Hi my name is Jackson. I’m also known as Mr Jackson to the children and students who visit our farms for the school tours.
I have been working in the farm as the Operation Manager officially since last August 2015.
My fondest memories of my childhood was catching spiders, chasing (or being chased by) dogs, catching (and rescuing!) frogs. The whole farm was my playground. Looking back, I only realize now how blessed I was in being able to experience a very “Kampong” childhood.
Like my sister, the Frog Princess Chelsea, I have never envisioned myself working in a frog farm.
Unlike my sister however, I have always been more introverted. Therefore, there was a huge initial struggle for me to conduct tours, especially engaging the pre-schoolers. I had to overcome my personal obstacles for my family business. Much like how tadpoles cannot be comfortable with the water in order to grow into a frog, I had to step out of my comfort zone to seek for “land”.
Jackson conducting tour in Dec 2015. All smiles and confident!
Working in the farm myself has made me realize the amount of hard work and effort that my father and sister has dedicated over the years.
Things are probably easier outside as well. When a typical day of work ends, you go home and don’t worry about a thing. Over here at the farm, orders for frogs can come at 10pm and sometimes even 12am or 3am. You will wake up at 5am in the morning to process your orders so that the workers are able to process the fresh frog meat orders for the day. Work is always on our mind. Farmers never rest.
Brother, Father & Sister together in Esquire Photo Shoot August Issue 2016
While work might be relentless and the hours might be irregular, I have also grown appreciative of the close proximity and time I get to spend with my family.
This 29 Oct 2016, we celebrate our fruits of labour for JFF 35th Anniversary! We commemorate and the effort continues to ensure another 35 productive years of farming frogs.
Hello! My name is Kayleen aka Ribblette The reason why I chose this nickname is because frogs go “ribbit, ribbit” so, I decided to add in “lette” to feminize it! This is my 2nd week in JFF as an intern. I chose this internship because I am not afraid of frogs and I like how I get to have lots of social interaction with not only frogs but also the tour participants. I am an extrovert and I love to soak in the energy mingling with people! Besides the above, I hope too that my time here as an intern in JFF would help me to discover more about myself and apply what I would learn here for all my future endeavors.
I look forward to the opportunity to be hosting you around the farm!
Jurong Frog Farm is participating in the Green Living Eco Lifestyle Event http://www.green-living.com.sg/ under their Sustainability partner, Gardenasia’s incubation platform, tomorrow till Sunday (9 – 11 Sep), 10am to 7pm at Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre.
This year’s Green Living Eco Lifestyle Event is inspired by the central theme “Cities of Love”. It advocates the love for our home & country by learning, experiencing and adopting green products to lead a modern and convenient lifestyle, while minimizing the negative impact of our consumption to the environment and society.
Going “Green” (just like our frogs), recycling and minimizing consumption has always been a key social responsibility of JFF. While we strive for a modern and convenient lifestyle, we cannot forget that there is nothing convenient about raising crops and breeding frogs. It takes a lot of time, patience and tender loving care by our farmers.
JFF is also pretty serious about bio recycling on their farm! We will be bringing out a 100% locally sourced and manufactured product, our bottled Premium Hashima with American ginseng and also Specially Selected Dried Hashima to this fair. Sampling will also be available on request!
So next time when you are busy gobbling down the Frog Porridge in Geylang or gobbling down our Buttermilk Cajun Frog Meat or Royal Hashima Dessert at our Farm. Please take a breather to remember the farmers’ effort that goes into that cultivation of all those frogs.
Adopt a green living lifestyle today and you can certainly start by finishing all your food at mealtimes today!
Hey! Frosch here! Let me croak some thoughts on the last week of internship here!
It has been 4 ½ months here as an intern and it is a really good exposure to all the work and the tasks given to me here. I was accepted to a humbling (and busy) small family business in this amazing company, Jurong Frog Farm, has given me so many opportunities and responsibilities for a SME with a small amount of workforce compared to those big ones.
