How to Starting a Frog Farming Business

Starting a frog farm is feasible as long as you have an ideal habitat for frogs. Running a frog farm can be a profitable venture as testified by successful frog farmers. If you are raising frogs you can be a distributor of tadpoles, adult frogs and frog eggs to some food establishments that offer exotic foods. In raising a frog farm you need to take into account the necessary factors in the life of a frog.

Life Cycle and Growth

Bullfrogs usually lay eggs during spring in shallow standing water and temperate climates. A female frog can lay about 10,000 to 25,000 eggs that can be hatch within 3 weeks and eventually will turn out as tadpoles. The bullfrog tadpoles are vegetarians and spend most of the time looking for bottom algae and microscopic plants. However, you should keep in mind that frogs are cold blooded animals and grows slowly. This means that this trait is not ideal for farming because the growth rate depends on the climate and food supply. It would take you about 2 to three years to harvest a mature bullfrog.

Artificial Feeding

One of the critical processes of culturing frogs is the feeding. If the frogs are not given enough foods they can be susceptible to disease. This would reduce the harvestable population. Nevertheless, if you are raising frogs outdoors they can get natural foods but for cultured frogs supplemental feeding should be given. Aside from soft plants, you can also feed tadpoles with boiled potatoes, chicken viscera and other meat scraps. Be careful in feeding frog scraps as it may transmit disease. On the other hand, feeding the adult frogs is more difficult as you should feed them with small insects. The bad point about feeding adult frogs is that they would not accept non-moving food. That is why some frog farmers use motorized trays with silkworm that simulate moving animals. In this sense, many frog producers find difficulties in feeding adult frogs because of the inadequacy of live foods.

Pond Design

Another consideration in raising frogs is the pond design. You can design a round or square ponds with shallow bays, numerous islands and coves. Likewise, constructing a series of narrow ditches is also a good idea in developing frog habitat. Make sure that the depth of the water is enough to protect the tadpoles and adult frogs from extreme temperatures. However, frogs can thrive in shallow water as they normally feed and rest in shallow waters. In addition, you should ensure that the quality of the water is suitable to grow frogs. Otherwise, you will not be successful in your frog farm.

THERE'S A BIG MONEY IN THE SECRET ART OF FROG FARMING!

Most business-minded farmers can figure on making about $69 gross income on an acre of wheat . . . approximately $160 from the same amount of corn.. . and around $175 with an acre of soybeans. Then there's Leonard Slabaugh, a Missouri farmer with a completely different approach. For Leonard swears that his highly unusual crop—LIVE BULLFROGS—returns a full $10,000 profit . . . per acre . . . and requires only one hour of his time each day!

"Why, I can harvest 6,000 frogs a year on this two-acre farm . . . and I realize anywhere from $2.50 a pound to $25 per frog!" Leonard Slabaugh—against a background of grunts and croaks—was telling me his success story with as much enthusiasm as a gold prospector who's suddenly struck it rich. "Yep, you can make big money with these little rascals. Come on out to the breeder pond and I'll tell you all about it."

PLOP, PLOP, PLOP

As we walked up to the mini-lake, I saw hundreds of startled giant bullfrogs jump into the water. Then, half a minute later, pairs of marble-sized eyes began peeping above the surface of the pond like submarine periscopes searching for the enemy.

True bullfrogs (Rana catesbiana)—the webfooted livestock that Slabaugh specializes in—are not difficult to identify since they're the largest frog native to the continental United States. Although their natural habitat centers around the woodland lakes and ponds of the eastern and southern U.S., these profitable amphibians have been known to thrive in cultivated waters as far west as the Pacific coast and as far north as southern Canada.

MARKETS

"The demand is greater than the supply . . . it always has been," Leonard Slabaugh continued. "I sell all that I can produce and still have people backed up on waiting lists: Supermarket chains and wholesale outlets buy 'em in enormous quantities. Big restaurants want 'em shipped out on ice. People come by here and pick'em up by the buckets full. High schools and colleges need bullfrogs for their biology classes, and laboratories use 'em for medical experiments. Why, the market is growing continuously all the time."

As I soon learned from Mr. Slabaugh, there are even scientists at NASA (the space agency) who want to launch some of his frogs into orbit! They'll pay him $25 each-for 30 of his best stock a month—until the contract ends in 1982. That's $750 in addition to the estimated $1,500 to $2,000 of monthly income that Leonard now makes raising his giant croakers!

SECRET INDUSTRY

If frog farming is so profitable, then, why aren't more people doing it? "This is a secretive business," Mr. Slabaugh admits. "I tried to raise frogs when I was 18 years old, but—back then—I didn't know how to keep enough of each hatch alive all the way up to salable size to make it worthwhile. Oh, I talked with other farmers all right, but they made frog breeding sound like the worst occupation in the world and wouldn't give me any help. I even looked for printed material about the subject, but there simply wasn't any available."

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