A frog breeding business can be started at home. Some people may think that the idea is a little vile, but is it worth considering it from this side when the business itself is promising and profitable? With the right organization, you can earn good money, because this product is in demand today.

Frog business for restaurants

In French restaurants, frog legs are a delicacy dish that is quite expensive. It comes in a variety of forms, and customers are happy to buy it. This means that this product is in demand in France. As for Russia and Europe, the culinary fashion for frog dishes is just developing, and at the moment there are already restaurants in Russia and Ukraine that offer delicious dishes - frog legs. Considering the fact that there are few suppliers of these products, such establishments often have difficulty finding the frogs themselves, and your task in this case is to offer restaurants a quality product.

In fact, restaurants are the main source of sales for the livestock you raise, but you shouldn’t limit yourself to them. If you read various culinary blogs where people share their cooking secrets, you will find that frog legs are a fairly common recipe. This means that ordinary people will also buy frogs for individual home cooking.

A business idea for breeding edible frogs is an almost completely free niche that anyone can quickly and easily occupy, so it’s time to act.

What frogs to breed and how to start a business?

An edible frog is the name of the species that is eaten. It lives in almost all parts of Europe, as well as in the southern part of Russia. This species originated from an ordinary lake frog, so to breed them it is enough to catch them from lakes, rivers and various ponds. You can also buy caviar for the purpose of subsequent breeding of this living creature - tadpoles will soon appear from it.

Choosing a place

The best place is a natural pond. However, to prevent the frogs from spreading out, part of the reservoir must be fenced off with a special net. If there is no body of water nearby, then you can create your own artificial pond on your site, which would have running and clean water. To raise the tadpoles themselves, you need a regular container with soil, charcoal, peat and water. The soil should always be kept moist.

What to feed frogs?

Frogs eat a lot more than you think and can grow up to 1.5 kg in weight. Accordingly, sometimes you have to spend both money and time on feeding them. Their main food is insects, and almost all frog breeders try to give frogs this food. They can also eat spiders, birds, mice and crustaceans.

Where to sell the products?

You will have to sell not the frogs themselves, but their legs. They are stored frozen and in special bags. If you are interested in organizing a large business, then you will definitely need packaging equipment.

As we have already said, the main sales channel for frog legs is restaurants, cafes and other establishments whose menus include exclusive dishes. Paws can also be sold in supermarkets and regular stores. You don’t need to lose sight of ordinary people - they will also be your customers.

A small bag of frog legs costs $10-20 in stores. In restaurants there is a very high markup on this product.

You will receive additional income through the sale of the remaining parts - they are used as animal feed and fertilizer for plants.

Not only in France the exquisite and delicate taste of frog legs is appreciated. There are already many admirers of this dish not only in Europe, but also in Russia. Frog meat is valued much higher than veal, and in some countries it is believed that this meat is comparable in biological value to sturgeon and pike caviar.

In some countries they even manage to add frog meat to desserts and chocolate. This is done in Peru, and it is believed that the dried meat of these amphibians saves from anemia and helps cure infertility. Even in restaurants in conservative England you can find dishes made from frog legs.

However, not all types of frogs are suitable for consumption, so edible species are bred on special farms.

Kinds

The French understand the term “edible frogs” as a special species, because it is not appropriate to eat just anything. In fact, frogs that are eaten as food differ from those that live in the natural environment only in the color of their resonator bubbles. The lake ones have gray resonators, while those individuals that were artificially bred have white ones.

The most common species eaten in Europe, European frog, is a mixture of pond and lake species.

In general, there are three species in the family of true frogs, which are all considered edible, that is:

• lake Ranidaei Redibunda;
• pond Rana lessonae;
• edible (hybrid of the two previous species) Ranaesulenta.

Edible species also include Leopard frogs and Bullfrogs, but such species do not live in our country.

What frogs are edible in Russia? All three species are found in our country.

Other species that can be eaten do not live in our country. Although such studies have never been carried out in any country, there is no classification of frogs based on the principle of edibility and inedibility. Moreover, there are no such differences among the peoples of our country, because for us this is not a traditional product. It is clear that if the question is whether to survive or die of hunger, but not eat the frog, it is natural that where the amphibian swam and what it ate is not of fundamental importance, the main thing is to survive.

