[Guest]

This is just a post to inform froggers about the differences between wild caught vs. farm raised. I've been reading a lot of posts and there are a lot of people thinking that farm raised frogs are basically on the same level as captive bred. This could be further from the truth.

It should basically be assumed that farm raised frogs are wild caught, in the sense that they are being taken out of their environment and sent to be raised in a tank. I like to define captive bred frogs as tank raised frogs....or frogs that are born and raised in a fish tank. While farm raised frogs are not wild caught so to speak, they are not tank raised and many of the problems that are associated with wild caught frogs area also present in farm raised frogs.

At some frog farms the froglets are raised in tanks but when they reach maturity they are allowed a MUCH larger area to do their breeding in. Basically, the only big difference between wild caught and farm raised are that with farm raised, they sustain a diet of insects that don't contain pumiliotoxin (poison)..........although they do eat poisonous ants when they enter their territory.

So while farm raised frogs aren't poisonous, they aren't raised in a 10-30 gallon fish tank. A good comparision would be to take a fragile king living in a castle, put him in a mobile home with little furniture, give him a wife, and tell him he must live the rest of his life there and have children. As you can see it would be a little stressful for all of us.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that farm raised frogs won't do completely fine in your tank (I have two w/c pumilio that are doing great), but I just want everyone to understand the risks and to know that farm raised frogs should basically be considered wild caught when being imported. This is USUALLY why the prices of wild caught frogs are half of the prices of captive bred.

Just my two cents. Feel free to ask any questions you may have.

-Anthony

 

[Guest]

Anthony,
Please don't take this as an insult, but where is your information coming from? What you said is good, but do you have personal experience seeing farms? I think it is valuable to explicitly say some of the things you did say. I'm just curious if you have been places or see the practices.
J

 

[*GREASER*]

when I fist heard about this whole "fram raised" deal I jumped to the same conclusons that Mr. Frogwild is saying.

 

[Guest]

Anthony,
Please don't take this as an insult, but where is your information coming from? What you said is good, but do you have personal experience seeing farms? I think it is valuable to explicitly say some of the things you did say. I'm just curious if you have been places or see the practices.
J

Justin,

Not a problem and I definitely don't take offense. I have been to Brazil and while traveling through to Surinam I stopped at a couple frog farms. One in particular consisted of nothing more than mosquito netting thrown over a few very large bromeliads and other tropical plants. The other one we passed was more elaborate and actually was a little hut constructed around the same type of plants. I actually had a conversation with Todd Kelley with this for about a half hour and he basically confirmed everything that I am telling everyone. Just be aware of the risks.

I have a very close friend who imported once before. He received 16 'farm raised' frogs and I think 5 of them died from a month to four months later.

It's simply a fact that a quarter or more w/c frogs will die within six months. This is why Blue Jeans are so hard to find now after being so common in the 90's. They just didn't handle the stress well.

Without naming any names, there are people who are selling 'farm raised' frogs that are in this hobby JUST for the money. These people will tell you that farm raised frogs are the same as captive bred, simply to put more coin in their pocket. I just want everyone to be informed, that's all.......no worries

 

[geckguy]

I have pictures of the "frog farm" that the auratus came from a year or two ago, I got them from marcus breece. It consists of a area fenced in with chicken wire, and a bunch of citrus on the ground to attract fruitflies. the frogs go after the flies, and the frogs get caught by the farmers. I wouldnt really consider this any better than wild caught because any thing can go through the fence, after all the frogs get through to get the flies. If anybody is interested I can send you the pics.

 

[*GREASER*]

If it isnt any trouble ide like to see the pictures [email protected]

 

[mindcrash]

Can you post them here?

 

[Devin Edmonds]

I'd be very interested in seeing the pictures. My email is [email protected] If you need someone to host those pics for you so they can be viewed on the forums I would be happy to do it, just send them my way.

 

[geckguy]

Auratus Farm

Here is the picture, all the frogs gather around the citrus because of the flies and the frog farmers, occasionaly gather them up and ship them off.

[/img]

 

[geckguy]

The picture didn't work, it is at this url http://gallery.pethobbyist.com/index.pl?photo=145007

 

[Guest]

Thank you for clearing that up. I sometimes am confused whether people post things they know for sure versus when they are passing things down the line that they heard. I thank you for your post. I have seen a few farms but of a different type. They were in greenhouses isolated from the outside populations. They were fed cultured foods (crickets-- A. domestica I think is the species, they called them ****** crickets...) as well as some termites. They also had large mounds of bananas on both the ground as well as on pedistools: the one place was also a mariposario (butterfly garden). One other place I visited bred frogs there in large tanks in a greenhouse. The frogs they produced were sent to other ranarios (frog gardens) around the country so they didn't have to take ones from the wild. Their excess of some, Smilisca phaeota, were used to feed some of the snakes. Just a few notes to add. None of those places were granted exportation rights though, so all of them have to sit on all they have.
J

 

[Guest]

Justin,

Wow, that sounds like an elaborate set up. What countries were those in? Those farms were definitely owned by Americans or Europeans. It would be nice to be able to contact those places. You wouldn't happen to have their contact info would you?

When Central and Southern Americans decide to make money farming frogs they don't have the money to open up that expensive system. Likewise, they sell the frogs for under $5 dollars each (probably closer to $1) as it costs next to nothing to live in those third world countries.

This is just a guess so please don't put any weight behind this but I would guess that over 90% of farm raised frogs are raised in the manner that me and geckguy were talking about.

This will all change with farm raised frogs from Peru once INIBICO gets up and running. I know they have a nice set-up down there.

 

[snmreptiles]

I just thought that everyone might like to see this also.
http://www.tropical-experience.nl/Peru/index.html
I'm not sure if I did this right but I'll give it a shot.

-Shelley

 

[rmelancon]

I would think the pictured farm in Peru is capable of producing true "farm-raised" animals. From some of the pictures it looks like there are individual tanks for pairs or groups of animals. In that case I would say they could produce legit cb animals. To me that looks like a fairly valid operation. I wonder how many animals could be produced out of a farm that size, they don't look all that big.

 

[khoff]

The way I understand the Peru projects. They set up tadpole deposition sites in the forest (bottle cut in half with water in it). They check these and remove the tadpoles. The tadpoles then morph in captivity and are then raised in the tanks. So I would consider them captive raised more than captive bred, but I don't honestly see much of a difference. I don't think parasites are a significant issue with tadpole.