Frog Hotel Fast Fun Frog Friendly Team Building for 240 Australian Frog Species

It’s time to help our endangered frog communities by building a Frog Hotel with Staff Team Building and Conference Events that focus on environmental sustainability.

Let’s create and build a Frog Habitat to home more frogs. To croak together in a chorus cacophony of wonderful, glorious sounds!

From our friendliest cute frogs like the Australian Green Tree Frog – Litoria Caerula.

Let’s learn some fun facts about native Australian Frogs

• There are 39 species of local native frogs recorded on the Gold Coast and 240 in Australia
• Frogs absorb water through their skin
• Each frog species has it’s own unique call or croak
• Frogs frequently shed their skin, they eat it!
• Build a Frog Hotel. Plant it in the right place and teh frogs will come to inhabit your hotel.
• Frogs are ideal in our backyards, by our offices you will need to maintain or create the right environment to encourage them to live there.

Frog friendly backyards have five main features

• a moist environment
• places for frogs to shelter
• water to breed in
• insects to eat
• minimal invasive threats

Spotting rare frogs, only found in limited locations often around urban areas. Within the Gold Coast Southport is a beautiful Green Thighed Frog called Litoria Brevipalmata. THe Green Thigh Frog has light blue/green thighs with black spots. That are distinctive on their brown and black-striped body.

Distinguished by a repetitative ‘quacking’ call which only occurs a couple of nights each year. Typically after heavy rains have filled their ephemeral pond.
Find out more about rare Gold Coast and Sydney Green and Golden Bell frogs, with many other frog friends at FrogID.

Get croaking for your Free Frog Home Team Building Quote here.

Frogs need our help!

Frog habitat is declining due to the pressures of urbanisation and land clearing (among others)[i]; and more than 30 Queensland frog species are currently listed as endangered or vulnerable to extinction. Sourced from https://wildlife.org.au/how-to-build-a-frog-hotel/

In consultation with local experts, City of Gold Coast has identified 100 plant and 30 animal species as priority species for conservation. 

This list includes a number of frog species including;

• Giant barred frog (Mixophyes iteratus)
• Fleay’s barred frog (Mixophyes fleayi)
• Wallum froglet (Crinia tinnula)

Listen to the call of the Wallum Froglet. Keen to help map species distribution? Record your sightings via the NaturallyGC iNaturalist project.

Step-by-step guide to building a frog hotel

(by Ashleigh Miller and Allison Begnell)

Materials:

• PVC pipes in 3-4 different widths
• Bowl or tub that will hold water (if your chosen pot/tub has a drainage hole at the bottom, seal this with silicone)
• Small gravel or pebbles

Note:

If you are concerned about snakes, you can cut a hole in the side of the pipes. You could also purchase 3-way PVC pipe connectors at Bunnings or similar, then cut your original PVC pipes in half and attach together with the connector that has the third hole out.

Optional:

• Native water plants
• Large river stones or decorative rocks
• Solar light

Step 1. Cut your PVC pipes to random different lengths and sand back the cut edges so they are smooth.

Step 2. Arrange the pipes how you would like them to look in your chosen bowl or tub.

Step 3. Have an assistant hold the pipes in place while you scoop in the small pebbles/gravel around them until they stand upright on their own. Some additional gravel can be put inside each pipe for extra support.

Step 4. If you are adding a water plant, place it now so that the rim of the pot sits just below the edge of the outer bowl.

Step 5. Fill the rest of the bowl with gravel, decorative rocks or river stones if you would like.

Step 6. Fill the pipes and bowl with water. Your frog hotel is now ready for guests to check in!

Frog hotels are a TERRRRIficcccc way to encourage more frogs to visit your homes and gardens or backyards. Giving them a safe space to live in.

Teams building a frog hotel is easy and fun and you’ll be rewarded with a croaking chorus of froglet guests!

Other tips:

• You can also add a solar light in or next to the frog hotel to attract moths and other insects at night for the frogs to feed on.
• If cane toads are common in your garden, you can prevent them from accessing your frog hotel by placing it at least 60 cm off the ground. Frog hotels are designed for tree frogs which will have no trouble climbing up high to get to them.
• Check your hotel every few days and top up with water when necessary. It is best to use water that is chlorine and chemical-free. You can achieve this by purchasing a bottle of water conditioner from the fish section at your local pet store or standing a bucket of tap water outdoors for a minimum of 24 hours.
• Filling with water just up to where the rocks/pebbles will help to avoid too much mosquito activity,
• If you are using plants, make sure you choose ones that are happy to be in constantly wet soil. Some frog-friendly natives include:
  • common rush (Juncus usitatus)
  • bog primrose (Villarsia exaltata)
  • native violet (Viola hederacea)
  • frosmouth (Philydrum lanuginosum)

Check your local nursery’s water plant section for more ideas.

To prevent water from smelling and mosquitoes: 

• Flush out with a bucket of dechlorinated water every 3-4 days to freshen up the water.