What kind of food do tadpoles eat?

Tadpoles are the larvae of frogs, toads, salamanders, salamanders and other amphibians, otherwise known as Niu Niu, toad eggs, etc., the newly hatched tadpoles are attached to aquatic plants, rely on the remaining yolk in the body to provide nutrition, mainly live in groups, begin to change after maturity, and gradually grow limbs. Let's take a look at what tadpoles eat.

What kind of food do tadpoles eat?

Most tadpoles use rows of horny teeth to scrape algae for a living, but if there happen to be earthworms, beetles and other small animal carcasses in the water, they will also eat them in groups. Some species of tadpoles do not have horny teeth, such as small rain frog and black Montsey's small rain frog, which feed on filtering plankton in the water. In addition, Ehrlich tree frog tadpoles are egg-eating, and the female frog will come back regularly to lay eggs and feed the tadpoles. In the case of insufficient food, there will be a phenomenon that big tadpoles eat small tadpoles and kill each other. If you feed them yourself, feed them bread crumbs. If it is natural in the pond, it is generally mosquito larvae, plankton, fish and insects in the draft.

Feeding and management of tadpoles

Tadpoles should be reared by stages, and tadpoles of the same age should be graded according to different individual sizes, once a month, in order to facilitate unified feeding management. Reasonable control of feeding density, grouping and combination in the process of classification, and raising in ponds with appropriate density of individuals of the same class. Feed to variety, high quality, correctly grasp a reasonable amount of feed, not too little too much, fixed-point feeding once a day, each feeding amount is balanced, gradually and appropriately increase with age. During the peak feeding season or metamorphosis of tadpoles, feeding management should be done more strictly to prevent unnecessary losses caused by various diseases or discomfort of environmental conditions.

The growth stage of tadpoles

1. Early growth (1-10 days): tadpoles do not look for food within three days after hatching and rely on nutrition from yolk to maintain their life. Early feeding leads to their death. After three days, the activity of tadpoles increased significantly, and when the two Gill covers were fully formed, they began to look for food, fed regularly according to the standard of one egg yolk per ten thousand tadpoles, and properly added some natural plankton in the water, such as water fleas and algae.

2. Early growth period (10-20 days): after 10 days, the tadpole increased its food intake, accelerated its growth and development, and began to look for new food, but its digestive function was still not strong. At this time, the feeding quality directly affected the survival rate of the tadpole. Therefore, feed must be supplemented to meet the needs of its growth and development, mainly with nutritious paste bait, such as egg yolk, corn meal, No. 4 powder, supplemented by delicate algae and so on.

3. In the middle stage of growth (20-50 days), the digestive function of tadpoles increases continuously. In order to promote the development of digestive tract of tadpoles as soon as possible and adapt to the herbivorous biological characteristics of a particular tadpole stage of amphibians, tadpoles should be fed plant feed and algae, such as duckweed, in addition to paste bait after 20 days old.

4. Late growth period (50-78 days): the late growth stage is the critical period for tadpoles to transform into young frogs, during which tadpoles grow hindlimbs and forelimbs, and transform from aquatic to amphibious. During this period, in addition to feeding enough feed, but also add a small amount of animal live bait feed.