Tad development

I've managed to spend a day at home today and have have realized that we have a fair bit going on at the moment. The corn snakes have all hatched and we have 19 of them, yes 19 out of 18 eggs (still smiling about that). The corns have laid again and we have a further 10 eggs in the incubator. The tadpoles are starting to come through thick and fast and we currently have 2 tinctorius powder blues with all four legs due out of the water any day now, an Ole marie tad just popping his front legs now,8 other Ole marie tads in various stages of development  around 12 Leucomelas tadpoles again in varying stages of development  some azureiventris eggs about to hatch and around 9-10 of them looking really good so far and 3 Mysteriosus tadpoles that were given to us by a friend. as well as all this we are STILL waiting on the chameleon eggs to start hatching (any day now).

Anyway as most of you know I have been battling with tadpoles developing SLS for a long time. SLS is a malformation while metamorphosis occurs. Frogs that develop seemingly normally and have fully formed hind legs and a well formed body can eventually morph with very thin malformed front legs or no fronts legs at all.

There are no definite theories on what can cause SLS and no concrete cure. People I have spoken to about the issue have said that amongst other things SLS can occur when:

• Tadpoles or parent frogs are not exposed to sufficient UVB light
• The tadpoles are raised in water of an inappropriate temperature
• Genetic defects caused by bad parent blood lines or by inbreeding
• The water being used is of the wrong pH value
• The tadpoles are fed an inappropriate diet
• Supplementation of the parent frog 

The list goes on and on. Here are a few pictures of past cases we have had of frogs with SLS:

This is a pair of auratus. 

This is a Tinc. Cobalt that was doing very well as a tadpole and the muck in his rearing container impaired the view of his legs and this was the result

Here is another cobalt tadpole that was found to have SLS when his front legs popped

All of the frogs/tadpoles were euthanised by a trained Vet in the kindest possible way.

In the past I used boiled, cooled tap water to raise my tadpoles and found that depending on species tadpoles would either die very early on from a mouth fungus or would develop nicely until the point of front legs. After much experimentation and talks with other breeders I started trying different types of water. Bottled water was working well I didn't loose any tadpoles to mouth fungus but lost many to SLS. Then someone suggested rain water collected locally. Well since using rainwater collected in a tank outside my back door I am pleased to report that things are getting much better I have only lost dubious looking probably infertile eggs. The numbers produced are a little lower but again I am always changing how things are done. The parent frogs now get a good varied diet and I dust every feeding with Repashy ICB calcium supplement. The tadpoles are kept at room temperature in plastic pots with nothing but rain water and a dry oak leaf for cover. They are fed a mixture of fish food, spirulina flake and dried bloodworm every other day. All of this has finally paid off if you remember with the very first D. Leucomelas that we had morph without SLS (he's still doing great by the way), and now I'm pleased as punch to show you the following pictures, these are the two D. Tinc. Powder Blue tadpoles we have that have come furthest along thus far and should hopefully be taking their first steps onto dry land soon:

I'll update you later when they are out and about =)

As promised some funky baby shots

Here is a shot of how the Orange Terribs look now:

By the time they have their adult colouration they should be a brilliant orange colour, cant wait to see them all big and satsuma like.

And here is the first (really bad) picture of a powder blue tadpole without SLS!!!! chuffed to friggin bits is not the actual words I used but you get the idea how hard this has all been for me.

 I also thought you'd like to see some of the corn snakes that have hatched over the last 24 hours:

Anery number 1

 Anery number 2

 Anery number 3

 Carolina number 1

 Carolina number 2

 Carolina number 3

All of these pictures have been taken within 24 hours of hatching so the colours are not as good as they will be yet. We have to wait for the first shed to really see it come through and that should be within a week to 10 days.
We had a very interesting thing happen too.... twins, below is a picture of them snuggled in the egg just after they pipped for the first time:

the really cool thing is that as far as I can make out they are two different colours. The nose on the left looks to be a Carolina and the nose on the right looks like an Anery. Cant wait to see the result.

Small update after a long wait

First off let me apologize for not posting anything for so long. My workload has increased and my free time is being swallowed rather quickly. First things first 'Skully' our Leuc baby is doing really well, he's getting bigger by the day and eating like a little piggy. As he seems to have been my first major success I decided to celebrate the occasion with a tattoo:

Also in the last few weeks I have obtained four Phyllobates Terribilis Orange, these were a bargain and have been on my wish list for a long time. They were only just ready for sale when I got them and they are yet to obtain their adult colouration. I'll post a picture of them as they are now later on and then hopefully an update on how they look when they have coloured up.

As far as the eggs go we've not seen any real action from the chameleon eggs yet but I'm pleased to tell you we currently have corn snakes hatching as I type.

Here they are pipping and the first few having a look at the world and taking their first breaths:

Cute huh?

Well on to some other frog stuff, as I went into the rep room to get pictures of the snakes hatching I heard a familiar sound I've not heard in a long time.... The male Cobalt was calling from his hiding spot. I managed to get a video but their call isn't very loud at all so you may need to turn your speakers up:

We are also getting very excited about our tadpoles now as we seem *fingers tightly crossed* to be having more success than ever before. We have some Tinctorius powder blues that are due to pop their front legs any day and they are looking really strong, we're not loosing tadpoles to mouth fungus or water quality issues  now and the frogs, especially the Leuc's are still productive. We have a shelf full of tadpole tubs now and hopefully I'll have some great news soon.

Here's hoping the next update has lots of pictures of babies!!!!