How to Raise Toads? A Detailed Guide to Practical Breeding Techniques
The toad, also known as the timely toad, has a rather distinctive appearance, with many bumpy areas on its skin, most commonly seen in green and brown. Toads have high medicinal value, which is why they attract many people to breed them. However, when breeding them, if you want them to grow healthier, there are many small tips you need to master.
How to Raise Toads
1. Build the breeding site. Build a wall 1 to 1.5 m high around the perimeter, and inside you can set up a breeding pond, a spawning pond and a hatching pond. Around the rearing pond there should be lawn or vegetable plots for the toads to hunt and rest. Lighting should be installed at the site to attract insects at night for them to prey on.
2. Breeding toads. They are oviparous and have fairly strong reproductive capacity. Each year, when the water temperature is around plus degrees Celsius and the relative air humidity is 90 percent, they spawn. Each female produces about 5,000 eggs at a time, and the eggs are generally arranged in double rows within a tubular gelatinous egg string, which wraps around aquatic plants. The egg string can be placed in the hatching pond for artificial incubation. During incubation, keep the water temperature above plus degrees Celsius, and adjust the water depth at any time to control the water temperature. In severe weather such as cold waves and storms, plastic film can be used as cover for insulation.
3. Managing the breeding. Toads should be fed in separate ponds and groups according to their different developmental stages, keeping sufficient bait. The bait for young toads is plankton; pig and cow manure, vegetable trimmings, waste from slaughterhouses and food factories, as well as bran and middlings, can be put into the pond to cultivate plankton. Adult toads mainly feed on insects; various plants can be grown in the breeding site and lights used at night to attract insects, and manure can also be piled up in the breeding site to breed insects as a food source for them.
Toad Breeding Techniques
1. Stocking density: 2,000-4,000 small tadpoles per sq m, reduced to 500-1,000 after 20 days; 30-40 young toads; at the same time, feed them in separate ponds and groups according to different developmental stages.
2. Feed formulation: newly hatched tadpoles are given fresh, palatable bait such as cooked egg yolk and water fleas after 5 days, fed twice a day. Young toads are fed fly maggots, earthworms, yellow mealworms and chlorella bait. Adult toads have a large food intake, so compound feed such as soybean cake, bran and middlings, flour and fish meal can be used.
3. Toad disease prevention and control: toads have few diseases; the main thing is to prevent harm from rats, snakes, birds and so on. Maintain the fencing and patrols well, and in winter move them into burrows or underwater mud for safe overwintering.
Can Toad Breeding Really Make Money
1. Cost: 1,000 toads of 100 grams each, at 5 yuan/jin, totals 500 yuan. A breeding site for 1,000 toads requires 300 sq m, with site rent of about 300 yuan; surrounding it with plastic film to prevent escape costs about 500 yuan; the molting site is about 2,000 yuan; feed and management costs are calculated at 5,000 yuan. Total investment cost is 500 yuan + 300 yuan + 500 yuan + 2,000 yuan + 5,000 yuan = 8,300 yuan.
2. Income: one live toad can yield toad skin from April to October each year, molting at least two skins per month. 1,000 toads can produce 12,000 toad skins in 6 months. Calculated at a single weight of 0.3 grams, this yields 3.6 kg of toad skin. At an intact-skin rate of 80%, this yields 2.88 kg of intact toad skins, at a minimum of 10,000 yuan/kg, giving an income of 28,800 yuan. It also produces 0.72 kg of thin skins, at a minimum of 6,000 yuan/kg, giving an income of 4,320 yuan. That is, 1,000 toads can yield a profit of 33,120 yuan from collecting toad skins over one year.
3. Profit: 33,120 yuan - 8,300 yuan = 24,820 yuan. If the toads are larger in size, the breeding benefit will be even higher.
Prevention Methods for Gastroenteritis in Toad Breeding
1. Causes of gastroenteritis in toad breeding: spoiled and deteriorated bait, and deterioration of the habitat environment. It mostly occurs in spring and summer and at the turn of summer and autumn.
2. Symptoms of gastroenteritis in toad breeding: in the early stage, sick toads are restless and crawl about in all directions and like to burrow into mud; in the later stage, they often lie by the pond, stretching their legs and closing their eyes, not eating or moving, with slow reactions and unafraid of disturbance; after being caught they struggle very little, often withdrawing their heads and arching their backs.
3. Prevention of gastroenteritis in toad breeding: do a good job of feeding and management, do not feed moldy bait, and keep the bait table and pond water clean and hygienic.
4. Treatment of gastroenteritis in toad breeding: mix into the food and feed yeast tablets 2 times a day, each time mixing half a tablet into each kg of bait, feeding continuously for 3-5 days; disinfect the ponds with sick toads by splashing a bleaching powder solution.
When raising toads, you must first do a good job of site selection, and then the breeding density is also very important. Feeding them at the right time and preventing and controlling diseases are also key to ensuring their growth. Only by doing these things well and letting the toads grow well is it possible to bring higher profits.