Anyone Have Hands On Experience With Frog Farming ?

[gonzobrains]

what do you mean across country?

Fruity; back in that other world, I captured Bull Frogs and moved them to central holding ponds. They would not eat fish food, only live or moving critters. I had enough watewr area that they did okay, but had a tendency to migrate. By migrate I mean heading across contry with the closest water being 1 mile away. It took about one year for them to get to good leg size. Two year was much better. I used to go down at night with spot light and check on the frogs setting on the pond banks, had about 5 acres of ponds and could count hundreds of eyes by light. Look forward to pictures and any reply.

[slapout]

gonzo; cross country means the suckers would leave a nice pond / water environment and start hopping across the pastures, fields, roads etc. No idea where they were going as it may be dry and hot when they do this. I saw them in the middle of 640 acres, no water for 1 mile in any direction. These were the big bull frogs, I am referring to, the legs are size of 3/4 grown chicken leg. I saw somewhere that they mate for life so maybe they were out looking for mate. Not sure they are the same frog that is referenced above by fruity and others. Male and female are about the same size on this bull frog. We referred to them as Arkansas bull frogs.

[Nongwahyay]

I can´t wait to see photos of fruity´s frogs as well as Arkansas bull frogs!!!! Any chance of that????

[hansen]

is ther a "big" snake problem ?

[fruity]

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I can´t wait to see photos of fruity´s frogs as well as Arkansas bull frogs!!!! Any chance of that????

Heres a few pics taken this morning, the small ones in the blue net enclosures on the pool are four weeks old, the ones shown in hand are half grown.

One or two snakes about, killed one last week with two frogs in its stomach!

[mdmD]

Hi,

I'm interested as well to try out the frog farming... any idea how can i start? Can i come and visit?

You are more than welcome to visit. I am growing many on, very big already, to make up breeding pairs for next season, will have many available for sale so starting no problem.

Sorry, no photos, we have lost our camera charger:)

i'm also intersted to try the frog farming but do not know how to start. can anybody help me? u c, the problem is, i'm from malaysia, the east malaysia (sabah) to be specific. i'm not a muslim, if u think i am..in malaysia, there r not many do frog farming. if i'm not mistaken, only one person in Kelantan who also is a Siamese. I also found it difficult to search for guidelines in the internet to do frog farming. is there anybody can give me any help or guidelines? thanks...

[slapout]

Google Bull frog. Several farms will ship from US (real bull frog) slick skin, weight 1 1/2 lb. adults (750 grams) Ear size is used to determine sex of frogs. Real bull frogs eat live food only. The chinese say the have solved this by feeding food on shaker table???? The market what they call frog legs but they are small ????/ Good luck.

[captbob]

Frog breeder leaps to success in Vientiane time 25 september 2008 full articel very interesting .Captbob

[captbob]

Two of my wifes cousins have asked her if she wants to invest in a 1/3rd share of a frog farm they are going to set up , nothing to do with me wife has her own money and she can spend and invest where she sees fit .

Basicly the two cousins have 4 fish ponds about a metre deep that they breed and rear fish that they then sell in the market they seem to do ok with the fish and they now want to set up a frog farm .

I did not know that frog farms existed in isaan until the wife mentioned it but have now seen them being sold in the local market near where we live .

By reading this site i see you guys are involved in many parts of farming anyone know anything about setting up cost of producing frogs and upside / downside risk rewards ?

JB

[wagner54]

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I can´t wait to see photos of fruity´s frogs as well as Arkansas bull frogs!!!! Any chance of that????

Heres a few pics taken this morning, the small ones in the blue net enclosures on the pool are four weeks old, the ones shown in hand are half grown.

One or two snakes about, killed one last week with two frogs in its stomach!

Hi Fruity

It looks like you have a good frog growing system going. How hard is it to train them to eat fish food? I used to have some bull frogs back in the states when I was younger and I fed them mostly live minnows. I would be interested in buying a few pairs of these from you if its easy to train the froglets to eat easily accessible fish food. I will be in LOS next month.

Regards

[IsaanAussie]

Hi Fruity

It looks like you have a good frog growing system going.

Dear Wagner,

As far as I know Fruity has yet to get his computer back on the air. I will contact him and pass on your message. If he is interested I will PM you his details and you can contact him when you come to LOS next. He is in Buri Ram.

Isaanaussie

[GungaDin]

Fruity's Frog Farms

Hi Fruity,

thanks for sharing you pix and knowledge.

One question, how do Thais eat them?

Just the legs, like the Froggies (sic)?