And those brief descriptions of individual species of frogs that can be found in specialized literature are only the result of a particular person’s own experience. So for breeding you will have to go to a pet store.

If you decide to find biomaterial for your future business on your own, then take a good look at the photos of edible frogs. On the territory of our country there are still some species classified as poisonous. Although there have not yet been cases where someone died from using them, perhaps no one simply tried them. Nevertheless, poisonous frogs of the Russian Federation include:

• red-bellied and yellow-bellied toad;
• spadefoot

We buy caviar

In fact, acquiring edible frog eggs is quite a difficult task. There is fierce competition in this market and many scammers. If a person is really engaged in breeding, selling paws to stores, then he is unlikely to want to share a high-quality product for breeding. Fraudsters mainly take advantage of the ignorance of novice entrepreneurs. But you can still try and buy caviar from a reputable pet store.

After purchasing the biomaterial, the eggs should be placed in an artificial reservoir. Even if you have natural water resources, it is not recommended to place eggs there, since in the natural environment future edible frogs have a lot of enemies. Preparing a container for the growth of caviar is quite simple. You can use an ordinary plastic bath, pool or vat. Place earth at the bottom, be sure to make earthen banks around the edges, which will have to be constantly well moistened.

The improvised incubator should be kept constantly clean and warm at +20 degrees. Dirty water significantly increases the percentage of population losses. It is recommended to change the water once every 3-4 days. Just do not use tap water; it is recommended to first filter it and infuse it. Chlorine can have a detrimental effect on the population, and it can even die completely.

The development of tadpoles lasts only 4 months, after which they can be safely released into open water. And already with the onset of the first year of life, the frogs can be sent for processing.

If you properly and carefully care for amphibians, the largest individuals can reach 1.5 kilograms. Although, according to statistics, the average weight of frogs does not exceed one kilogram.

Further reproduction

In light of the fact that caviar is not the cheapest pleasure, it is recommended to leave the largest individuals from the first, as well as from subsequent broods.

Only one female produces about 15 thousand eggs in one year. Although there is a catch here too. Even edible frogs raised in artificial conditions reach sexual maturity only in the third year.

What to feed?

Do not think that caring for amphibians is a simple matter that does not require much time. In fact, at any stage of breeding, edible frogs eat quite a varied diet. They eat almost all small invertebrates, from caterpillars to bloodworms. They eat insects: beetles, mosquitoes and crustaceans.

Older individuals can even consume small animals (mice, birds, lizards), which they swallow throughout the day. It is clear that in order to reach at least a kilogram in weight, a frog will need a large amount of food.

Tadpoles are usually fed organic scraps.

Costs can be significantly reduced by raising amphibians in natural reservoirs. In addition, you can resort to small tricks. With the onset of evening darkness, connect artificial lighting devices, previously connected to the pond with frogs, to attract insects. In this way, the animals will independently cope with the process of obtaining food for themselves.

Possible diseases

Regardless of the type of edible frogs, they are all susceptible to certain diseases. Young animals can develop rickets, so it is recommended to add vitamins to the food.

Preparing the product for sale

Before the frog legs can be sent for sale, the animal will have to be killed. Usually the slaughter is carried out with a mallet, the skin is carefully removed and the paws are separated. However, it should be understood that an adult, especially a large one, is capable of covering about three meters in one jump, so sometimes it is quite difficult to catch them.

After catching and separating the legs, they are placed in plastic bags and frozen.

By the way, the only part of the frog that is eaten is the legs. They are served with different sauces.

Cooking dinner

Naturally, if you are engaged in breeding edible frogs in Russia, you will want to try this delicacy. Preparing them is actually very simple. To begin with, the paws are soaked in cold water, to which lemon juice is added. Then the paws are fried in batter or breadcrumbs in a regular frying pan in vegetable oil.

Legal issues

Today, for such a unique product as frog legs, it is quite easy to find a buyer. Even in elite restaurants in big cities there are not so many dishes with frogs, and for one reason only - there is no reliable and good supplier.

However, a businessman may face another problem. At the legislative level, there are no technical regulations for working with meat of this type. And in order to work with hypermarkets or large restaurants, you will need to obtain a certificate from a veterinary service, which itself does not know how to register such a product.

