Creating A Frog Hotel (These Guys have NEVER had it So Good..)

Рет қаралды 20,363

Күн бұрын

If you're living in an area that gets regular rain or humidity, chances are that you'll have seen a frog around your place, and probably right after the rain. But where does it go afterwards? Probably back to where it came from; be it in between brick gaps in the house, into the undergrowth of a plant, or in my case, back to the drains that flow the rainwater into the catchment to the water tanks. And if you've ever heard a green tree frog croak (call out to potential mates), you'll know it can get rather loud.
The frog hotel is made in effort of rectifying the frog's waywardness; be it in any of the examples listed above or from elsewhere, this design is made to make them never want to go back to their old "home" again. So much so, that they get water, a bed of rocks to mimic a shallow creek (where they'd usually be, if not around a house), generously-sized pipes, and light to attract food. This multitude of frogs is living the good life.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 - 00:14 CROAK!
00:14 - 1:32 Intro/Research
1:32 - 4:14 Components
4:14 - 7:09 Construction/Assembly Timelapse
7:09 - 8:01 First Draft
8:01 - 8:38 Correcting the Light Post
8:38 - 9:19 Overview of a Frog's Environment
9:19 - 13:32 Family Room Upgrade
13:32 - 14:11 Where Frogs are Found
14:11 - 15:59 Why the Buckets?
15:59 - 16:11 Got the Life...
16:11 - 18:00 Frog Hotel Purpose and Hyperlapse
18:00 - 18:29 Conclusion/TFW

Пікірлер: 62

@ricardocalderon9823 4 күн бұрын

Charging $130 for a clay pot, gravel, pvc pipe and a mini frog statue is crazy.

@bigfellavideography 4 күн бұрын

yeah, that's because the novelty of something not a lot of people know about or have heard of, comes with a pricetag. I decided I could make one myself for a heap less, and made another two since then. the design possibilities are limited only by imagination.

@joshsmith3650 2 ай бұрын

My son is on a frog kick lately. This will be a wonderful father son project

@bigfellavideography 2 ай бұрын

awesome, I hope you can make something that'll be the envy of other frogs and humans alike! thanks for watching. 🐸

@joshsmith3650 2 ай бұрын

@@bigfellavideography haha. Will do!

@user-iv9os7du9x 4 күн бұрын

I have not seen a frog in years , always saw them years ago

@bigfellavideography 4 күн бұрын

they're around, often just hiding in places where you're least likely to find them.

@Moamanly 9 ай бұрын

Great work. Glad you brought up handling them with wet mitts. Probably good to mention also that you shouldn't use detergents or chemicals to "clean out" their pipes. I don't think I'd want them croaking from inside an echo chamber right outside my bedroom window though!

@bigfellavideography 9 ай бұрын

yes, a good point - I only ever clean out the pipe with a pipe cleaning brush and a sponge attached to it. they don't like human cleanliness as much as we do. this is a point I'll be making in the follow-up video, it has some subtle upgrades.

@moziebear0794 5 ай бұрын

The way you describe them is the same as many describe their teenagers. 😂

@bigfellavideography 5 ай бұрын

haha well that's kind of the way it is, I think it's a good comparison as they're oddly similar.

@metalhammerjimmy5663 6 ай бұрын

This is fantastic! I have quite a large population of beautiful green tree frogs living in the rusted-out posts of my front stairs which I need to fix. I'll definitely build some of these frog hotels for my frogs to relocate to. Thank you so much for doing this great informative video!

@HGCUPCAKES 6 ай бұрын

There’s Facebook ground about them and they share tadpoles.

@stocktherapy7374 9 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing in frog facebook group, very cute ❤

@bigfellavideography 9 ай бұрын

thanks so much for the comment and for watching. I might have a sneaky update to this pretty soon.

@Ju-qj8vx 9 ай бұрын

Awww...what a great idea! Never seen anything like this before...so thanks. Loved the intro ❤

@bigfellavideography 9 ай бұрын

@@Ju-qj8vx thanks for the comment, really appreciate the feedback.

@getreadyforthelamb 3 ай бұрын

I live in Florida and we have frogs like these, we had a house with accordian style storm window covers and they would hide in these in the day and my windows were covered with frog poop. And any place that was hallow, they would go into. We also have cane toads which are an invasive species, very poisonous to pets if they try to eat them. This would be better than them living in the storm window covers.