At first I didn’t know about there was a frog farm in the first place but all I know there are other farms like the Goat Farm and many aquaculture farms which amazed me that all of them are located at the same place, Kranji countryside. I also didn’t know that farms have actual land lease and they are ‘expiring’ this 2019 (2017 initially) to create urban and also military development on this land. It is sad that this land full of heritage and history that can be used as a real life exposure to educate the public on how farming and hardworks taken away.
I still remember the first day working here, I was completely overwhelmed with the job scopes given to me and the things needed to be done like Housekeeping, packing, design collaterals, customer inquiries, event planning, logistics management and Retail Management. I felt scared and easily nervous if things didn’t go the right way during the job. Also, when Jackson first introduced me to the frogs to test my fear, I just carried the frogs like how Jackson showed it to me. This is to show that I’m not scared of the frogs in this farm.
From there, there were dry runs for tours, which I am not very comfortable with it at first and my sentence structure when I speak was not very good at all. But over time the few dry runs and more exposure to many real tours made me confident to speak to a larger group and also improve what I am going to say in the tour. Not only that but, learning about crowd control by giving them mini activity like saying “give me one froggy clap!” would get their attention by clapping and say ribbit in return. Of all the tours I have done, Gabbe’s Adventure is my favourite because I love kids and most of the pre-schoolers in my past tours are nice and very kind too!
After experiencing and observing many tours, I felt more confident and responsible in taking my actions in the tours which these values can be used in real life too. I felt that I also have changed outside work, becoming a more useful by paying more attention to details especially the emotions and the actions of my friends and family.
Throughout the whole internship, I have learned about the work ethics in and office and also outside by being in the presence and also having sense of urgency by knowing the work should be done the right way. There are quite a number of challenges I faced, like dealing with mistakes with e-mail ( I had to call the customer right away to rectify), dealing with stock shortage (I have to recommend other product), language barriers and dealing with the assignments when I am supposed to finished.
Lastly, I would like to thank Jackson, Chelsea and Zheng Xun for guiding and being patient with me throughout the 4 ½ months, the other workers who help me out with the frogs, the house helpers for the food and last but not least, Mr and Mrs Frog also helping me out when I had trouble in the shop and deep fryer station that suddenly spoiled during the Farmer’s Market, I panicked during that time.
This company taught me so much and gave many opportunities for me, it is really an honour working with every one of you and I promise, these skills and work ethics will be one of the best takeaways for me so I can apply to another real working environment.
Signing off,
Muhammad Azrul B Akashah a.k.a Frosch
Photo credits: Mr Andy Tan & Son from St. James Kindergarten (featured), Kids from Discovery Camp (below)
Want to know where to buy our FROZEN Frog Legs and get our Jurong Frog Farm ‘Go Green’ recycling bag FREE?
We have a Promotion going on right now! Buy every 2 packets of Frozen Frog Legs at selected NTUC FairPrice Supermarket outlets and get 1 Jurong Frog Farm ‘Go Green’ Recycling Bag for FREE.
You can find this promotion available at the Selected NTUC Fairprice supermarkets over here:
AMK Hub Hypermarket Fairprice Xtra
53 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3, #B2-26, Ang Mo Kio Hub, 569933
Toa Payoh HDB Hub Fairprice
500 Lorong 6 Toa Payoh, #B1-32/#01-33, HDB Hub, 310500
Bedok Mall Finest
311 New Upper Changi Rd, B2-60 Bedok Mall, 467360
Century Square FairPrice Finest
2 Tampines Central 5, #B1/07/08/17, Century Square, Century Square, 529509
Look out for this sign at the Seafood Section of the supermarket and grab your Frozen Frog Now!
To find out other NTUC FairPrice outlets* that carry our Fresh Frog Meat and Frozen Frog Legs, please click on this link: https://jurongfrogfarm.com.sg/recipes/
Go Green Go Local! While Stocks Last!
*other outlets may carry our Fresh Frog Meat or Frozen Frog Legs but are not part of the promotion as stated above.
Earth Day is usually celebrated every 22nd April annually to inspire, challenge ideas, ignite passion, and motivate people to action to demonstrate support for environmental protection. By this Environmental movement, it helps to create awareness to one another. From what I feel, one day event is not enough to create a sustainable environment.