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26.07.2017

Everyone knows that in France, frog legs are considered an exquisite delicacy, and many fans of this dish around the world idolize their refined and delicate taste, which is slightly reminiscent of chicken.

Frog dishes adorn the menus of the most famous and respectable restaurants in Belgium, Italy, Spain, Greece, Great Britain, Holland and many other European countries.

Frogs are also in price in countries such as China, Vietnam, Laos, where they are bred on special farms, since frog meat is valued much higher than veal and costs an order of magnitude more. In the East, no one will be surprised by the assortment of supermarkets, where frozen legs of these amphibians will lie next to the hams of various animals and birds.

In Peru, they even manage to add frog meat to chocolate and cookies, after drying and grinding it. It is believed that this unusual delicacy cures anemia and helps women with infertility.

Fried frog legs also appeared on the menu of many Ukrainian cafes and restaurants (usually those that prefer to sell French or exotic cuisine). True, not every frog is eaten, but only large green ones, which are an edible species.

It is noteworthy that in terms of their biological value in many countries of the world, frog legs are equal to pike and even sturgeon caviar.

Types of frogs

In the reservoirs of Ukraine there are only five species of frogs: grass ( lat. Rana temporaria), sharp-faced ( lat. Rana arvalis), snapping ( lat. Rana Dalmatina), pond ( lat. Rana lessonae) and lake ( lat. Rana ridibunda). The first three species have a brown and brown body color, and scientists combine the last two species into the group of “green frogs”, which, when crossed, give that famous edible species.

For the first time, the large green frog was described as a separate species back in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus. It was he who gave it the name (lat. Rana esculenta), which translates as “edible frog.” This hybrid species is widely represented in the reservoirs of Transcarpathia and lives in the Danube River delta.

During the Soviet Union, these amphibians were exported en masse to France, since their value in foreign currency was three times (!) higher than the price of expensive fish species. Every year up to eighty tons of this first-class product were exported from the country.

Currently, due to the spread of diseases and mass epidemics of birds, pigs and cattle, the demand for frog meat has increased sharply. True, in Ukraine it still remains quite low, since eating frogs seems unusual and unnatural to many residents of the country, therefore, today, the most promising direction remains the cultivation of amphibians for sale for export.

Description of the edible frog

When creating optimal conditions for growth and development, individual specimens of frogs can gain weight up to one and a half (!) kilograms, but on average their weight does not exceed one kilogram.

The amphibian reaches sexual maturity at the age of three years and one female is capable of laying up to fifteen thousand eggs during the year.

Raising frogs

Growing an edible species of frogs for commercial purposes is not a difficult task and is technologically similar to breeding ordinary pond fish (the fattening period until commercial specimens are obtained is from twelve to twenty months).

To start, you will need frog eggs, which can be collected in a reservoir during spawning and within three or four years, the amphibian population will increase tenfold.

It is advisable to grow eggs in a closed reservoir with clean running water, since open ponds significantly increase the mortality rate of the population. The incubation room must be warm (the temperature must be maintained at least twelve degrees Celsius), bright and clean. It is advisable to change the water once every three or four days, after passing it through a filter (or letting it settle), since highly chlorinated water can kill the entire population of frogs.

It is also necessary to pay attention to the soil. The ideal basis for an incubation pond is a mixture of earth, peat, crushed sphagnum (peat bog moss), expanded clay or charcoal (in a ratio of 3:1:1:1). Such soil will not turn sour and harm the skin of tadpoles and young frogs.

After mass hatching of tadpoles (which grow for approximately
four months), they are intensively fed until they turn into young frogs, and then they are moved to an open pond.

For subsequent reproduction, it is advisable to leave the largest and healthiest individuals, thus forming a strong breeding stock of frogs.

Diet

The diet of young frogs (at all stages of development) is quite varied. The food is based on small invertebrates (bloodworms, worms, caterpillars), crustaceans and insects (mosquitoes, flies, beetles). All swimming, jumping, crawling and flying small animals that the frog can swallow at one time are used.

To prevent rickets, young frogs need to add vitamins to their food.

When the frog reaches marketable weight, it is slaughtered with a mallet, the skin is removed, the legs are separated, packaged and frozen. This is how they are implemented.

