Mountain chicken update 2: Captive breeding

The shipment of 50 frogs to ZSL, Durrell and Parken Zoo was a major event, which required military style planning to get the frogs off Montserrat in a plane provided by the Montserrat government to Antigua and onto a BA flight to either London or Sweden. At which point they were picked up and transported to the relevant institution. You can imagine that speed is of the essence and there is little room for delays. Anyway both shipments went very smoothly; all the animals arrived safe and sound and were introduced into their new respective homes. We wanted to give you an update on how they settled in and how they have been faring since then.

In Jersey

The arrival of the frogs wasn’t easy for them and during the first days of their arrival the entire Herpetological and Veterinary Departments with Wendy dedicated their efforts to make sure the frogs settled down well and started feeding. The chytrid treatment which was started in Montserrat was continued and will be repeated one more time to be sure that they are totally cleaned of the fungus in our quarantine facilities. But this entirely new environment and the regular captures, stresses the frogs enormously. The result during the first weeks was a series of frogs in different stages of both adaptation and regular feeding. Unfortunately they were not really in perfect shape for a breeding season which has just started.

Only when the second and last treatment of itraconazole finished did we have the opportunity to provide a more natural substrate and build artificial nests for breeding. The beginning of a long and important period starts now, and we really hope the frogs didn’t “lose” the tempo for the breeding season and will accept the new breeding environment we have made.

The facilities we adapted for the arrival of the frogs area not ideal for their long term management in quarantine and so we will making a few structural changes that will allow us to both control the water flow out of their room and to make the conditions much for suitable to stimulate breeding.

In London

When the frogs arrived the team were surprised, but absolutely thrilled to see the animals in such great shape. A total of twelve animals (four males and eight females) were received. One male and two females were placed in each pen, within the new biosecure mountain chicken facility.

The frogs were swabbed on arrival, and a month later, to check for the presence of the chytrid fungus. Thankfully all tests came back negative. Faecal analysis revealed some parasites but at such low numbers the vets weren’t concerned they presented any threat to the frogs.

Ian Stephen, Assistant Curator of Herpetology for ZSL, recalls, “The first thing that surprised me about these Montserrat animals was how calm and relaxed they are. We’re lucky to hold a biosecure population of Dominica animals as well, and interestingly they behave very differently from their neighbours! The Dominica animals jump into their nest boxes the second they are disturbed, although the Montserrat animals will remain calm and motionless even when a camera in inches away from their nose!”

We knew from our experience with the Dominican animals that our live-food bill would go up after receiving these new animals. Boy can they eat! I have stood throwing cricket after cricket in front of individual frogs, expecting them to stop feeding at some point. The only thing that stops them eating however is me running out of food to give them! Upon arrival the frogs were a tiny bit dehydrated so kind of hard to know exactly how much weight they’ve put on in the last couple of months. However, suffice it to say they are gaining in weight, and hopefully the females are diverting some of that energy into egg production!

As I mentioned before, these new frogs certainly aren’t shy, and the males really like to sing! After feeding, or especially after the ‘rains’ the facility is filled with the loud “whooooap – whooooap – whoooap” sound of a happy mountain chicken, looking for a girlfriend. We haven’t had any nests as yet, but everybody has their fingers and toes crossed!”

In Eskilstuna

The major challenge has been taken on by Parken Zoo who hold the majority of the frogs. The frogs arrived safe and sound in their new facilities and have been settling in well. Gerardo visited Sweden during the first week of June and worked with Helena Olsson, Zoo Director, and Linn Lagerström, Head Keeper of Parken Zoo to see how the conditions could be made most conducive to getting the frogs in the mood for breeding. Gerardo spent time with the Parken team working on different ways to create the most natural conditions inside the quarantine facilities that can best replicate the wet season in Montserrat. With a bit of imagination and some gadgets we set up a misting system and some very attractive nesting boxes with the hope that the frogs will feel sufficiently at home and during the next months we’ll start getting some fertile nests.

So in summary all the frogs that are the founders for the captive programme and future reintroductions to Montserrat are doing well and the staff at each of the institutions are working hard to keep these animals in as naturalistic settings as possible whilst maintaining strict quarantine protocols. This is a challenging species to breed in captivity and given the upheaval they have been through we will be lucky to get a good breeding success this season. So we hope to learn lessons in terms of their husbandry and to use our experience to tweak the set-ups in each collection to maximise the breeding potential for the second breeding season next year.

In the next entry, we will take a look into the future and outline our main ideas for the coming years.