Human activities and actions on this weak and fragile natural environment had caused so much destruction that population of different species of lifeforms went down drastically overtime. Frogs as bio-indicators (species that can be used to monitor the health of an environment or ecosystem) are known to be found in places with clean wetlands or waters that are suitable for the ecosystem to thrive. Ecosystems suddenly affected by human intervention like deforestation or invasive species (Habitat Destruction) or even excessive use of harmful pesticides would definitely have a high chance of killing the frogs. Global Warming or pollutions that affect water bodies or land would further increase the chances of death to the frog population.
This is why Earth Day should be every day, applied to our daily lives so all of us will play our part in saving the environment.
So.. How can we save them?
Okay! Since most of us live in the urban and city area, there are a number of ways that we can save them and also the environment.
Practice more of the 3Rs (and 1P)
Expanding in this part, the most important and the top priority of all before the 3R is, ‘Prevention’. This means to prevent and avoid items and materials that will take too long to degrade in the environment (e.g. Bring your own Recycle bag in replacement of plastic bags)!
Save water
Frogs need water and we do too. Just take the amount what we need and don’t let unnecessary left running dirty..
Do not litter (or pollute)!
You wouldn’t want to live in a dirty environment, don’t you? Throw your litter in the appropriate bins, it’s not that hard!
Save Electricity
More fossil fuels are used to create electricity and as well more heat. As more heat generated, this would increase the temperature of the global warming which is undesirable.
Do not release non-native species into the wild!
This non-native species can be invasive species that they might hunt down the population of the native species to extinction. We wouldn’t want that to happen.
SPREAD THE AWARENESS
The one of the most important factor of all. The more people that we reached, the mouth-of-words will eventually reach to other people exponentially. Gathering and sharing positive knowledge is the best thing that can ever happen in mankind.
It is amazing how some frogs care for their young when frogs are generally known as ‘Cannibals’. There are quite a number of species of frogs that have their own ways of ‘parental care’ which is unusual and also interesting depending on how the anatomy of the frog (or toad) is OR just their own instinct. So, let’s learn more about them!
Marsupial Frogs (Gastrotheca)
Why are they named as ‘Marsupial’ Frogs? Well, the answer is obvious. Pouches, just like Kangaroos (eventhough is not really a real pouch for the marsupial frogs). About these amazing creatures in this frog kingdom, with the help of the male frog to gather as much eggs he can to relocate on the back of female frogs which the skin will then absorb the eggs into it to serve as a ‘pouch’ which is also known as the ‘dorsal brood pouch’. This method of ‘parental care’ is good because, usually many species of frogs left the eggs unattended in the wild and are expected to survive on their own since day one of hatching.
Giving you an example, one of the endangered species of the Marsupial Frog, Andean Marsupial Tree Frog. As the eggs are transferred to the back of the female frog and lasts for 5 to 6 weeks. During that point of time is when the eggs are ready to hatch into tadpoles inside the dorsal brood pouch of the mummy frog! Then, they are able to break out from the pouch of the female frog and continue their development from there where the metamorphosis will occur in a few weeks’ time!
Gastric-Brooding frog
Here comes my favourite part, the ‘mouth birthing’ of frogs. These frogs come with two different species Rheobatrachus silus and Rheobatrachus vitellinus, both can only be found in one place, Australia.
This is something that people should really appreciate this nature of animals, however, due to unknown reasons (more likely to be human intervention), both of the frogs with this kind of parental behavioural instinct are EXTINCT! But, the good news is that scientists are trying to ‘de-extinct’ them back to life!
As you can see from the 1st picture above, that is how the frogs care for its young. At first external fertilization will take place by the male, then the female would take the eggs or embryos into her mouth and swallow them. Most female frogs had around 40 ripe eggs, almost double that of the number of juveniles ever found in the stomach (21–26). This means one of two things, that the female fails to swallow all the eggs or the first few eggs to be swallowed are digested. But, the jelly coating of the eggs contains a substance that will help to stop the hydrochloric acid to digest the eggs. – Then when the hatches in to juveniles (or tadpoles), have this special mucus, to help to keep the mother’s stomach into a non-functional state. So, overtime the young developed in its mother’s body, her stomach grew larger and her lungs deflated and relies its skin to get oxygen to live [1].