Or cook them whole, somehow?

cheers

gd

[fruity]

Hi Fruity

It looks like you have a good frog growing system going. How hard is it to train them to eat fish food? I used to have some bull frogs back in the states when I was younger and I fed them mostly live minnows. I would be interested in buying a few pairs of these from you if its easy to train the froglets to eat easily accessible fish food. I will be in LOS next month.

Regards

Hi, Sorry for the delay in responding. There is NO training involved, the froglets automatically eat the food, we actually feed the pellets to the tadpoles, so it is perfectly natural to them.

In answer to Gundadins querie; people eat these frogs in numerous ways, Kapow being a common use, I have seen them stuffed with pork, much as we would stuff a chicken in the west:).....They are used in so many dishes, much the same as chicken, although much more delicious; so I'm told!

[finner]

Hi Fruity, Finner here, just down the road in the Prasat area. Had my Thai friend over to my gf's place and her father had the same frogs you have and they eat frog food (had to laugh at that). They buy it in the market and it's not the same stuff they give the pla nin. My Thai friend has a restaurant in Chiang Saen and they buy the frogs for 150/kg if they can get them. Thais REALLY like to eat frogs.....

[fruity]

Hi Fruity, Finner here, just down the road in the Prasat area. Had my Thai friend over to my gf's place and her father had the same frogs you have and they eat frog food (had to laugh at that). They buy it in the market and it's not the same stuff they give the pla nin. My Thai friend has a restaurant in Chiang Saen and they buy the frogs for 150/kg if they can get them. Thais REALLY like to eat frogs.....

Hi Finner,

Several companies do make feed especially for frogs, however, it is more expensive than the Pladuk feed & gives no better results. The demand for frogs like you say is very strong, Thai's really do like them. Prices per kilo vary from area to area & depends on the time of year, which affects the availability.

[tig28]

Hi Fruity,

Interesting post. very enterprising. I noted live frogs in a Si Saket market today---- 180Bt per kilo.

It would be interesting to hear your views re production over the year. your anticipated "take-off" in relation to the (single?) breeding season.

thanks tig.

[fruity]

Hi Fruity,

Interesting post. very enterprising. I noted live frogs in a Si Saket market today---- 180Bt per kilo.

It would be interesting to hear your views re production over the year. your anticipated "take-off" in relation to the (single?) breeding season.

thanks tig.

Hi Tig,

180 baht / kilo is expensive, although at this time of the year very few people have frogs for sale. I have no idea what my 'take off' is:) Bearing in mind a breeding pair can be 'tricked' into producing more than one batch of eggs per season & the average batch consists of 3-4,000, assuming only 50% of those hatch & assuming there is a 50% mortality rate in the froglets (underestimates) It is very easy to have 3-4,000 frogs from one pair per year. These can be sold as froglets to other growers or reared, when at three months old they are of selling size. Remember frogs eat so much less than pladuk, grow very much faster, eat considerably less & sell for much more money.

[dingdongrb]

Thanks fruity , will surely give you a visit once i finish my concrete tanks . A few breading pairs is a must ok ?

OK:)....As I said earlier, we'll be sorting them out soon. More than welcome to visit when your ready.

What is the cost of a pair of breeding frogs also how many would you recommend to start up to make it viable?

The frogs are my wifes really; she wants B500 for a breeding pair, which isn't expensive. We have paid B1500 for pairs in the past.

Depending on how many frogs you want to rear, I would recommend ten pairs of breeders, each female will lay literally thousands of eggs, between 7-10,000. If you get a 30% hatching rate, which is average, that should give you 25-30,000 tapdoles / 20-25,000 froglets. Even if you were to sell off the baby frogs at the going rate of 2 baht apiece, you would be well ahead of the game, much more money if you reared the frogs on to marketable size, which should take no more than four months. You then should have one hel_l of a lot of kilos to sell at no less than 80 baht per kilo wholesale, 130 retail.

Let me see if I understand this and have my math correct:

You buy a breeding pair for avg 1000 baht.... One breeding pair produces approx 2400 frogs. (8,000 avg eggs with 30% being hatched). You feed these fogs for four months with little work involved and each frog will grow to being about 1/2 kg (or less).... So total after four months you have approx. 600-800 kg of mature frogs. Selling them for 80B/kg (appears that this may be the low end depending on your initiative) you will gross approx 48kB - 64kB..... This makes a net of 47-63kB minus the food and just for using one breeding pair. (Of course you will have to first provide the expenses of setting up your ponds/environment). So if one was to have 10 breeding pairs with the same above success rate the gross return would be approx: 470-630kB.....not bad for 4 months.....actually probably (sounds like) easier work and better return than rice farming in Issan.

