Make Your Kids a Toad House!

I apologize up front if you were heading over here in search of food, and are now finding yourself staring at a toad house.   As many of you know, I have three boys. And together, they collect a lot of bugs & other moving things. Most of them we catch and release, but last summer the boys wanted to keep some of the toads. 

You see, last year we took a class at the local nature center and learned all about them. As part of the presentation, they brought out a toad and set him {or her?} in the middle of a circle of young children. To even my amazement, he placed a worm about 2 feet across the floor from the amphibian, and we watched him hop over and eat it.

On a trip to Illinois, my sweet brother in law had brought the boys home with him because at dusk around there house, he finds toads all over his front steps. When the boys brought a couple home, my father-in-law soon fashioned a Toad House out of some scrap wood and leftover screen from the porch.  And before we knew it, we had these toads in our car, making the 7 hour trip home with us. They lived in a cardboard box for awhile, however, this was no ordinary cardboard box. See...it had been renovated! Talk about DIY! The boys brought nature into the box for them, to make them more at home. But it wasn't long before I got sick of seeing a huge cardboard box underneath the deck.

Being that we are renting our house, my husband hasn't had a lot of projects on the honey-do list. He was so sweet, saw my vision, sketched a little house, and was off to the hardware store to buy wood and screen to fashion these lucky toads a new home. {Or prison, depending on your perspective!}

I'm pretty sure he came home with a sheet of plywood, a couple two by twos, a couple two by fours, four hinges, and a screen door kit. I can't tell you how he put it together, aka "plans", but I can tell you that if my sweet husband can build it, SO CAN YOU!

 Isn't this the coolest thing you've ever seen!?! My boys were so excited! They put their toads in and were told they could keep their "pets" as long as they went out to the treeline everyday and captured bugs or worms for them to eat. {They eat caterpillars, grasshoppers, ants, beetles, and worms.}

Some days we helped; the hubs and I took containers and sticks, scraping big ants off of the tree trunks in our yard. {Go ahead, make a mental picture here and laugh!} Even we dumped our "food" into the Toad House and squatted down to watch him eat EVERYTHING! It is really something to see, honest!

{In a pinch, you can buy worms at any bait store.}

Yes, we are THAT family. Our neighbors must thing we are crazy!

To keep your Toad House from getting gross and your toads safe, you need to keep your house dry and out of the elements {direct sun & rain). We kept ours underneath an overhang on the house under the deck.  Keep a deep layer of sand at the bottom of your Toad House so your toads can burrow. Also, small shallow "pools" of water for them to drink and cool off.  When fall arrives {at least in the Midwest} it's time to release the toads back into the woods so they can overwinter there.

 Last weekend, we cleaned out our Toad House for our new summer residents by removing the top, scooping out all of the sand, sticks, and who knows what else out back into the woods. {You could do that at the end of the year too.} We sprayed it out and let it bake in the sun to dry out.

The boys refilled it with sand, and "redecorated." We've yet to find a toad yet this summer, but in the meantime, it's a great place for all of their bugs and caterpillars they are always keeping around.

Have you ever made anything out of the ordinary for your kids?

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The NY Melrose Family