How to Catch a Toad

A toad is a helpful addition to your yard. These hoppers can consume 85 houseflies at one sitting. Keep one or two toads around your garden to rid it of annoying pests, but realize that toads like the good guys, too. They eat ladybugs and bees along with the caterpillars and moths that can damage your crop. Here is how to catch a toad.

Instructions

    • 1

      Catch a full-grown toad in its natural surroundings with your bare hands. Approach it slowly and quietly, and be prepared to get slimed with an excretion from its eye bulges or toad urine.

    • 2

      Use a bucket, a box or a basket to catch a toad. Place it over the toad and gently guide it inside with your hand.

    • 3

      Transplant toad eggs from a pond to your yard. Carefully scoop out the black toad eggs and the slimy goo they're held in along with some of the pond water.

    • 4

      Carry home some toad tadpoles, which mature into toads. You can take the tadpoles out of a pond like the eggs. Note that toad tadpoles are black.

    • 5

      Capture a mature toad with a trap. Get one toad at a time, or catch several at once. See the FrogWatch website for several different toad trap designs.