Now I am wondering a few things:

1) How much is an estimated cost to feed 1 breeding pair and all siblings for four months (until the siblings get to market size)?

2) Why isn't everyone a frog farmer if it appears this easy?

3) Are there diseases or plagues that hit frogs that could wipe out your entire population?

4) How is theft handled?

5) What are really the downsides to frog farming in Issan?

I am currently living in CM but my wife is from Surin (Prasat) and we currently have a place there as well as land where we plan on building a house and having a small farm of some sort. Even though we own a store in Prasat (unestablished business at this time) I am looking for means of some hobby/supplemental income when I go to retire there within the next 5 years. I have other ideas in mind but this frog farming has gotten me very curious. I am interested in learning more to see what go I could make of this.

By the way, while growing up in Ohio (USA) my father was an avid outdoors man. We would go gigging bullfrogs on the creeks and rivers there. Of course we only ate the frog legs as the rest of the frog didn't provide much meat. I can remember as a kid growing up where dad took pictures of some of the legs (only legs) of these monster bullfrogs and they would be as long (stretched out) as a long-neck beer bottle. And they delicious.... I am wondering how bull frog tastes in LOS? The only frog I have eaten here (and only twice) was pitiful as one time it appeared the whole frog (bones and all) were ground up with the meat.... And for the other time the size of the frog legs I had here in LOS were no bigger than a pair of normal nail clippers....

[fruity]

Thanks fruity , will surely give you a visit once i finish my concrete tanks . A few breading pairs is a must ok ?

OK:)....As I said earlier, we'll be sorting them out soon. More than welcome to visit when your ready.

What is the cost of a pair of breeding frogs also how many would you recommend to start up to make it viable?

The frogs are my wifes really; she wants B500 for a breeding pair, which isn't expensive. We have paid B1500 for pairs in the past.

Depending on how many frogs you want to rear, I would recommend ten pairs of breeders, each female will lay literally thousands of eggs, between 7-10,000. If you get a 30% hatching rate, which is average, that should give you 25-30,000 tapdoles / 20-25,000 froglets. Even if you were to sell off the baby frogs at the going rate of 2 baht apiece, you would be well ahead of the game, much more money if you reared the frogs on to marketable size, which should take no more than four months. You then should have one hel_l of a lot of kilos to sell at no less than 80 baht per kilo wholesale, 130 retail.

Let me see if I understand this and have my math correct:

You buy a breeding pair for avg 1000 baht.... One breeding pair produces approx 2400 frogs. (8,000 avg eggs with 30% being hatched). You feed these fogs for four months with little work involved and each frog will grow to being about 1/2 kg (or less).... So total after four months you have approx. 600-800 kg of mature frogs. Selling them for 80B/kg (appears that this may be the low end depending on your initiative) you will gross approx 48kB - 64kB..... This makes a net of 47-63kB minus the food and just for using one breeding pair. (Of course you will have to first provide the expenses of setting up your ponds/environment). So if one was to have 10 breeding pairs with the same above success rate the gross return would be approx: 470-630kB.....not bad for 4 months.....actually probably (sounds like) easier work and better return than rice farming in Issan.

Now I am wondering a few things:

1) How much is an estimated cost to feed 1 breeding pair and all siblings for four months (until the siblings get to market size)?

2) Why isn't everyone a frog farmer if it appears this easy?

3) Are there diseases or plagues that hit frogs that could wipe out your entire population?

4) How is theft handled?

5) What are really the downsides to frog farming in Issan?

I am currently living in CM but my wife is from Surin (Prasat) and we currently have a place there as well as land where we plan on building a house and having a small farm of some sort. Even though we own a store in Prasat (unestablished business at this time) I am looking for means of some hobby/supplemental income when I go to retire there within the next 5 years. I have other ideas in mind but this frog farming has gotten me very curious. I am interested in learning more to see what go I could make of this.

By the way, while growing up in Ohio (USA) my father was an avid outdoors man. We would go gigging bullfrogs on the creeks and rivers there. Of course we only ate the frog legs as the rest of the frog didn't provide much meat. I can remember as a kid growing up where dad took pictures of some of the legs (only legs) of these monster bullfrogs and they would be as long (stretched out) as a long-neck beer bottle. And they delicious.... I am wondering how bull frog tastes in LOS? The only frog I have eaten here (and only twice) was pitiful as one time it appeared the whole frog (bones and all) were ground up with the meat.... And for the other time the size of the frog legs I had here in LOS were no bigger than a pair of normal nail clippers....

