Bullfrog Farm

It's good to get away from the city to visit the farms around Lim Chu Kang for a while. Stephanie, the daughter from the Hay family brought me to the bullfrogs farm today. It was quite a frightening sight to see so many frogs congregated in one squarish well just waiting to be caught and tied in bags to be sent to the buyers. I'm not too sure why these 3 frogs are separated from the rest of the bunch, but I suspect they're there to rest or look after the tapoles or something, cos' in this particular well, there're tadpoles swimming around.


The bottom half of this enclosure, which u can't see from the pic, has a mini drain filled with water where bullfrogs pile one on top of another, lying motionless, their eyes just staring at the world. Because they blend into the water, all I could see were heads and eyes. It's such a Fear Factor in the making. Imagine swimming with them~! Eww, not that they bite, but the thought of being immersed in water with these creatures is just unbearable.

They are easily startled by any movement, presumably because they knew it didn't present positive prospects. I was naughty and wanted to test the frogs, so I pretended to reach in and that sparked off a movement - suddenly every frog was moving at the same time. The way they move is hilarious because they can't hop - the tiles are way to slippery for them to get a good leap - so what they do is to slide, hobble, slide. They will use their hind legs to push themselves in what would have been a leap, except they will slip and end up sliding in the direction they wanted to go. Some will frantically try to climb on top of another. I had a good laugh at them, although inside, I feel there's something quite sad about their lives. To be bred in captivity and then slaughtered and eaten. I mean, well they are meant to be eaten I suppose, but still, it's just a very depressing thought when I place myself in their position.

Like many of the other farms around, this one also caters to educational tours, so there are some tanks that separated the frog's life into stages, from tadpole with tail, to tadpole with tail and legs and finally to little frogs. It's somewhat gross to see tadpoles with long tails and small hind legs, they look mutated. The head is not properly formed and it's just a very alien sight. Reminds me of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Don't ask me why. The fully developed tadpoles, which are frogs, are so tiny and agile, I wonder how they grew so fat and heavy. Most of the adult frogs I saw in the square wells are so fat, they can hardly move.

Stephanie said the slaughtering of these frogs are a cruel sight, but that hasn't stopped her from eating frog's legs, cos' they are just too delicious. I haven't witnessed it yet, I don't think I'd be able to take it though. If I see any form of killing, that's probably going to stop me from eating, which is going to rob me of one of my favourite pleasures of life.