Sharing Spring Breeding Experience in Toad Farming

When you start farming toads, you can catch adult toads from the wild around Qingming each year to keep as breeding toads. After they emerge from hibernation each spring, the breeding toads call frequently and males and females begin amplexus behavior. At this time, male and female toads should be paired promptly in a ratio of 1:2-3 and moved into a mating pond. Females choose still-water areas to lay eggs, and the egg strings mostly attach to aquatic plants and other objects. A single spawning is 3000-5000 eggs, and can reach 10,000 eggs in prolific cases. Incubation requires a temperature of 22-26°C, and tadpoles hatch after 3-5 days. In the incubation pond, prevent fish, frogs, snakes and the like from getting in and harming the egg strings and tadpoles. Tadpoles that have hatched for 1-2 days should be moved promptly into a tadpole pond for rearing, and after 7 days of age they should gradually be given supplemental protein-containing food. To promote earlier egg laying and hatching of toads, you can inject mature toad pituitary gland into female toads whose abdomens are swollen in spring (grind 1 mature toad pituitary gland, add 1 milliliter of physiological saline, and inject intramuscularly or intraperitoneally). After 30-40 minutes of amplexus, they can lay eggs. If used together with luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone and human chorionic gonadotropin, the egg-inducing effect is even better.

The hatched tadpoles first eat the egg membrane, and after 2-3 days they begin to eat aquatic plankton and other organic debris. After 7-10 days of age, fine egg yolk powder (or made into a thick paste) can be sprinkled into the pond. At 20-30 days of age, feed can include livestock and poultry manure, bran, pig blood, chopped animal internal organs, etc., fed 1-2 times a day, with the feeding amount about 5% of the total body weight of the toad group. When they grow to the young toad stage, the feeding amount should be increased. Young toads already have the ability to prey on insects, aquatic organisms and plant-based food, and at this time they need to be reared in separate ponds according to body size. When they grow to the adult toad stage, they also need supplemental feeding of tender grass, green vegetables, bran and concentrated feed. Feed is mainly placed on land or along the bank; if placed in water, a feeding platform should be set up 10 cm underwater. Young toads and adult toads mainly feed on shore.