The price of frog legs in Europe ranges from four to six dollars, while live amphibians fetch from one to four dollars per kilogram (equivalent to approximately sixty adults).

Breeders need to remember that catching an adult frog is not easy, because it can cover a distance of three (!) meters in one jump, and at the same time is capable of knocking down even an adult person. This “beast” is able to swallow a mouse, small snake or duckling.

However, the same French prefer to eat frogs of much more modest size (weighing about one hundred grams).

Making delicious frog legs is quite easy. To begin with, they are kept in cold water with lemon juice (like asparagus), and then fried in vegetable oil in breadcrumbs or batter. The dish turns out crispy, aromatic, tender, and small bones are not a hindrance to enjoyment.

Everyone knows that the French are sometimes disparagingly called frogmen because they eat the meat of these amphibians. By the way, the culinary traditions of other peoples, mainly Asian, allow this.

Of course, you need to understand that when they talk about the taste qualities of frogs, they do not mean those green jumpers that are found in abundance in Russian swamps. Only frogs of a special breed are considered edible. In countries where there is a long culinary tradition of eating frog meat, it brings good dividends, but is it possible to organize a similar business here?

Preparatory stage

There are two ways to raise frogs for sale: in open water or in artificial conditions. In the first case, the technology for breeding and keeping amphibians is much simpler. The costs of creating the necessary infrastructure are also significantly reduced. The downside is that during the cold period the frogs will go to the bottom and stop reproducing.

Raising frogs for meat in a special insulated hangar allows you to successfully solve this problem - if suitable conditions are created, reproduction continues all year round, which provides the enterprise with greater turnover. However, cost-effectiveness calculations show that the first option is still preferable, that is, breeding frogs in their natural habitat.

The fact is that continuous breeding is associated with the need to create special conditions. First of all, this is a separate insulated room with an area of ​​at least 20 square meters. m. It contains terrariums - special glass containers, the cost of which is about 7 thousand rubles. The water in terrariums must be maintained at 25-27 degrees, for which heating devices will be needed in winter. In addition, it will need to be cleaned regularly, passing through filters, which also cost money.

All this will cost a tidy sum - at least 100 thousand rubles. For comparison, when using an open reservoir, the main expense is only the installation of special barriers to prevent frogs from escaping. Thus, your own frog breeding business begins to pay for itself almost immediately, while it will take several years when growing indoors.

In general, the best option for organizing such a business is a joint one in a pond, which was originally created for fish breeding. In this case, costs are reduced to a minimum, and such a neighborhood only benefits the man-made ecosystem.

Types of frogs and breeding features

Today, only three types of frogs are eaten: pond frogs, lake frogs, and also the edible frog, which is a hybrid of the previous two varieties. For Russian natural conditions, the edible frog should be considered the most suitable, since it is most adapted to our climate.

Starting a business raising frogs for meat from scratch, you will have to take care of purchasing eggs, from which tadpoles will then hatch. You can, of course, take a sexually mature pair of already adult frogs, but due to certain circumstances this is much more difficult to do.

Firstly, you can buy healthy adult frogs only from those who are seriously involved in breeding them, and such entrepreneurs are unlikely to want to breed competitors. Secondly, in this market there are a large number of scammers who, taking advantage of the insufficient level of knowledge of novice businessmen, can try to sell him defective individuals.

Therefore, the option with caviar, which can be bought at large pet stores, still seems preferable. The eggs should be placed in an environment suitable for the emergence and further development of tadpoles. It is better if at first they are kept not in a reservoir, where they have many natural enemies, but in small artificial reservoirs. For these purposes, you can use prefabricated pools or plastic vats with earth poured into the bottom. Along the edges of improvised frog incubators, it is necessary to build earthen banks that are regularly moistened.

Tadpoles develop very quickly. In just 4 months they can be released into open water, and in a year they will reach marketable condition, when they can be caught and sent for processing. In this case, it is better to leave large individuals for reproduction. With this approach, it is possible to maintain the number of livestock at the required level without problems and additional costs, because one female can lay about 15 thousand eggs per year. The only drawback is that tadpoles hatched from eggs reach sexual maturity only in the third year.

Feed base

Edible frogs can grow to very large sizes - the maximum weight of mature individuals reaches 1.5 kg. Of course, this result is rather an exception, but still, a frog weighing about 1 kg is not at all uncommon. Naturally, for an amphibian to reach such a size, it requires a lot of food.

