the flowing abundance down behind our house, and dumped the taddies in. They were so tinies, lol. One of the taddies decided to jump outta the net and into Emile's mouth though.
Leaving us with just 20 taddies. Some were blackish, and some were brownish. All tiny, though we had one that was a little larger than the others, but by looks, he was just 'bigger'. Ha! Moving on; so, these things apparently grow faster! in warmer water, lmao. They were in water that was on average of 55-65 degrees, and by bringing them in, they were soon in water from 70-75 degrees average.
Holy crap did these guys decide they wanted to be frogs sooner than the rest. Two days after we got those ones, we went back to get as many more taddies as we could, because we felt bad since the water was so nasty. We had to wait a day, since it stormed in between days, however, it didn't rain much, to help clean their living water down there. Not to mention, the next couple of days the highs were in the low 40's.
We now have probably 50 taddies, and at first we thought we had just two species. American Toads, and Grey Tree Frog Hybrids. This was cool, because we love the little tree frogs and we miss our Nimmo. :( We'll be more prepared when these guys are land dwellers. Well, sort of. We are definitely NOT keeping all 50. We decided on keeping 2-3 grey tree frogs, hopefully one male, one female, maybe a second male and or female.
One toad, because we want one, lol, since we'd be raising it from taddie stage. The tree frogs wont get more than 2.5 inches max, but the toad we're looking at 2.5 min to 4 inches. O.O That's kinda big, lol. BUTTT, not as big as Mammoth! About two nights ago, we noticed that not only were the taddies growing in size, but most of the tree frogs had their back legs fully grown and detached from their tails, but we had a strange looking tree frog taddie, that was much larger than the rest, and had no hind legs!
We thought this was odd, and each day he grew to be very different in look to the other tree frog taddies, and definitely much different to the toads, which are a solid black color, the tree frogs are a brownish color. We decided we most definitely had a third species of taddie in our midst, and immediately dubbed him Mammoth. Upon researching the net, we've come to learn that our little, or rather big mammoth is nothing less than a bull frog. O.O OMG, those things get to be 8 inches!
Lol. We are definitely keeping him and actually really excited to have him. We were disappointed at first when we saw we didn't have any in the midst. But I guess it just took him some growing time for us to see he wasn't like the rest. Which, you know what? It was worth the wait. According to our findings, he could be a taddie for up to an entire year. Much longer than all the rest, which is just a matter of weeks.
Sorry the lighting is off, but we did the best we could to show everyone our new addictions to the house hold. Be expecting another post soon from me, to show you the fun time we had with the mice, during a not so fun time, worrying about whether or not the tornado was going to hit us, just yesterday during the storms. For us who are pretty much always on the computer, having no net due to the storms, was a intersting day, with how we found ways to entertain ourselves.
...even if it is small, it's perfect for us. Just want to express my love for the family that I have, here in Georgia. My family. Not necessarily blood family, but my little family that Kash and I have made for ourselves. Soon we hope to merge our family with Ann's little family she has there, but for the time being, it's just Kash and I, and our 'kids'. The babies.
They still run from us when ever we get to close to the cage, but I'm positive that over time, everything will be okay. Even more so, there will come a day where they come running up to us and asked to be taken out. It is very obvious they were not handled at ALL in PetSmart. From now on, I think we'll get any animals from small breeders, vs pet stores.
I had always heard relatively good things about PetSmart or Petco, vs. Mall Shoppes. However, we've discovered that through the purchase of these little babies, PetSmart isn't the way to go either, if you're looking for a pet, that is used to being handled, and likes to be handled. Animals such as this you need to do this from the time they are babies.
Other wise, like these three, they are scared of humans, scared of contact, scared of sounds, anything other than what they have grown up in, which would be a small five gallon tank, with bedding, a hide away and about 10 other mice. It's part of the reason we chose to get three, vs. one or two. The fact there was so many they were used to.
We didn't want to completely change their world, we were changing it enough by taking them out of that aqaurium life, and putting them in a multilevel mice cage, with multiple wheels, lots of things to play on and in, and a view. They are happy, just still very skittish. Hopefully though, things will be alright in the end.
Here are some pics that we've taken recently of them. Hope you all enjoy. Nimmo's doing well, btw.
For the first time in my life, I stood outside.. and experienced snow, with all five senses. It was ah-mazing. I had so much fun, I can't exclaim. 25 years old, and I only just now experienced snow first hand. Well, falling snow. I've been in snow, but after it has fell. I have found a new passion. Snow flakes! I was just in awe, seriously. How intricate they all are, and uniquely different! I know, I know, I've grown up hearing there are no two alike. But I had never experienced it myself!
So I was quite amazed. In love, I am with the falling snow. However, I don't know how well I would do with snow, that fell and stayed! I am freezing my ass off as is, and it's on average 50 degrees, high. Makes me wish it would snow like this for a week though, or more. It's truly beautiful how it falls from the sky, like a blanket.. very different from the rain I love. I'm almost wondering which ultimately I'd love more. Good thing it wont snow like this more often, or I'd possibly choose the snow. (Since it's rarer.)
Kash and I deleted our plurks last night; early this morning. We just never really felt like plurking. Too many other things we were doing. We had been really sick for a while, and plurked once a day, if that. No one really seemed to miss us. Not that it mattered, but we just got to thinking, why are we even on there anymore. We plurk, to keep people updated. But, those people, aren't really minded by what was going on with us.
Those that were, were messaging us, and or reading our blogs regularly. Aside from that, there was just too much drama -still- on plurk that we just didn't need/want to deal with. We have lots to do and sitting at the computer, isn't helping us do them, is it? Nope. Honestly, it's kind of weird..not plurking. I still find myself going 'that's plurk worthy there' but...there is no plurk. Lol. Oh well, its for the best, I'm sure.
Nimmo, what is that you might ask. Well, in this exact case, it is a tree frog. But, Nimmo, is actually a Neopet, that resembles a frog. Don't confuse those with Quiggles now, as those are a little more warty than Nimmos. :P Basically, Nimmo is like a frog, and Quiggles are like Toads. But, back to this little Nimmo. He's small, and dark green and brown, cute, and jumpy. He likes Kash a lot.
I noticed him on the back porch (that is about 15feet off the ground) just as it was starting to snow. Poor little guy was so cold! He could hardly hop, but he was trying. It was as if he was coming to us for help to get out of the at the time, near freezing temperatures. I brought him in, and got some semi-warm/cold water in a bucket, just enough for him to sit in, to warm his core temp.
It worked, because soon after he was alive and wanting to go all over the place. He mostly kept trying to jump onto Kash and in his hair. We named him Nimmo, after the Neopet, because he looks like a Nimmo. (Despite it's REALLY the other way around :P) We set up our fish tank to accomodate him. Since it's only firebolt in there (placo) and he doesn't need lots of water. The filter is one that you can just sit on the bottom of the tank and it works fine.
Its keeping the water moving to give Firebolt air, and there's lots of places for Nimmo to chillax and keep warm, and above the water. We plan on keeping him, at least until the weather warms up, if not indefinitely. The mice are doing well, I will post a pic of them or two at the end of this here blog. I hope everyone that reads this has a good day above all else, and stays in good health. Much love to you all, and I must now bid you adiu.
