As long as they use "breather plastic bags" designed for fish transport, I had excellent luck getting Tadpoles on line with 100% shipping survival via priority mail, 3x last spring and early summer. One order was lost for 2-3 days (5-6 day total shipping duration) and they still arrived happy. Plan on about $1 per Tadpole. Agree ... DO NOT buy or locally catch and move Bullfrogs!! I've had them before from a nearby lake and they do very well, but eat anything that they can get into their greedy mouth, including other frogs, fish, bats, snakes, small birds. Theyre born desperately hungry! Mine have grown from 2.5" to full 6 to 8" mature size in one summer! DNR will hate you, because they roam and often get out. They successfully track water can go a couple miles to find a new area to invade. If you like big and beautiful, look instead for Leopard Frogs. They are native to much of US but are getting rare due to loss of habitat and Bullfrog predation*. How can a Frog Person not like this green beauty? Semiaquatic frogs like Leopards and Bullfrogs will jump all over your yard at night (so must seal fence excape areas!) They quickly learn where the pond safety zone is and can take a series of rapid leaps across your yard or greenhouse and disappear under water. Mine can do this the moment I open a sllding door to go outside. If you are trying to introduce frogs from a wild gathered egg cluster(s) note that the clusters might be salamanders instead! Frog eggs within the cluster mass look like little rounded clear jelly spheres, especially visible when the cluster tears open. Whereas salamander egg clusters look like a jelly mass with no visible clear spheres inside, just the growing amphibians. When they tear open, no clear rounded spheres are evident. Both animal embryos within the eggs mass look rounded at first and then enlarge over time. Near to hatching time salamanders embryos elongate and show an arrowhead shaped head with little gills zones on the sides of their neck. It amazes me that a frog or slender little 5-6" salamader can lay a 3-4"+ diameter egg mass. The masses are not large when laid but swell afterwards. When ready to hatch, enzymes are released to largely dissolve the gel, almost in unison, releasing the babies to roam. * WARNING do not put small tadpoles or tiny frogs into ponds with Goldfish of any size. Unless there is a ton of water vegetation to hide in for instance along shallow pond margins, the fish can eat them about as fast as you eat popcorn (and at $1 per amphibian kernal). Even with cover the fish will hunt them constantly. Instead use a 5 gallon tub to the side or partially submerged, partially shaded from hot sun, and a wire cover to stop raccoon, bird or adult frog attacks. Hatched Tadpoles of any kind grow fast and very healhy when using a pond fish food. Suggest floating a few Goldfish or Koi food pellets, which they nibble on as these softens. A few 'Tads often gather around each floating pellet. Thus, you get to see the 'Tads better and little food is lost or spoils. This also helps indicate when to add more food. Make sure to also have some fine leaved pond weeds therein to hide in and nibble on. 'Tads can mouth breathe if the oxygen gets too low in the container water. However, if there is prolonged or marked frantic gulping for air, spread the 'Tads between additional containers. It is warmer in a bucket than in a pond. Avoid full sun locations unless the bucket is inset deeply into the pond or ground. Obviously, do not add 'Tads to your pond until they are large enough to NOT fit into the mouth of your largest fish! If they do not mature into adults the first year in a cooler climate they will overwinter on the pond bottom and finish their cycle the next year. If the pond can potentially ice over, use waterfall flow or small fishtank air bubbler to stir the surface and keep an open zone for air exchange. Otherwise decaying plant matter consumes the oxygen, and excess carbon dioxide and ammonia fumes can build up, killing 'Tads and fish. Much like goldfish, 'Tads will hunt out mosquito larvae in buckets or ponds. In ponds I suggest having 3-4 of the same frog species in hopes of getting a breeding pair so that the cycle maintains. Frogs can live several years and overwinter well. But for a Frog pond to stay "frogged" you are going to need a fenced yard with board blockage to 2-3' high and enough yard and vegatation to support the insect and earthworm levels needed to support the mature frog population. Fish in the pond are important to stop over tadpole = future frog population. In our yard, we keep a lotus tub with lotus to the side of the pond without fish. This is so we can put in egg clusters there when frog populations are low. If you live near a lake or bog lands and hear frogs in mating season, don't fully board fence your yard. Just BUILD IT (the pond) AND THEY WILL COME. Treefrog populations are especially mobile to the right habitat. The above is A LOT of detail and several years experience working to get frogs established in our yards at two different locations. Based on hard won experience it can take years to get right, and is easy with the right match of mostly the right habitat and then frog species. Bullfrogs are easiest but don't do it unless they surround your yard anyway. Local Toad species might work better if you don't have enough cool leafy forage zones for Semiaquatic Frogs. They still need 'Tad growth ponds to sustain.

Thanks for the comments. I do know that if the temperatures get really high, the tadpoles will not survive out in those buckets. But, I am going to try to save the next batch. I found a frog trapped in a bucket yesterday and took it out...sides of the bucket were too tall for him to jump out. I must have been Bhuddist in a previous life. They don't kill anything, even a fly. Now, if I can just keep the ants out of my produce on the kitchen counter!!

ROFL Echoes! I thought I was the only one with "gardening toads". The boys have one they "rescued" from their school. It has to be the largest regular old toad I've ever seen! They turned him loose in our courtyard, and there he stays. He loves to come out while I am watering One day I just watered a pot, and went back inside. I went back out a little bit later, and he jumped at me-scared me to death! Then he hopped under the faucet waiting for me to turn it on. We wonder what he's going to do this winter. Hopefully he'll be back next year. Hopefully he'll come back. I wish we had a little pond for tadpoles. Although, it would be heartbreaking to go out and one day have them all gone. I bet you'll be overrun with toads next year! ;o) HW

I welcome frogs in my various small stock tank ponds. I've never had trouble with them eating my water lilies......although I think the darned snails do that. Is your lily in a container? If so, do you occasionally thin and replant it and fertilize it? If so, it will probably come back next year. I also welcome snakes.......but I've told them to never eat a frog when I'm around. :) Yes, if you build a pond, frogs will come.........but also snakes. It's sort of like getting angry at squirrels for eating your birdseed. Ponds are a snakes natural habitat......and they eat frogs, so you shouldn't be surprised. (And please don't kill them if they show up). When we have ponds, it's like hanging up a sign that says "All water-loving beings welcomed". So.........