Perhaps I made all of this sound just too easy? It certainly isn't rocket science, however, without a decent set up & some basic knowledge & husbandry skills the novice would never breed any froglets. Of course there are pitfalls & disease to contend with as there are with any livestock. Frogs are cannabilistic, start with 2,000 froglets, leave unsorted & you will be lucky to end up with a fifth of that number, similarly, overfeed & they will simply 'burst' frogs, seemingly don't have a cut off point, they apparantly don't know when they are full. So many pro's & cons.

[finner]

There's another option to frog farming, it's the frog farming teaching business. Apparently after a student takes a free government course, he or she can go for hands on training at a government sponsored private farm for B500 a day, usually for 3-4 day courses. there's one near you FRUITY about 70 km south of Buriram in Lahan Sai.

[fruity]

There's another option to frog farming, it's the frog farming teaching business. Apparently after a student takes a free government course, he or she can go for hands on training at a government sponsored private farm for B500 a day, usually for 3-4 day courses. there's one near you FRUITY about 70 km south of Buriram in Lahan Sai.

Yep, have had a look at the goverment place, had one pen with perhaps a dozen frogs in it.....lol.....

[peng]

Howdy All

I'm new to this forum and have found posts on here very informative. I am especially interested in learning more about the frog farming. My wife has relatives involved in this and they make money, people always around buying frogs.

When is the breeding season, what do I need and how much are the parent stock to buy. Thanks.

[Monkeypants]

Thanks fruity , will surely give you a visit once i finish my concrete tanks . A few breading pairs is a must ok ?

OK:)....As I said earlier, we'll be sorting them out soon. More than welcome to visit when your ready.

What is the cost of a pair of breeding frogs also how many would you recommend to start up to make it viable?

The frogs are my wifes really; she wants B500 for a breeding pair, which isn't expensive. We have paid B1500 for pairs in the past.

Depending on how many frogs you want to rear, I would recommend ten pairs of breeders, each female will lay literally thousands of eggs, between 7-10,000. If you get a 30% hatching rate, which is average, that should give you 25-30,000 tapdoles / 20-25,000 froglets. Even if you were to sell off the baby frogs at the going rate of 2 baht apiece, you would be well ahead of the game, much more money if you reared the frogs on to marketable size, which should take no more than four months. You then should have one hel_l of a lot of kilos to sell at no less than 80 baht per kilo wholesale, 130 retail.

Let me see if I understand this and have my math correct:

You buy a breeding pair for avg 1000 baht.... One breeding pair produces approx 2400 frogs. (8,000 avg eggs with 30% being hatched). You feed these fogs for four months with little work involved and each frog will grow to being about 1/2 kg (or less).... So total after four months you have approx. 600-800 kg of mature frogs. Selling them for 80B/kg (appears that this may be the low end depending on your initiative) you will gross approx 48kB - 64kB..... This makes a net of 47-63kB minus the food and just for using one breeding pair. (Of course you will have to first provide the expenses of setting up your ponds/environment). So if one was to have 10 breeding pairs with the same above success rate the gross return would be approx: 470-630kB.....not bad for 4 months.....actually probably (sounds like) easier work and better return than rice farming in Issan.

Now I am wondering a few things:

1) How much is an estimated cost to feed 1 breeding pair and all siblings for four months (until the siblings get to market size)?

2) Why isn't everyone a frog farmer if it appears this easy?

3) Are there diseases or plagues that hit frogs that could wipe out your entire population?

4) How is theft handled?

5) What are really the downsides to frog farming in Issan?

I am currently living in CM but my wife is from Surin (Prasat) and we currently have a place there as well as land where we plan on building a house and having a small farm of some sort. Even though we own a store in Prasat (unestablished business at this time) I am looking for means of some hobby/supplemental income when I go to retire there within the next 5 years. I have other ideas in mind but this frog farming has gotten me very curious. I am interested in learning more to see what go I could make of this.

By the way, while growing up in Ohio (USA) my father was an avid outdoors man. We would go gigging bullfrogs on the creeks and rivers there. Of course we only ate the frog legs as the rest of the frog didn't provide much meat. I can remember as a kid growing up where dad took pictures of some of the legs (only legs) of these monster bullfrogs and they would be as long (stretched out) as a long-neck beer bottle. And they delicious.... I am wondering how bull frog tastes in LOS? The only frog I have eaten here (and only twice) was pitiful as one time it appeared the whole frog (bones and all) were ground up with the meat.... And for the other time the size of the frog legs I had here in LOS were no bigger than a pair of normal nail clippers....

