I’ve seen videos of people giving a toad a back scratch, and the toad leans into the attention as if in enjoyment, but I didn’t think this was a regular toad behavior. Imagine my delight when one of the house toads let me give him (her?) a scratch! Oh wait, you don’t have to imagine, here is the video. Warning, my voice goes hypersonic and I speak baby talk to the toad (incidentally, I never use this speech mode with children, it is reserved for animals).
I checked my chicken cam in the morning and there was a tiny glint of light in the foot bath in the coop. Then the light blinked and became two glints of light in the darkness.
Apparently the coop resident gulf coast toad decided that the inside foot bath was preferable. Or he just got stuck in there when the doors closed for the night and made due with the situation. The back porch toad invited himself in this week. Door opened, he hopped in, in the blink of an eye.
Goodness, the toads are big and friendly this year. Thanks to the nice contributors on the iNaturalist app, I believe these guys and those I’ve found in the chicken coop are Gulf Coast Toads. We have many, many, many tiny variants of toads and frogs around the yard, but these big guys like to hang out by our doors.
I’m half waiting for one to come in the house and ask for tea.
We had 13 coop residents in the morning. A rather large toad was sitting in the chicken foot bath. The chickens were all leaving it alone, which I thought was interesting, since chickens eat some reptiles and amphibians. Now I have found maybe this same toad in the coop before (or maybe a similar one, there are lots), and have relocated it (them?) out of the coop several times. I thought I had a fairly tight run with all the hardware cloth we put up, but there is a spot somewhere we he gets in. Hmm. The concerning thing is that if he can get in, so can snakes. Hmm.
To keep the rush of water from flooding the chicken runs, I’m working on swales around the perimeter. I dug down in front of the door and put in a step, like a little bridge. The original step was slapped together in a heavy rain from scrap. Because of the way it was constructed (fast and sloppy), it was getting more and more unstable. So I made a new step. Still out of scrap wood, but with planning and measured cuts.
The previous step was also adopted by a toad as his home. I placed him up in toad home on the hill while I set the step, so I didn’t squish him. He must have been getting dried out because he was absolutely calm when I transported him. He will probably move back later. It is a dark damp place under the step!
Critters and Craft 