As though five rats, a snake and a band of cockchafers weren't challenging enough, today, whilst cheerfully digging about in the front garden bed with no gloves on, I came across this.
You can't see it brilliantly well, because I was only going to get so close to this thing, but it's a cane toad. A big, fat, ugly, slimy cane toad. With a cranky look on his face.
And I came this close to touching it people. This close.
I must confess... my enthusiasm for gardening has been well shaken these past few weeks... well shaken.
On a brighter note, I have a most fabulous giveaway coming up at the end of this week. Marvelously fabulous I might even go so far as to say. Don't go anywhere :)
33 comments:
Holy Cow...toad, whatever. That is one ugly component to your garden Ali. What are your plans for him? Taxidermy? Composting?
Oh Ali, that is seriously gross.........what do you do with them?...do you guys have a bin you can shovel em into and someone comes and disposes of them, pests that they are....or do you just bang it on the head with a shovel....?
Oh, yuck. I've never seen one in person and I hope I never do, although I hear of them now and then hitching rides and invading areas too close for comfort.
Oh I'm so glad I am not alone in this grossness. There is no way I could bang him on the head with a shovel Suzanne, I am the kind of person who gets her willing 4 year old to pick up a dead rat for mummy... not tough. I got Felix (the four year old rat disposer) to poke him with a stick and made it hop away. It won't have gone far though...
The RSPCA recommends rendering the toad unconscious, by placing it in a plastic bag and putting in the freezer then applying blunt force head trauma. I doubt they will swarm your place and check for splatter patterns a la NCIS.
HH suggested a one wood, or if you are a little precious about the timber then maybe a five iron.
You could also take the toad out of the freezer and simply run it over with the golf buggy.
Kill, kill, kil,kill! I am so glad we don't have them...yet, they keep getting further south. If they ever do arrive in this valley I will have to move out. The Cook will want to feed them! I am not even allowed to kill flies or ants...only mosquitoes...they bite her.
Not in my freezer! It might be humane but so is whacking with something solid. Recently I've found the nerve to kill them if I have a shovel within reach. The idea is to sever the spinal cord while flattening the toad. It does work very fast and I doubt they knew what hit them. They are very dead and stay that way. I'm told if you don't keep them in the freezer for 48 hours minimum, you might find them walking out of the rubbish bin. They are tough hombres. They do compost well if you can bury them and leave the heap for several months. I'm not in favour of killing things but I do draw the line at cane toads even if our forebears brought them here. What gets me is that even in the 1920s they weren't eating cane beetles in Hawaii (where they came from to here although they are from South America originally); why they thought they'd eat flying beetles when they can only jump a few inches is beyond me.
Eugh!!
Have you ever started reading something and wish you hadn't?
EEEEEEEEEEEEwwwwwwwwwwwww
Gross...I'm with you Little Blue Mouse. The picture and the thought of touching it was enough to put me off but then reading how to kill it was worse. I couldn't put one in my freezer - just in case it didn't die and then jumped out next time I opened the door... you'd hear me screaming for miles.
Ali, I sincerely hope the "fabulous giveaway" you are referring to is not a Cane Toad sent through the post!
I would've thought that toad was a potato...and likely would have touched it. then I might've screamed. All this to say I empathize with "well shaken"!
Yuk - aren't they just revolting. We have heaps of them and try and do a toad hunt now and then (probably not often enough). We support the freeze method but only because I have a separate freezer I can use. They need to be eradicated and I personally think there should be a bounty on them!
Euww, I'm with Elaine and Judith, I could never put them in my freezer... with our food. I couldn't sleep at night knowing they were there. Wendy not even a separate freezer would convince me, unless it was separate as in someone else's house :D
Dmarie, I would have died if I'd touched it. Just died.
Mark, take a look at these: http://www.toadtraders.com/imagegallery.php/Cane%20Toad%20Gifts/0/0/%20/
Daffodil you watch too much CSI with your "blunt force trauma"! and the golf buggy! Lol, GROSS!
I vote for the golf buggy route of disposal - no touching required, just good aim!
OMG EWWWWWW ALI!! What have you done with it or are you hoping it'll just go away? No way would it go in my freezer. I think I'd just chicken out and phone a friend, use a life line, to get someone - anyone! - to take it away. Far far away...
Oh I wish I just saw ONE cane toad - they are a fact of life up here unfortunately.
I am not a fan of the freezer (if its mine or anyone else's that I may eat food out of one day). We used to scoop them up in a bucket and donate to the school for anatomy classes - it went in their freezers.
I got a hint the other day - straight detol - apparently it kills them quickly - if you have dogs though you need to shovel them into the bin the next day or hope they have hoped onto council land.
Oh ElsieMay, I could not scoop it up, and I'd die on the spot if it thrashed around in the dettol... I'm just not hardy...
AA I didn't think I had any in my yard! I'd never even seen one before - obviously because they are hiding in my garden beds!
Mrs Lottie, euww, euww and euww. Not golf buggying it!
Mrs Bok, yes, hoping it will go away. WIth the rats and the snake. Fat gross little toad.
Well I suspect no one will like hearing this but here where I live in QLD they are such a pest eating all of the native frogs and toads and killing of native animals that try and eat them. It is bad enough that the CSIRO are trying to help our native quolls build up a tolerance to them so they do not become extinct (the quolls that is).
Most nights I go outside with a torch and two bread bags, one to use as a glove the other to put all the toads in. Sadly most nights I collect between 10 and 30. And yes into another thick bag in the freezer they go until rubish day next week. No need for wacking on the head after a week in the freezer.
Between ten and thirty! My goodness, I may never go outside again. You are fabulous for collecting them up and dispatching of them Fiona, and may even have guilted me into trying to do something with this one. Or trying to get someone else to do something with him! Whacking is not my style, and it's just never going to happen in my freezer.
I'd hate to find something as obnoxious as that in my garden - you're having a bad run of pests Ali. I'd recoil in horror as well!!
Just reading about the impact they have with the native frogs and animals - a week in the freezer is just the ticket for them. Good on you Fiona for your nightly forays :D
Erm.......forgive my ignorance here, but we don't have cane toads in the UK - but what exactly is so bad about them?!
Susan hopefully I have been confronted with the worst, and yes the toad is an awful pest. Although not through its own fault when we are the ones who picked it up and plonked it into our country.
Nutty Gnome they are taking over the habitat of our lovely little native frogs and they are poisonous to the things that try to eat them. Apart from all the lovely wildlife here, domestic dogs can meet a terrible end with a cane toad. If you are interested you can read a bit about them here: http://www.canetoadsinoz.com/index.html
It seems like a good site, not hysterical!
On the upside though licking them is supposed to be an awesome experience - they excrete hallucinogenic drugs don't you know!
Seriously though, I have this problem with killing things and take the 'I didn't see you' approach and just pretend they are not there... hopeless I know but I even do it with cockroaches and spiders I so hate killing things... also I'm a wuss.
Unfortunately my 4yo is worse than I am and won't even let me feed bugs to the chooks, always wants me to let them 'go home to their mummy and daddy'...
They are a pest and I really should be strong and get rid of them, very sad that they have been discovered in my garden this year - hoping it was just a fluke because of the wet and they go away again next year!
Oh Donna I am just the same, and that's exactly what I did with this toad. We chased it away, but I don't really think that will change anything at all! I hadn't seen them here either, very disappointing.
Last week Mrs Goggins (our cat) brought up a dead rat into the house... I thought I was going to keel over on the spot, then out came Felix running from the kitchen with his hand in a plastic bag ready to dispose of the rat. Finally the children are paying off :p
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