Ribbit! (or: Hello my baby, hello my honey)

(The above article is some sort of propaganda for the frog industry. I've seen other articles that claim it's impossible to raise frogs anywhere in the United States, which is why 90% of them are imported from the Orient. Elsewhere I read that frogs ARE raised in the Southern United States, but "in secret". It's something they don't talk about. God knows why, I guess it's stigmatized to have to stick a nail through an amphibian's primitive skull. Not to mention eating their legs. Blecccch. Anyway, this is a transcript of the above newspaper article, followed by, as they say, "the REST of the story".)

Big Profits in Back Yard FROG Raising

A back yard is large enough to start the thriving business of frog raising. How to build up a big income with a very small investment is told in the following article. The white meat, with a taste similar to a tender, juicy squab, is greatly in demand.

by S. L. SCHUTT

WHEN Charlie, of the De Luxe Cafe, told me that he would have to discontinue serving frog leg dinners because his wholesaler couldn’t supply the frogs, I became vitally interested in an industry that has proven to be more profitable, entertaining, and healthful than any other I have ever known.

No frog farmer need search for a market, his crop is virtually all sold before it is raised. I could sell one hundred times my present production in a single week, and am expanding my ponds so, eventually, I expect to have 1000 acres utilized solely for giant bullfrog culture. I sell tadpoles at five to ten cents each by the hundred. They are used to stock farms and for aquarium purposes.

Frog Meat Is Delicious

Bullfrogs, that cost me less than one cent per year to feed, wholesale at $3.00 per dozen in large quantities. Smaller frogs, of which only the legs are used, sell for as high as seventy cents per pound. Each frog gives a pound of delicious white meat that has a taste similar to a tender, juicy squab. The whole frog is used, the front quarter being just as delicious as the legs.

Just one pair of breeders lay over 10,000 eggs each season; usually over seventy per cent hatch and develop into small frogs.

The advantage of frog farming is the fact that you can start practically anywhere and expand gradually as your profits mount. A vacant city lot, an old orchard or even a back yard can be utilized. Due to the cannibalistic nature of adult frogs, the frog farmer needs three separate ponds, segregating the breeders, tadpoles, and small frogs.

I have found a pond, 20×20 feet, water area, with bank space of six feet on all sides, to be capable of keeping six pairs of breeders. The water depth should not exceed 18 inches except for a pit in the center of the pond where the frogs hibernate in the winter time.

Confine With Poultry Wire

Ordinary one-inch mesh poultry wire four feet high with burlap sewed on the inside to prevent injury and to confine the smaller frogs, is the most sensible fence a frog farmer can use both for breeders and small frogs. Frogs breed from April until August.

At this time, the frog farmer must have a small pond about 10×15 feet planted with arrowheads, water moss and other aquatic plants, in readiness. The pond should be not less than three feet deep to take care of the thousands of tadpoles.

The egg mass must be immediately transferred to the small pond, using a scoop to handle them. In five days, each cluster becomes a wiggling, living mass of tadpoles. Tadpoles are scavengers, eating anything from table scraps to water moss.

In six to eight months, the tadpole begins to develop legs and in a short time is a small frog. At this time, its diet changes from that of a scavenger to being satisfied only with a live or moving food.

The growing pond for the offspring of six pairs should embrace about two acres, including shore line. Water in the two acre tract should cover not more than one-half of the entire area.

Feeding the Frogs

I have raised frogs on liver and other domestic meat but I found it impractical to consider this method of feeding on a large scale.

Small bullfrogs can be supplied with an abundance of insects, especially flies, by simply concealing several fish heads in the vegetation along shore. Common crabs, found in most any ditch or stream, and good food for frogs, can be placed directly into the growing pond where they will reproduce in enormous quantities.

When ready for marketing, the frogs are caught at night by blinding them with a search light. When the catcher gets a frog he puts it into a burlap sack with others. They are then put into small pens awaiting the dresser who grabs them by their rear legs and pierces the head with a nail by a downward stroke of the hand. The entrails are removed and the frog is ready for shipment in barrels of cracked ice. 

Related posts:   Raise Giant Frogs (Jan, 1936)

Frogs for Funnin' Prophet (a cautionary tale)

DAY 1. Received Acme Do-It-Yourself Frog Kit by mail order. Pretty derned excited about the whole thing. Expect to make millions of dollars in my spare time, with no work at all! Trouble is the Missus. She wants to know, what's all that stuff in the pail. So I tell her, it's that caviar stuff, you know, that you put on the crackers. She says, what would you want with caviar, that's for rich people.

DAY 2. Opened pail. Smelled it. Put lid back on. 

DAY 3. Opened pail again. Found a lot of stuff in there. Some of it is moving. Fish eyes or something. Instructions say, introduce spawn into prepared frog pond. Say what?

DAY 4.  Got out shovel. Commenced to dig in the back yard. Hole kept filling in with mud. Raining. Tried filling up hole with garden hose. Water sank down into the mud. Raining harder than ever. Slipped and fell in hole.

DAY 5. Major setback today. Put frog eggs in refrigerator for safekeeping in Mason jar. Missus opens it, thinking it's mayonnaise. Screams her head off and  sherriff comes. Lots of explaining to do.

DAY 6. Made a big hole for frog eggs. Very slimy. Dumped in eggs.

DAY 27. Something's moving in there. The water's sort of thrashing around. 

DAY 227. Heard a sound. Funny kind of sound.  Kind of like a croaking noise? 

DAY 276. Am completely overrun with frogs. Frogs are jumping on top of other frogs. Frogs are making a hell of a noise. Neighbors complained, called Sherriff again who wrote out a warning and nailed it to a post. Don't know how to keep frogs quiet.  Don't know what to feed frogs. Frogs begin to eat each other.

DAY 352. Frogs are the size of dinner plates and have taken over the yard. Missus threatening divorce. Instructions never warned me about this. Considering lawsuit against Acme Frog Company Ltd.

DAY 497. Time to harvest frogs. Read instructions, found out how I have to do it. Have to drive a nail through their heads. Makes me want to cry. Frogs have become my pets, companionship since the Missus left.

DAY 502. Most frogs are nailed and in sacks. Now can't figure out how to transport to Acme Frog Processing Plant Inc. Feel that I have been lied to. Feel that I want to start a bonfire. 

DAY 504. Have barbecue at house, invite entire county. Serve them "chicken wings", best ones they ever tasted. Missus moves back in the house.