How to Get Rid of Baby Frogs Around Your Front Door

Encourage frogs to stay away from your house.

Baby frogs, also known as froglets, jump out of ponds in the summer once the tadpoles have completed their metamorphosis. Cute as the little frogs might be, if they get lost and cluster around your front door they can become a nuisance. You run the risk of stepping on them every time you go in or out, and some people have a fear of any size of frog. Frogs have been known to come inside on occasion. Further down your garden however, froglets form a useful pest control team, eating all sorts of garden pests.

Things You'll Need

• Camera
• Plastic tub
• Sheet of stiff plastic
• Bricks and mortar or fencing materials

Instructions

1. Identify the frog species. Froglets are not as easy to identify as adult frogs so take a photograph of one and ask an expert at a local university, wildlife park or natural history museum. If the froglets are a native species, they should be conserved, if not, the expert might recommend more drastic action, usually capture and humane euthanasia. Behave as though the froglets belong to a native species until you're certain.

2. Catch as many of the froglets as you can. Put a plastic tub down over each one, slide a sheet of stiff plastic underneath and release the froglet somewhere damp away from your front door. Near the pond they came from is a possibility, or into a flowerbed full of pests.

3. Move all piles of rubble, scrap wood, bricks or rocks near your front door and trim back vegetation. Frogs of all ages need damp places to hide. Position the materials somewhere you think frogs would be more useful, such as beside a vegetable plot.

4. Construct a frog barrier around the front door area if the froglets are still being a nuisance. Create a low brick wall or erect a solid wooden, solid plastic or very fine mesh fence. A 2-foot high barrier is normally sufficient to keep froglets out.

Tips & Warnings

• Many species of frog are under threat. Never kill a frog, or allow a pest control company to kill one, unless you're certain it's an invasive species.

• Don't handle amphibians with your bare hands. This is dangerous to them, and some exude toxic chemicals which will irritate you. There is also a salmonella risk.

• Don't allow children or pets to play with the froglets for the same reasons.

References

• University of Florida; The Cuban Treefrog (Osteopilus septentrionalis) in Florida; Steve A. Johnson
• Ask the Exterminator: How to Get Rid of Frogs