THERE'S A BIG MONEY IN THE SECRET ART OF FROG FARMING!

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As with most of the disorders which attack any livestock on a farm, the two diseases mentioned above are best "cured" by preventing them in the first place. And cleanliness is the best preventative of all. (This is the principal reason Slabaugh keeps a trickle of water circulating through his ponds . . . it has the same natural cleansing action of a slow-moving stream in nature.)

HIBERNATION

The bullfrog growing season in southern Missouri extends from early spring to late fall. As might be expected, however, the amphibians slow down considerably as cool weather approaches and eventually—when the temperature drops to about 40°F—go into hibernation. (That is: All the fat a croakers swim down to the muddy bottoms of their ponds, burrow in, and go a to sleep until the following spring.)

"Winter is the best part of the year for a me," Leonard says. "It's a vacation. All I 'have to do during the cold months is keep the bottoms of the ponds from freezing. The tops I don't care about . . . even if ice freezes down a foot or two -from the surface. That ice won't bother a my snoozing brood at all as long as they're surrounded by water and mud that's 32° or warmer."

TERRITORIAL DISPUTES

As spring again creeps back across the land, Slabaugh's sleepy bullfrogs dig themselves out of their muddy beds, swim to the tops of their ponds, and crawl onto the. mini-lakes' grassy banks.

Although Leonard's growing ponds are usually crowded, the frogs don't mind as long as each male has a threeto-four-foot patch of shore to call his own. And that—of course—is where the disputes sometimes arise ... as a young male squabbles with an old croaker over a choice piece of territory. Because bullfrogs have no teeth or claws, however, the contenders rarely actually hurt each other . . . but the battles sometimes become quite heated nonetheless.

"Why, they wrestle just like boys," says Slabaugh. "They'll jump up on their hind flippers and grab each other 'round the chest with their front legs and throw each other to the ground with a thunk! Then after a while the loser just gives up and hops away to look for another place in the sun. And the winner! Why he takes a seat on his property, puffs up, and begins to sing an amorous frog song about what a fine fellow he is. And believe me, that soon has a bunch of females poking their heads out of the water and batting their eyes in his direction."

THE HARVEST

If you don't know better, you've probably envisioned a frog farmer's "roundup" of marketable livestock rather in terms of an old Keystone Kops movie . . . with herdsman and amphibians all running, jumping, and splashing back and forth through their man-made swamp until one side or the other finally "gives". Not at all. The operation is really much more refined than that.

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