Bullfrog Business Keeps Idaho Farm Hopping

Bullfrog Business Keeps Idaho Farm Hopping 28-1-8 Steve Rivas raises and sells around 6,000 bullfrogs every year. Most go to research facilities but a lucky few go to restock farm ponds, wildlife areas and backyard marshes. Rivas has shipped frogs to 43 states. "People tell me they want their grandchildren to hear bullfrogs like they did as children, so they buy them for their ponds" says Rivas. He and his wife started raising Native American bullfrogs in their living room in 1990. Six 32-gal. Rubbermaid trash cans have grown to become a full-scale production facility. "At one time we were marketing up to 12,000 frogs a year, but it was taking too much of my time," explains Rivas, who also teaches aquaculture full time at the College of Southern Idaho, Idaho Falls, Idaho. Rivas spends about two hours a day checking, feeding and cleaning his frog pens. A 102? geothermal well and another well that puts out 55? water keeps the frogs warm through the winter. Pens consist of eighteen 4 by 6-ft. in-ground tanks and 12 that are 4 by 10-ft. in size. Three 20-ft. diameter tanks serve as breeding pens for raising tadpoles. Water depth varies with frog age and activity levels. The round tanks were made by setting old Harvester silo sections in place over a set of drains. Rivas then simply poured cement in the circle up to the height of the drains. "We can keep about 150 large frogs per sq. meter in growing pens," says Rivas. "When we're getting ready to ship, I cut back on feed and turn down the temperature and put as many as 300 per sq. meter." The key to producing bullfrogs is feeding them. Bullfrogs by nature only eat moving insects. For several years, the frogs required producing hundreds of pounds of housefly maggots each week. Eventually Rivas'wife came up with a way to get the bullfrogs to accept a nonliving food source. The method along with the food recipe is proprietary. Maggots are still produced as needed. If antibiotics are needed, Rivas feeds them to the maggots and then feeds the maggots to the fish. "The bullfrogs will spit out medications fed straight, wipe their tongues off and not eat for a day or two," explains Rivas. Rana Ranch sells only the frogs, not the feed, nor information on how to raise frogs. If people want to raise frogs commercially, he suggests they do as he did and go to school for aquaculture. "Get a job to support yourself and then figure out how to raise them," he says. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Rana Ranch Commercial Bullfrogs, P.O. Box 1043, Twin Falls, Idaho 83303 (ph 208 734-0899).

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