Perhaps I made all of this sound just too easy? It certainly isn't rocket science, however, without a decent set up & some basic knowledge & husbandry skills the novice would never breed any froglets. Of course there are pitfalls & disease to contend with as there are with any livestock. Frogs are cannabilistic, start with 2,000 froglets, leave unsorted & you will be lucky to end up with a fifth of that number, similarly, overfeed & they will simply 'burst' frogs, seemingly don't have a cut off point, they apparantly don't know when they are full. So many pro's & cons.

Hi Fruity,

You mention that if left unsorted, you will have many losses.

How do you sort them, ?

A very interesting read, and something that we are going to do pretty soon,

Thanks again

[fruity]

Hi Fruity,

You mention that if left unsorted, you will have many losses.

How do you sort them, ?

A very interesting read, and something that we are going to do pretty soon,

Thanks again

Hi Monkey,

The young frogs grow at differing rates, even those from the same hatch, so it is important to keep an eye on them, removing the bigger ones to a seperate tank / enclosure. Very simply, the bigger will eat the smaller:) Just try to keep the growers in batches of a similar size. Frogs grow very fast, so it is a matter of looking at them each time you feed, having a net handy & scooping out those that are bigger/ growing faster ; these then go in with those of a similar size to themselves.

The same principle applies with the tadpoles. Some develop faster than others, emerging into froglets anywhere from a day or two to ten days ahead of others from the same batch; likewise, remove these froglets or they will eat their tadpole / semi morphed siblings:)

[Rana]

Hi,

I'm interested as well to try out the frog farming... any idea how can i start? Can i come and visit?

You are more than welcome to visit. I am growing many on, very big already, to make up breeding pairs for next season, will have many available for sale so starting no problem.

Sorry, no photos, we have lost our camera charger:)

i'm also intersted to try the frog farming but do not know how to start. can anybody help me? u c, the problem is, i'm from malaysia, the east malaysia (sabah) to be specific. i'm not a muslim, if u think i am..in malaysia, there r not many do frog farming. if i'm not mistaken, only one person in Kelantan who also is a Siamese. I also found it difficult to search for guidelines in the internet to do frog farming. is there anybody can give me any help or guidelines? thanks...

we have the same problem mdmD. I'm from Malaysia (Sarawak). I like frog for it sweet and tasty taste. We used to go to the riverbank deep into the jungle at night to hunt for wild, local frog. But now the number is decreasing fast due to huge demand by local, especially Chinese. The price now fetch up to RM34/kg.

I really want to go for this but not many farm available where i can go to collect information and experience it myself. I hope experience frog farmers here would help us.Thanks!

[Rana]

There's another option to frog farming, it's the frog farming teaching business. Apparently after a student takes a free government course, he or she can go for hands on training at a government sponsored private farm for B500 a day, usually for 3-4 day courses. there's one near you FRUITY about 70 km south of Buriram in Lahan Sai.

Yep, have had a look at the goverment place, had one pen with perhaps a dozen frogs in it.....lol.....

how r you today fruity? I'm glad if our government also have courses like that in Malaysia. I think you're experience enough to write & produce an ebook on frog farming, fruity. i believe the demand for the book is very high since many newbie like me would be willing to invest in it. what say you fruity?

[fruity]

how r you today fruity? I'm glad if our government also have courses like that in Malaysia. I think you're experience enough to write & produce an ebook on frog farming, fruity. i believe the demand for the book is very high since many newbie like me would be willing to invest in it. what say you fruity?

I really don't have the time to produce an e-book , HOWEVER, I have a very good booklet, old, but very informative, written in Thai. If anyone wants it, I will photocopy a few & send via snail mail at cost. The booklet, which runs to maybe 30 or so pages would be well worth having translated & I would have this done IF I could find someone to do it at a reasonable cost.

Incidentally, if anyone is wanting breeders, we have many sorted out & ready to go!

[deanoEFC]

hello fruity seems like u got this graft sown up,im realy interested im in the uk just now but comin over end of feb, would be great to come an see u an have a chat about it an hopefully grab some breeding pairs from u if that would be ok with u?

cheers deano...

[fruity]

hello fruity seems like u got this graft sown up,im realy interested im in the uk just now but comin over end of feb, would be great to come an see u an have a chat about it an hopefully grab some breeding pairs from u if that would be ok with u?

cheers deano...

You are more than welcome Deano:)

[peng]

hello fruity seems like u got this graft sown up,im realy interested im in the uk just now but comin over end of feb, would be great to come an see u an have a chat about it an hopefully grab some breeding pairs from u if that would be ok with u?

cheers deano...

You are more than welcome Deano:)

Fruity I would like to get copy of the booklet also would like to buy some breeders from u. How about visiting u?