
Giant Frog Farms of the 1930s - microtherion
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/frog-farming-1930s-failure-ponds-canning-legs-conservation?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=fa9a7b617f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_10_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f36db9c480-fa9a7b617f-64276797&ct=t()&mc_cid=fa9a7b617f&mc_eid=f20119bcb7
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KGIII
Oh, Louisiana. That is where I met a crazy swamp beast that scared the hell
out of me. It turns out, it was a Nutria and similar to this frog deal. They
were supposed to be a profitable critter to raise but they aren't. No, the one
I met crawled out of a swamp, covered in slime, and ate a rotten fish - while
staring me down.

It did not look even remotely tasty or like I might want to wear its fur. I
can't imagine what people were thinking, kind of like these frogs. Frogs are
handy for catching food, however. I am not sure if even gators eat the nutria.
They are now an invasive pest species. They look worse when they are covered
in swamp slime.

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ivanhoe
Actually nutria fur is very nice to touch and a good quality since it's water
resistant (if we set aside the moral side of wearing furs). Also they're cute
little critters (when you see them outside of the swamp, I guess), but yes,
they're horribly invasive pest, and here in Europe create a lot of problems
because they dig holes in river banks and dams.

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KGIII
Yeah, they look like nice friendly things you want to cuddle and pet - unless
your first encounter with them is in a swamp while you're in a very inebriated
state. (Meaning my state, not the State of Louisiana, though they are often
pretty inebriated.)

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Fezzik
I wish people would hunt bullfrogs up here in the Pacific Northwest - they are
a terrible bane to our riparian ecosystems as they eat _everything_ that lives
in a wetland (except the larger mammals). And, as the article mentions, their
appetites are almost insatiable.

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zafka
Good timing on this article. After catching 6 bufo toads that were eating my
bees, I considered the wisdom of breeding toads.........

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mythrwy
Frogs are as unpleasant to eat as you might imagine (IMOP).

They don't taste like chicken.

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jakeogh
I have eaten farmed bullfrog a bunch of times and it's definitely like chicken
in a good way. The bones are thin, and there's not much meat, but 10 of them
will fill you up.

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dddddaviddddd
Interesting that raising live feed for the frogs would be one of the major
bottlenecks (despite good efficiency of 3 masses of food to produce one mass
of frogs).

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Someone
I don’t think 3 is that good for creatures that size. Commercially bred
chicken are at 1.6, and for eggs it’s about 2
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Poultry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Poultry))

If one slaughters pigs young enough, one can get under 3, too.

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pcmaffey
Non sequitur opportunity to recommend one of my favorite movies of all time:
Delicatessen.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101700/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101700/)
If you've seen the movie, you'll get why I'm posting this.

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theyregreat
Served with a side of mealworms, or crickets, if you prefer.

Interestingly, allrecipes lives up to the name on its tin:
[http://allrecipes.com/search/results/?ingIncl=frog&sort=re](http://allrecipes.com/search/results/?ingIncl=frog&sort=re)

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_eht
What is the reference to mealworms and crickets?

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gweinberg
Maybe it was just an idea ahead of its time. It sounds like people really did
consider the frogs to be delicious, but raising them was a lot of trouble.
Modern techniques out to be able to automate a lot of the labor.