@bigfellavideography 3 ай бұрын

greetings from down under. welcome and thanks for watching. any frogs will make their home somewhere that's out of the way and out of sight to predators. unfortunately that means they can be hard to relocate when they have bespoke (custom) living arrangements, made by humans that care about their wellbeing. if they have the impetus (reasoning/drive) to go to something that you've made for them, it's because their lives wil be made better for them in the frog hotels rather than guttering, downpipes, accordian-style storm window covers, etc. cane toads are only an issue around the tropical and sub-tropical areas of Australia, and while invasive, they haven't made it all the way through the land (yet) and we keep stringent controls on how they're to be dealt with as an invasive pest. it's great that there's some international interest in these, and please share the video with your friends, thanks again. 🐸

@wayned5872 3 ай бұрын

Cool idea

@TheMistakenGarden 6 ай бұрын

Wow! What a great idea! I’m going to make one of these this spring ❤

@bigfellavideography 6 ай бұрын

glad to hear it. 🐸

@immaresellit 9 ай бұрын

interesting

@tamarahauner342 3 ай бұрын

this was a great watch, can't wait to make my own!

@bigfellavideography 3 ай бұрын

Hi Tamara, thanks for watching, and good luck with your creation.

@konsumterra1 7 ай бұрын

chatted on fb about showing one of your pi - this is great stuff

@bigfellavideography 7 ай бұрын

awesome, thanks for watching!

@shadesofidaho 6 ай бұрын

I am so going to make these for my yard. There are tree frogs here but I am sure they will love these houses. Thanks for the great how to on making them.

@bigfellavideography 6 ай бұрын

you're quite welcome, and be on the lookout for another video I have lined up for release later this month for a different take on the way a hotel can be structured. it may look budget, but it's a bit more complex.

@shadesofidaho 6 ай бұрын

@@bigfellavideography Great I just watched the improved version with the acrylic holder. Frogs go away here in the USA Idaho winter. So these hotels would need to be drained and put away. They would surely crack in out bitter often 10 below zero F winter temps. I just love my little froggies with the big voices. Here they call then Peepers.

@bigfellavideography 6 ай бұрын

@@shadesofidaho yeah that's another concern, here in Australia we don't get winters anywhere near as cold as yours, so we don't have to worry about cold frogs or any further maintenance like that

@shadesofidaho 6 ай бұрын

@@bigfellavideography Somehow in winter they find a place to survive. They usually can be heard again the first dy of spring. Sometimes you can hear one very slowly croaking when it is still far too cold for them to appear.

@angelstar1607 2 ай бұрын

I love that

@bigfellavideography 2 ай бұрын

thanks for watching/commenting, and for the sub! 🐸

@jamesscherping2461 Күн бұрын

Love this, look forward to seeing a toad house. Did you put water in the pot.

@bigfellavideography Күн бұрын

hi, thanks for the comment.. we don't have any native toads here in Australia as such, unless you include toadlets, etc. The only toad we have here was introduced to combat the cane beetle, and now the cane toad became its own pest, with poisonous glands and a danger to wildlife it comes into contact with everywhere. as for the pot, yes there's water in the base, coming up through the pipes. there's only enough to come to the top level of the pot, and that's plenty for the frogs to enjoy themselves in. 🐸

@myaraine9265 7 ай бұрын

Bromeliads plants are great for frogs too. Im inspired by your frog hotel creation, and Im going to use plants and your system together. Is a partial sunny/shade spot better for the frog hotel?

@bigfellavideography 7 ай бұрын

Hi Mya, bromeliads are the frog's natural house (so many people say) so that is encouraged. I used pipes because that's the environment I found them in and I wanted to replicate that. Nice to hear that inspiration breeds inspiration. A lot of people will make a frog pond/hotel for a mainly shaded area, but mine have an easterly aspect so the solar lights catch the morning/early afternoon sun and recharge, while the frogs dip into the bottom of the pipes to stay cool. In winter they just sit there and hibernate. My GTFs are very adaptable and can do either sun or shade. Thanks for watching.

@smcitaly1 2 ай бұрын

I'm so jealous of all those WTFs. How much water do you pit in the clay pot?

@bigfellavideography 2 ай бұрын

just like you see in the video, up to the edge of the rim of the pot. my frogs love dunking their little butts in the water, especially among the larger stones I've put in since making this video. thanks for watching.

@lucyfraser5836 7 ай бұрын

How ofren doyou need to clean them out?

@bigfellavideography 7 ай бұрын

not that often, only if a drop of AlgaeFix can't clean up the green water and the hotel starts to smell a bit because of a bug banquet. kind of like an aquarium, but this doesn't take too long.

