We were very excited this evening to see tiny legs on our tadpoles!  Below are some photos that I took in the last few days.  I’ve put dates on the images so that you can see the progress.  Though we thought they were about to get legs, tonight was the first time we could definitely see them.  To see my first photos of the tadpoles and learn how we got them and how we’re taking care of them, click here.

Have you ever raised tadpoles or any other kind of critter?

Last week (on June 15th) when my five-year-old and I returned from his mini-camp, my husband and two-year-old surprised us with tadpoles!  They collected them at a stream where they found hundreds of tadpoles.  Most of them will get eaten by predators, so we’re going to help three of them along until they mature and then release them in the same spot we found them.  (At least we hope we get that far.)  So far they are doing well!

We’re keeping them in a container box on the porch. We used tap water, but we put a water conditioner in it that we use for our fish aquarium. Later we also added some of the water and algae from the stream that the tadpoles came from. We put some rocks and a filter in the water, and we are feeding them bits of frozen spinach and tapole/frog food we found at the pet store. They have gotten considerably fatter since we got them, and they seem happy!

We keep a screen over the box when we’re not watching them to keep mosquitoes and other pests out of the box.

I’ll keep you updated on the progress.

And let’s have a round of applause for my husband who initiated and did the work for this awesome homeschool science project!