Lets see how the mother frog sacrifice itself to care for her young and its body had to adapt just to bear her own children!
Glad you had enjoyed reading this article and thank you very much! Don’t forget to be kind to one another and love your mum for all the sacrifices she have made just to make you happy, live and grow. – Frosch
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If any images posted here are in violation of copyright law, please contact us (events@jurongfrogfarm.com.sg) and we will gladly remove the offending images immediately upon receipt of valid proof of copyright infringement.
My froggy Resources:
[1] : Tyler, M. J. (1994). Chapter 12, “Gastric Brooding Frogs”, pp. 135–140 in Australian Frogs A Natural History. Reed Books
Singapore Young Farmer’s (SYF) ‘Next Chapter’: ‘Froggy Ribbit Affair’ is a half day event on 24thof April 2016. It was a fun experience preparing for this event with the JFF team and I was relieved to receive good feedbacks from the participants during the event. We also had helpful volunteers from the SYF team and also guests from our neighbouring farms sharing that they really did had an amazing time with us!
If you are wondering who are the ‘Singapore Young Farmers”, they are the youth arm of Kranji Countryside Association powered by a group of dedicated 2nd Generation Farmers & volunteers, showing the importance of the farmer’s role and also the youth’s involvement in our community. SYF hopes to inspire and empower fellow young people to appreciate and take pride in this local farming community through the SYF activities and events like this!
This 2 hours long ‘Froggy Ribbit Affair’ event is a comprehensive tour which combines both ‘Fun with Frogology’ and ‘Frogolicious’ Tour Packages! One of the highlights was the cooking demo of Fried Frog skin Chicharrons and also Buttermilk Cajun Fried Frog legs!
Here are the photos of this event!
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For more information about the SYF and if your are interested to join the fun and the amazing activities they offer , do visithttp://www.sgyoungfarmers.com/joinus/
Who says frogs can only just jump and swim only? There are quite a number of species of frogs are able to ‘fly’! Actually, they don’t really fly like birds flapping its wings, instead they glide through air or, some say ‘parachute’ to just move from one place to another or run away from harmful predators too.
This ridiculously photogenic creature above, is the Rhacophorus nigropalmatus aka the ‘Wallace’s Flying Frog’ or ‘Abah River flying frog’.
Native to the Malaysian Peninsula and Borneo in the dense part of the jungle, this frog is able to glide with the help by spreading its webbed feet on its fore legs and hind legs on air. So, when threatened, it spreads its webbed feet and catch as much air resistance as it can to help them glide over around 15 meters or more to another neighbouring tree branch or all the way to the ground. They also has oversized toe pads that help them to land without getting them to hurt and stick to tree trunks too. Talk about how amazing creature they can be!
Hi! My name is Muhammad Azrul aka Frosch, your helpful and hopefully (going to be) amazing froggie guide who has just hopped into Jurong Frog Farm! Frosch is a German word for Frog and also a character name of a cat disguised as a frog from an Anime series ‘Fairy Tail’. The reason why I choose that because the attributes of the cat is positive and happy-go-lucky like me!
My first week as an intern here can only be described as busy! I was kept occupied as there were just so many aspects of the business to learn. It was tiring and scary at first but I still keep my spirit up.
The first few days I felt pressurized with the amount of work needed to be done and especially afraid on conducting the tour all by myself. When I did my first dry run of the ‘Gabbe’s Adventure’ with Mr. Jackson at the “hands on the frog” station, I felt relieved and in fact quite proud that I have stepped out of my comfort zone with this public speaking challenge!
I was even tasked to explain about the parts of the frogs to the kids of Swiss School in Singapore. From that experience, I was sure I’ll be a better frog guide/host for future tours! I also learned about more different things in the retailing sector where I got to learn the use of the cash register and the website systems used to manage online orders and tour bookings.
All in all, the week was productive and I was greeted with smiling and friendly customers who were patient with me knowing that it was the first week of my internship!