@guyfanno1 6 ай бұрын

Where can they be placed? Shade sun? I am in Singleton NSW and we have frogs living around our house. We get 44 degree days in summer at it hottest and some negative degree weather in winter.

@bigfellavideography 3 ай бұрын

sorry I missed this comment, somehow slipped past the keeper. I made a cover for them based on some old sunshade and a clothes horse. it seems to work and keeps the water fresher a bit longer too. in winter they'll go into hibernation so they'll partially shut down and reduce metabolism, etc. they don't feel the heat or the cold the same way as we do, because they're cold-blooded animals. think of a snake going to sun itself to get the body warm enough to move quickly or digest a meal; the frogs are similar.

@ondy71 2 ай бұрын

Why a ceramic pot? Why not plastic. And if ceramic do you water seal them?

@bigfellavideography 2 ай бұрын

I guess you could use plastic, if you didn't mind having to replace it after a few years. plastic pots, at best, will be made of ABS, which will eventually give way to the weight of the rocks that it's supporting. I based my design off another I saw which used a ceramic pot, but it made sense to use it so I went with it. I water-tested this type of pot before making it a hotel, and there really wasn't a lot of water-leeching happening, so I left it as it was.

@ondy71 2 ай бұрын

@@bigfellavideography thanks. im off to bunnings now, hopefully ill attract heaps of frogs.

@donaldestwanick9776 5 ай бұрын

Have they ever layed egg masses?

@bigfellavideography 5 ай бұрын

not so far, but their numbers are fairly steady. I can't help but wonder if I'll see a batch of eggs in the new 'bin' hotel, which has such an area for the pregnant ladies. 🐸

@cindywindham9467 2 ай бұрын

Do you have any ideas of something other than a bucket to use for height? I would like to have something more beautiful to look at other than a bucket. Would painting the pipes be safe for the frogs?

@bigfellavideography 2 ай бұрын

yeah sure, you can use whatever you have at your disposal for height (mostly to keep the cane toads away), basically anything you can think of - perhaps a decorative pedestal or column of some sort - because tree frogs have the sticky pad toes and sticky bellies to climb things. for marsh frogs and the like, this wouldn't be suitable. I simply used whatever was available and suitable at the time, with no real thought to looks.. more function over form.

@bigfellavideography 2 ай бұрын

also, use water-soluble paints and you'll be fine, just prepare the surface properly so the paint won't flake or degrade.

@cindywindham9467 2 ай бұрын

@@bigfellavideography oh man, clearly, I have a lot to learn about frogs. The kind of frog I am trying to build a home for isn't a tree frog...I really don't know what kind it is. A common frog I guess. I live in the US and I don't think we get tree frogs, but I'm probably wrong about that too. Would I be wasting my time building this for a common frog? Currently, he appears on the rim of my pool, under the tarp, so I assume he lives in or around the pool somewhere. I'm taking my pool down today so I'm trying to build him a new home.

@bigfellavideography 2 ай бұрын

@@cindywindham9467 from what I've heard, you do get them, but they're significantly smaller than what we get here. for clarity, a tree frog is one that can happily stick to just about anything vertical, ie. trees, poles, pipes, etc. also ground-dwelling frogs will have more of a claw-like foot instead of the fat little suckers that tree frogs have. there are other solutions for those frogs, but they don't involve pipes, and are more based on the ground with a pot-plant base and a lid covering them (Google the images, you'll find them), and access via stuff like sticks, branches, etc.

@FeedingFrogs Ай бұрын

@@bigfellavideography In The North East USA we have lots of gray tree frogs. I'll try this.

@lloyd011721 5 күн бұрын

wouldnt they just multiply in those and make the problem worse?

@bigfellavideography 5 күн бұрын

what 'problem' is there? this is more about conservation of a species. yes, they should be breeding in the hotel, but I don't think the conditions are right for them for whatever reason. they seem to be breeding in other areas. regardless, there's always more neighbourhood frogs that make it over to the hotels, and quite a lot decide to stay.

@lloyd011721 4 күн бұрын

@@bigfellavideography the problem is that they are "infesting" house structures and stuff, which they will continue to do i think. yes, conservation is very important.

@bigfellavideography 3 күн бұрын

when they find somewhere they consider 'safe' and 'habitable', there's usually a correlation to where we live and where they try to live as well. but no, we don't live in toilets, other structural areas, etc. but they'll find the area that works best for them, and moving them from one location to another is a matter of tracking them down and shifting them into a hotel like this. I had similar issues at the house I'm at now; they were in the bathroom and wouldn't leave, but I haven't seen one come in since the hotels were created. 🐸