PSXIV-6 - Feeding Frogs: A Path for Commercial Production Without the Need of Live Food

Abstract: The United States has had a trade deficit in frog products for almost a century. Most of U.S. supply is imported. In 1971 the U.S. imported 1 million kg of frozen frog legs worth $3.8 million. It imported >2.1 M kg annually in the 1980s. 1990s imports ranged from 500,000 – 1,500,000 kg/yr at $67/kg (Lutz and Avery 1999) (= $8.67 – 10.11 2016$US). This excludes the millions of dollars in animals delivered via laboratory supply houses and the pet trade. The challenge has been how to feed these animals without the need for live foods. No real progress has been made in this arena since the 1960s. We constructed two experiments using freeze-dried insects and pelleted diets. One used individually-housed juvenile American Bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) and the other, group-housed Northern Leopard Frogs (Rana pipiens). We did not attempt group housing with bullfrogs due to their availability at that time. Frogs were conditioned to feeding on live foods in captivity and then we attempted to transition them to alternate foods. Although individually-housed bullfrogs adapted to eating live foods within one week in captivity, we were unable to transition them to non-living foods during this investigation. However, we were able to transition 100% of Northern Leopard frogs tested to rehydrated freeze-dried crickets within a few days. Northern Leopard Frogs maintained body condition (body mass/snout-vent length) feeding entirely on rehydrated freeze-dried crickets throughout the study period (25 days) (r² = 0.003, s = 0.105, P = 0.743). Transition to pelleted diets was unsuccessful. Frogs only occasionally accepted dry pellets and more regularly took them after soaking in water that was previously used to rehydrate dried crickets. This suggests our pellets lacked taste or odor traits attractive to Northern Leopard Frogs. Ultimately, the use of rehydrated, freeze-dried prey may prove an economically viable alternative to live foods.