Some fun

I had to post this. I was telling my pal Reg via email about a possible complication, that my ovaries could get contorted. I got this back from her...(It is possible that contorting is the wrong word!!) I admit I was reading this in the bathroom and laughed so hard I was crying.

"T, this is to make you laugh not scare you! I GOOGLED "ovaries contorting" (because I didn't know what the hell you where talking about). And all I could find was this... cracked me up. It's true! but it still cracked me up. You think you have it tough - thank God you are NOT a horned frog!

BREEDING If you believe some people the only way to breed horned frogs is to inject them with hormones. Although this can be done, if your frogs need to be injected to breed it is a sure sign that there is something wrong in their husbandry preventing them from completing their natural cycle.

I must warn you that breeding any animal puts a great amount of stress on it. Do not try to breed from a much-loved pet. Horned frogs have a knack of being very distressed at any breeding attempts and rebel by bloating up with water and drowning them selves, or will sit under water and forgetting to come up to breath. Either way breeding horned frogs is risking their lives. If all goes well and they breed a second attempt may prove fatal, so be warned.

Before any breeding attempts are to be made, you must first be sure you have at least one frog of each sex (that's one male and one female for anyone that didn't know). Having established that, the next thing to do is to raise the temperature your are keeping the frogs at and increase feeding to once every 4 or 5 days. This should be maintained for approximately 4 weeks prior to any attempt at breeding.

Once the frogs are primed they will have to be exposed to some form of tropical rainstorm. To do this, construct a rain chamber from an aquarium power filter, a large fish tank and a series of spray bars. The water in the tank needs to be heated to 82 F and to be chlorine free. You then have to expose your frog to several nights of rain, from 6 p.m. to 12 midnight. After a period of about 24 hours it should be obvious whether the frogs have any intention of breeding. You will know this by the fact that the male will be calling in a deafening two-tone whistle and by neighbours knocking on your door to complaining about the noise.

Females generally need to be exposed to several nights of this calling before they are ready for amplexus. She will show her readiness by running into the nearest male and sitting as upright on all fours as she can. Then she will let the male mount her by climbing onto her back and he will push his forearms hard into her sides hooking them under her hard bony plate above her shoulders. The male will then proceed to beat out a rhythm with his head upon the female's back. This pattern is necessary to synchronise the pair so they release both the sperm and the eggs at the same time. If all goes well and the male stays in amplexus, they have this habit of falling off, within a couple of days the pair will spawn.

Spawning is proceeded by the female's body contorting with massive contractions, which proceed the eggs leaving the ovaries in readiness for laying. The eggs are usually laid only a matter of hours after this has happened. Spawning usually takes place in the middle of the night or early morning. Up to 2,000 small black and white eggs can be laid. It is best to turn off the rain chamber then remove the adults and add a small filter to the tank. This will not only help keep the water clear but also oxygenate it as well. If the eggs are fertile they will hatch in 24 - 48 hours.

It is possible to tell if the eggs are good by watching them carefully and any which have the black part expand in a crisp line to completely engulf the white half will be viable. After a short while the black part has grown to cover the entire egg the embryo will start to take shape. When the tadpole is half way developed the embryo will start to spin. The speed of spinning depends on the temperature of the water, the nearer the egg is to the heater the faster the rate of spin. When the eggs hatch the tadpoles will sit dormant for the next 24 to 48 hours while they absorb all the remaining yoke and grow skin around their gills. The tadpole is now ready to pursue it carnivorous existence.