In a metal building on his 1,500-acre farm near Alapaha, Holyoak has established Ken's North American Reniculture Research Center, where he studies and raises bullfrogs. Holyoak said he doesn't want to sell frog legs. Holyoak said he studied frog farms in 33 countries, including China, Brazil and Korea, before perfecting his system. In the 1990s, investors poured money into emu and ostrich farming after marketers promised demand would go up for the lean meat of the big birds. The market never developed and most emu farmers were stuck with expensive, hungry birds they could not sell.
Bullfrogs are difficult to raise.
Holyoak estimates only 1 percent survive to adulthood in the wild because of an array of predators. They also eat each other, so they must be separated in captivity. Bullfrogs are fussy eaters, preferring live insects that wiggle in their mouths before they swallow. But Holyoak said he has trained his frogs to eat feed pellets. He said he has designed a feeding machine that mimics the movements of insects, but he's keeping it under wraps until he gets a patent.