The diet is based on animal food, mainly arachnids and cockroaches, which can be purchased at special pet stores. In some cases, even mice or small lizards can be used. However, when raising frogs for meat in open water, natural resources are most often used, which can significantly reduce the cost of the feed supply and, as a consequence, the finished product.

To do this, light sources are installed above the surface of reservoirs in places with the greatest concentration of frogs, which are turned on at nightfall. This attracts a large number of insects, which the frogs catch and eat.

Sales of finished products

But the biggest difficulty with raising frogs for meat associated with the sale of finished products. As a rule, captured frogs are killed with a blow of a mallet, after which the skin is removed, cut up, frozen and in this form packaged in bags, resulting in a product ready for sale.

Potential consumers are restaurants and supermarkets, although the latter, of course, to a lesser extent, especially in the periphery. While in Moscow, St. Petersburg and a number of other large cities the fashion for frog legs can already be considered fully established, in the provinces such a product is still viewed with suspicion.

And yet, some Russian supermarkets are happy to purchase frog meat, with the wholesale price being 4.8-5 thousand rubles per kg. If there are conditions for deeper processing, you can organize the production of an exotic snack for beer - dried frog legs with pepper and other spices.

You should also not lose sight of such a factor as the lack of clear regulations for the trade of such meat. After all, in order to sell frog legs, you need to obtain appropriate permission from veterinary services, which themselves do not fully understand how to work with such a product and draw up permitting documents.

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Agricultural products include a huge number of animals, the meat of which is ultimately delivered to the table of the final consumer. But if you don’t surprise anyone by raising chicken or pigs, then an edible frog still seems exotic. Nevertheless, in the dishes of many cuisines around the world, this delicacy is used along with our usual products, being considered healthy and nutritious food. At the same time, as practice shows, raising frogs is quite simple, and the price of their meat is still high, and many entrepreneurs are seriously thinking about such a somewhat unusual type of business as selling frog legs (they are the ones used for food). At first glance, such an undertaking seems extremely promising and very profitable, but is it really that simple?

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In Russia there are already farms for breeding frogs for sale as a food product. Many of them are based in the south and central part of this country because these amphibians can only live in mild climates. However, the level of competition cannot be called serious; by entering the market with an offer of frog legs, you can easily find many customers. But there is also a possibility that you simply will have no one to sell the finished product to, it will turn out to be completely unnecessary, including no one’s and your competitors’.

It may be of interest to cafes and restaurants specializing in exotic cuisine. Contrary to popular belief, frogs are used as an ingredient in dishes not only in French cuisine, but also in Chinese, Thai and Southeast Asian countries in general, as well as in Italian, Spanish and Greek. That is, if you have ready-made frozen goods, the first thing you should do is make an offer to these potential customers.

The next step is large supermarkets and hypermarkets that sell frozen frog legs for the most sophisticated customers. Still, there is a considerable percentage of people who strive to diversify their home cooking.

And finally, you can try to reach foreign consumers by exporting a similar product.

Despite a sufficient choice of implementation methods, it is quite possible that you will encounter a lack of demand at all. Russians are not accustomed to eating croaking amphibians, and even in large cities, dishes using frog legs can be found in only a few restaurants. It is clear that in the provinces things are only worse (and there are no hypermarkets in them to be able to sell paws at least to housewives). But still, when searching for restaurants suitable for the theme, you should not just offer to purchase a frozen product, but conduct tastings; here you will need a recipe and reasonable cooking skills. You can also visit exhibitions dedicated to the culinary arts; restaurant chefs often appear there and, having appreciated the merits of frog meat, may be interested in buying it.

The next problem that you may encounter is the lack of clear technical regulations for working with such meat in the legislation. To sell meat, like any other, you will have to contact a veterinary service, but do not be surprised if they themselves do not know how to check and register such a product. Even the general classifier of entrepreneurial activity does not have a separate code for amphibians (for example, there is one for reptiles), so it is used (OKPD 2) 01.49.19 Other living animals not included in other groups. Also, for further work, when registering, the entrepreneur must indicate (OKPD 2) 10.1 Meat and meat food products and (OKPD 2) 10.9 Prepared feed for animals.

