I am thinking about either closing the pond portion of my yard with a 1 centimenter small holed fence to keep in the frogs OR the entire yard.


if i enclose the entire yard, as i prefer, will i kill a lot of frogs when i cut my lawn?

i want them to have the additional yard space to find more bugs and room - but i dont want them to get killed -

ill have pickerel frogs, green frogs, and the most likely to be harmed: american toads/toadlets. what do you think?

My father mows over at least half a dozen frogs and toads each year. It's a risk. If you think of the mower as another predator, then it's usually manageable. I still have a good amount of frogs. It's not fun though finding frog legs attached to the mower or smushed ones in the yard. If you use a riding mower, you really have to have good eye sight to see the amphibians in the grass. If you use a push mower, you should be able to see and avoid them.

i push mine - but, those american toadlets - they are small - i can always mow my lawn kinda carefully and slowly - that would be easy;

still, would i loose a lot of toads that way - i think the other species of frogs will jump away and avoid the noise

I really don't know. Most toadlets leave during the night but some may be around during the day. Toads haven't bred in my ponds for years (males come but no eggs) but we used to get tons when the ponds were new.

As far as i know, this is the only forum - good forum - that speaks to issues of amphibians in detail. This is a frog question:

I know someone, online, that claims they released 38 [juvenile?] frogs into a 11 x 11 pond on their property and at the end of the year all but two remain - the other two died in the skimmer. I hope, with my 16 x 16 pond with stream and header pool, that i can at least get the folliwing to stay (ill provide alot of plant cover and shade around the pond):

- a few of the couple hand full of harvested spring peepers ill throw in
- about 10 3" green frogs
- and, most uncertain of all :( , a couple of pickerel frogs. we've discussed this before here and there.

But i wish i can find research on frogs in garden ponds - likelyhood of hanging around. once, as you may remember, i kept a pickerel frog for a few days in a tank, let it go, and as i was watering the lawn near the tank a month later: it started jumping from a pile of weeds a few feet away toward the tank in which it was kept/the water from the hose.


I think that all the pickerel frogs will run away from my property and wont return - and most people say my frogs will climb my chicken wire fence _ maybe i can bend the top of the fence inward so that cant climb out

Spring peepers only come to water to breed so adults will surely leave the pond but may return to breed one day. Green frogs are pretty good at sticking around my ponds. I have a few pickerel frogs I see on occasion but not a large population. They may wander more but are still in the group of frogs who as adults stay near water and hibernate under water. I don't know if they can climb chicken wire but certainly turning the top down and inwards will reduce escapes.

Stay near water and hibernate under water - green frogs, bullfrogs, pickerel frogs

Come to water only to lay eggs and hibernate on land - toads, leopard frogs, tree frogs including spring peepers, wood frogs