Friends new and old

Hi Everyone, sorry my post is a little late this week; I've been a bit busy these past few days.

I once again had a great day at the zoo on Sunday. I was working on the farmyard section once again, but for the first time I actually felt quite comfortable with what I was doing when Josh did his usual disappearing act and left the rest of us to it.

The day started as normal, with us cleaning out the indoor enclosures. I'm getting a bit quicker at doing this now and managed to do two of them by yself... Basically the chore is this...

• Use a fork to pile up the still clean straw while removing the soiled/damp stuff.
• Sweep up any bits that are left.
• Hose down the floor (though this time Josh had us using buckets of water in an attempt to protect his newly painted floor).
• Remove any excess water and remaining dirt using a long handled squeege

Once done, I drew the short straw of taking the dirty straw over to the muck heap.

The time between break and lunch was spent cleaning out the rabbits with Maya one of the other volunteers. Though to be honest, she cleaned out the hutches while I spent my time chasing rabbits... Josh had asked me to check the rabbits over for any obvious cuts or lumps etc and only two of them actually wanted to stay still for me... I finally managed to pin down all but one and gave them a stroke all over.

The afternoon was spent doing the usual sweeping tasks and then we set about disinfecting the outdoor goat (and pig) enclosure which was a lot of hard work!

To finish the post this week I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce you to some new and old faces. Firstly, I wonder if you remember the sweet, little lamb that arrived at just one week old on my first week at the zoo (nearly 3 months ago). Well, he’s not so small any more...

Secondly, I wanted to introduce you to Thiago. Thiago is a Brazilian tapir who was born at Paradise Park on 4^th April 2010. This picture is quite old now but I think he’s probably about a month old here:

The second animal I wanted to introduce you to is one of the alpaca. I love alpaca, they have such sweet faces. They have five or six at the park and they’re one of the only animals who seem to enjoy being out in the rain. For some reason they all seem to have alcohol related names like Brandy and Whisky...

 Finally I end on a sad note, the park lost Crystal the beautiful hare that I posted a picture of a few weeks ago after a brief illness and so I just wanted to end this week’s blog entry by reposting that picture of her:

 This is going to be my last post for a little while I'm afraid as I'm not going to be at the zoo... This Sunday I am supposed to be going to the Taste of London festival and the following weekend is Glastonbury. After that, I'm off on holiday to Kenya for my Earthwatch expedition. I can't wait!!