In general, in the first stages of work and when encountering the bureaucratic apparatus, you need to be prepared for difficulties and expect unforeseen difficulties. It may not be possible to get by with a simple amount for registration; you will have to issue complex and long-term permits - it’s just that agricultural (and indeed any) products in Russia are not accustomed to the frog business. It is best to have 100 thousand rubles in reserve to resolve all legal issues.

Ready ideas for your business

If all permits have been obtained and potential clients have been found, then you can begin directly breeding the future delicacy. There are three species that are eaten: Pelophylax lessonæ (pond frog), Pelophylax ridibundus (lake frog) and their hybrid Rana esculenta (edible frog). As is clear from the name of the latter, this particular species is mainly used for food, and such individuals also live in their natural habitat. To find such an animal, just visit the pond in the warm season; amphibians love to bask in the sun and catch several individuals. However, you need to have knowledge about catching frogs and their physiology in order to have dioecious animals for breeding. If your knowledge of biology leaves much to be desired, you can purchase already caught frogs or their eggs, but it may be difficult to find a supplier. After all, if someone is already engaged in a similar business in the area directly proposed for business, there is hardly any point in starting such a business. There are amphibian hobbyists who breed them for their own pleasure, but such people tend to keep more exotic species, as well as those who keep amphibians for sale as food. Often it is enough to contact a zoo or pet store; in the first, they may agree to sell you animals prepared as lunch for some python (sometimes in zoos with access to some pond, entire frog colonies are bred, serving as a source of food for the animals), in the second, they may simply end up captured by some by a lover of individuals that the pet store took for free for its own assortment. The great advantage of breeding frogs as future meat is precisely that it does not require a species specially bred by breeders or even one that simply does not live in nature, but rather ordinary inhabitants of local rivers, swamps and lakes. After catching or purchasing amphibians, you can return home to raise them.

Breeding frogs is still a branch of agriculture; it is quite possible to keep them in a large city apartment, but in order to make a serious profit, considerable space will be required. If you have your own house in a rural area with territory, you can populate amphibians there, the main thing is that there is access to a reservoir with running water. Frogs, of course, often settle in swamps, but standing water is bad for the health of the desired species. At the same time, the improvement of the nursery involves only restrictions that prevent the escape of amphibians; frogs will be able to independently find their own food from insects flying by, crawling arachnids and other small animals. At night, near the amphibian pond, you can light a lantern, which will attract many insects, which will become breakfast for the awakened frogs. If there is not enough food for your pets, you can use fertilizer, which consists of the main diet of frogs - the same insects, crustaceans, arachnids and even small fish. Also make sure the water is clean, it should not stagnate, there should always be at least a slight current to prevent swamps. Also take into account the depth of the pond, because a timid animal will hide, burrowing into the bottom silt, from where it can be problematic to get it out.

Ready ideas for your business

If you already have a fish farm, then amphibians can be placed with fish (the main thing is that they are not very small); these animals eat different foods, and their cohabitation will only have a better effect on the small ecosystem of your nursery. It is worth noting that the frog becomes ready for consumption only after the year of birth, so the first profit can be obtained only after this period. It is better to leave the largest individuals for reproduction; one female lays up to 15 thousand eggs per year, so the number of pets will begin to recover during the next breeding, which allows you to select a large number of frogs, but smaller in size than breeding individuals. In this case, no special equipment is required; the caught amphibians are killed with a hammer or beater, after which the skin is removed and the hind legs are separated. It is likely that a veterinarian should be present during this process (the local service, if necessary, will immediately inform you about this if you contact them in advance), who will confirm the fact of correct slaughter and give permission for further examination of the meat. After this, the legs are packaged in kilogram bags and sent for freezing, awaiting further transportation.

So, to open your own frog farm in the countryside on your own plot, you only need refrigeration equipment and carpentry skills in constructing fences. You may prefer to prepare the packaging for fresh legs yourself, but then you will need additional equipment; It’s much easier to order packaging bags from the relevant companies. If you are going to export meat from the country or sell it to supermarkets, then in addition you will need a label, but to restaurants it can be supplied simply packaged. If we take into account the worst case scenario, and problems arise with registration, for which the entire above-mentioned amount of 100 thousand rubles will have to be spent, then the starting capital should be about 130 thousand rubles, which, in addition to paying for documentation, will include refrigeration equipment and packaging. An additional expense may be the purchase of feeding, but usually frogs are able to provide themselves with food. The downside to keeping frogs outdoors is the winter period, during which the amphibians will go to the bottom to overwinter, and you will have to wait until spring to get a new portion of meat.

