Sorry for the lack of blog post last week, I blame lack of sleep, holiday plan chaos and generally just being busy. I’m going to attempt to cover the highlights of both weeks in this single post.
Last Sunday I was on the farmyard section. The first part of the morning was spent on cleaning out the chickens, chipmunks and rabbits:
While the rest of it was spent helping out over at The Studio, where we cleaned out the animals as well as mopping the floor and cleaning the windows, quarantine and finally we finished by cleaning out the skunks.
This is a picture of the inside of The Studio, it’s a VIP area of the zoo, closed to the general public but it’s quite nice in that it has pictures of the celebrities who have visited the park up on the wall.
The skunks were probably the main highlight of the day, although I have never had any issues with them before, the white skunk decided that he obviously didn’t like me and tried spraying me. Because of this, I quickly retreated and got to cuddle the other skunk, while one of the keepers quickly finished off the enclosure.
My afternoon was spent mostly with the rabbits. I had been asked to arrange the wooden logs and stones in the rabbit enclosures so that they looked nice and so that had things to hop onto and to get a few more bits and pieces for then. Below is a picture of one of the rabbits investigating one of the new pieces of wood I got from the woodland (this particular rabbit also got a brand new stone which she hopped on straight away - the rest, didn't seem particularly interested).
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Today, I was on Paddocks. The day started like any other paddocks day. The morning is always very hectic getting all the enclosures clean. After break, myself and one of the other volunteers went to clean out the wallabies, much to my delight, as it doesn’t take much to get me thinking about my impending trip to Australia! (Do you think this excitement will wear off, or am I going to be like this right from now until September?)
We then went up to the Woodland Walk to clear away some of the leaves inside the deer enclosure. I wish I had taken a ‘before’ picture, but this was ‘after’. With help from the keepers, we got quite a lot of it cleared away and it was looking very different by the time we left it to go to lunch.
The day just flew by! In the afternoon, we cleaned out Dippy’s room (Dippy is a wallaby who has been hand raised and can’t be put in with the others, therefore he has his own room next to the vet room), cleaned the outdoor area of the emus and fed the tapirs.
You may remember way back when I posted a picture of Thiago, the baby tapir. Well he is a bit bigger now and has lost his stripes. Here is a picture of him (front) and his mother having their evening feed.
This week’s facts, in order to be topical, are on our Australian residents at the zoo, the wallabies. I would do koala facts but perhaps I ought to wait until just before I actually go on my volunteer trip for those. ;-)
Facts of the Week
Wallabies
· There are about 30 different wallaby species which are subgrouped by the habitat they live in: shrub wallabies, rock wallabies etc.
· Although usually fairly small, they can measure up to 6ft from head to tail.
· They have strong powerful back legs to help them move around; while there arms are used primarily for feeding and sometimes to help balance.
· Their tails can measure the same length as their body and is used for balance.
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