The situation is completely different if you decide to breed frogs in an apartment. It should be noted that it is unlikely that it will be possible to achieve large production volumes, because, for example, for 50 kilograms of frog legs, about 600 animals will be required. However, for the initial entry into the market you won’t need a large amount of meat, so if you have a free room, you can set up a nursery for frogs there. For a room of 20 m2 you need to purchase about 8 terrariums for 7 thousand each. Half (about 30 centimeters) of the terrarium should be filled with water, on one side you need to make something like land onto which the amphibians will crawl out. In captivity, these animals are much less mobile and require constant food, but catching them is much easier. The temperature in terrariums needs to be maintained between 25° and 27° Celsius, and a heated room in winter and drawn curtains in summer can do this well so as not to overheat in the sun.

Water for frogs needs to be changed every 3-4 days, after passing it through filters or allowing it to settle - chlorinated water can kill amphibians. You will also have to control the number of offspring, since in the absence of cold weather, frogs can have up to 4 mating seasons per year. It should be noted that sexual maturity in the species Rana esculenta begins at three years of age, so when purchasing caviar you will have to wait exactly that long until the first offspring, which is not economically profitable.

Ready ideas for your business

A business keeping frogs in an apartment is less profitable compared to breeding in a natural reservoir, it significantly reduces production, requires more significant investments and pays off much longer. In case you actually manage to establish good distribution channels, you will face a problem where it is impossible to satisfy the needs of customers. However, when starting such an endeavor, you have the opportunity to test how well the business is going by starting to deliver just a few packages. The starting capital for breeding indoor amphibians will be 167 thousand rubles. This includes registration, refrigeration equipment (but in this case one refrigerator worth 10 thousand rubles is enough), packaging (a thousand rubles for a small batch, no more) and terrariums. Also, about 5 thousand will be the monthly expenses for food and utilities.

Selling frog legs will be justified when you can sell 85 kilogram packages per month. Each of them will take 10 frogs (their legs weigh from 80 to 120 grams), that is, 850 amphibians will be sent to slaughter every month. This will allow you to receive a monthly income of 29,750 rubles (the cost of one package from the manufacturer is on average 350 rubles). At the same time, sales will begin only after a year, and for indoor breeding the amount will be even less (although it all depends on the size of the room where you keep frogs). But the costs of their maintenance are practically zero (rare feeding and utility bills), which will allow you to have a good additional income per month. However, a frog farm in an apartment is unlikely to generate significant income, which will justify your work only if it is not additional income, for example, for aquarium fish. Working in rural areas is also good because, if successful, expanding production will not be difficult, but in the city you are limited by the size of the room, and it is worth foreseeing options for renting a country house in advance.

The level of consumption of frogs in Russia has remained and remains, and most likely will remain quite low for a considerable time; a dish with frog legs seems alien, incomprehensible and absolutely uninteresting, and to some even disgusting. Restaurants will be able to become a distribution channel, but you shouldn’t count on selling large quantities, just like hypermarkets. The most promising direction so far remains export sales; in European countries, such a delicacy is not new, while, for example, in Italy and Greece the edible frog is not found, which forces it to import its legs from other countries. It’s worth starting with these directions, since people abroad will actually be willing to pay for such rare meat and will look at your business with an open mind. You can also turn to another direction - Southeast Asia, where they also willingly eat not only amphibians, but also insects and arachnids.

And finally, we must not forget that the remains of a killed frog, deprived of its legs, should not be thrown away. Firstly, its skin may be of interest for the production of clothing, shoes, leather accessories and the like. This area is also not developed, but again, due to the rare breeding of these amphibians, it is worth talking and making an offer to such companies. And, secondly, the frog’s body and offal can be used as food for many species of animals; it makes sense to turn to farmers and zoos, who are highly likely to buy a gutted carcass in order to feed it to their animals in the future. This can significantly increase profits and create a truly waste-free production with high profitability.

Matthias Laudanum

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