Two weeks for the price of one

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).

-----

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.

New Arrivals at the Farm!

This morning I stumbled bleary eyed with my travel mug filled with tea over to my car. Spent 5 minutes de-icing the car windows with my hands shivering (Karin & Andrew I’m very jealous of your summer right now) and then disaster struck. My car battery went dead.

No zoo for me today :-(

And so, instead of going today, I thought I’d write you the blog post that has been outstanding all week (I’ve been meaning to do it really I have but my blogging website is one of those (seemingly random) websites which kills our internet connection. Hence I have to carefully prepare everything so that I can get in and out in the space of a few minutes (before it notices I’m on there).

So last Sunday was my first week back after Christmas (and the previous bad weather) and got placed on the farmyard section. This has got more interesting the last few times; as well as looking after the farm, the section is also responsible for the Studio and all the private areas and the last few times I’ve been asked to carry out tasks there as well.

I start with some bad news, the last time I was in (back at the beginning of December); Doris the badger-faced sheep had just died. I don’t know the cause but I’m guessing it was purely old age – I think she had been around forever. She was a lovely sheep, always after food and you had to try and clean out her enclosure with her in it, which she sometimes mad incredibly difficult.

I feel I should place a picture of her here but I’ve looked through my catalogue of photos and for some reason I just don’t seem to have one. Though there could perhaps be one on my other camera. If there is, I’ll add a photo later.

Edit: I found a photo on my other camera. Here's a picture of Doris with Rodney the rooster who used to share her enclosure.

There were a couple of new arrivals in the farm, two, quite frankly, adorable little ponies. Here they are:

Ok, so I have a major soft spot for anything equine and these were no exception. I was talking to Josh who runs the section, apparently one (Pegasus, with his head over the fence) has other shows to do and so will be leaving the zoo again very soon, however he’s hoping that they’ll be able to keep the other one for a longer period of time.

I’m not sure that Nancy will enjoy a continued presence however, since I’ve already made her share the carrot that I managed to hoard for her.

As I mentioned, I’ve now been given the opportunity to care for the animals which are kept out of the public eye, these are some of the ones used for the shows.

In the Studio itself there are 4 cages, 2 belonging to little tiny hedgehog type creatures, one so a snake, and the other to a pair of bearded dragons.

Outside, there are two enclosures for meerkats, including a couple of babies, and then in another small building there are currently two enclosures for skunks. There is a picture of two of the skunks – It’s not the best picture since my basic camera struggles indoors and it’s not easy to take a clear picture of albino skunks with the flash.

The white one decided to get out of the enclosure and walk around the room for a bit. Which I was told they do, but of course I was worried because having never done it before, I wasn’t sure how to get them in again, but eventually she just wandered back in on her own and I (as usual) was worried for nothing.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable day and I loved being back at the zoo. I’m kind of sad that I’m not at the zoo today, although to be fair Neal did give me a battery and jump leads so I could go and then get myself back again, but I’m going to spend the day working on my Earthwatch presentation instead.

Nancy and the farmyard

This week and last week I was working on the farmyard section of the zoo. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with this section. I love the pigs, and enjoy cleaning out their enclosures and the small animal cages – the chinchilla, mice and rats etc; but I simply can not build up any enthusiasm for cleaning out the rabbits.

I think it would be fine if there were only 4 or 5 rabbit runs to clean out, but there are 13 of them and it’s one of those jobs which simply seem to take forever!

I don’t really have much in the way of farm news with which to entertain you. Here is a picture of one of the goats which I took on Sunday. He/She definitely seems to be the boss of them all!

One of my favourite animals at the zoo is Nancy the pig and I thought today I would spare a section of my blog just for her. Nancy shares an enclosure with her sister Harriet and I try and go to see them every week and take them some carrot (normally I pinch a bit from the feed pot if I have to prepare it, or give them some of the food which has fallen the wrong side of the enclosure. Because of this they both tend to come straight over to me, if not, Nancy always comes when I call her.

This week I thought I’d try and take a nicer photo of her and she decided that because I was ignoring and not feeding her or giving her a scratch behind the ears, that she’d put her feet up on the wall in an attempt to get to me. This is the photo I finally got of her up on the wall. She was less than impressed with the flash though but I quickly made it up to her with anothe rpiece of carrot!

Despite being a bit hectic, I enjoyed my day and also spent time helping to prepare some of the meerkat feeds. Unfortunately there seems to be a real lack of volunteers at the moment which means that some weeks there is no one working on some sections, which is a great shame. It also means less variation for me because the paddocks and farmyard sections are the ones which require the help the most.

For my final picture this week, I thought I would introduce you to another relatively new member of the zoo. This is Houdini, a baby Bactrian camel. I always look forward to saying hello to her every morning!

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!!

Pigs

I was working on the farmyard again this week and once again I was entertained by Nancy following me around the edge of the enclosure and making me feel really guilty when I ignored her or had to leave to go and do something else. When I went to put spme hay in her enclosure she snuffled against my legs and climbed up me. I'm used to it with dogs but I never thought I'd have a pig do it to me!

The pigs are easily my favourite animals on the farm section and I was actually quite surprised to find out how intelligent they are.

This is T playing with his ball and pushing it aound his enclosure. I believe he's just over a year old and Josh has trained him since birth (he is actually the son of Nancy). He takes part in the 'Animal olympics' show and is trained to do things like sit and jump over hurdles based on different hand signals. Apparently he knows exactly which keepers he can get away with showing off with and has once before run off and gone back to his enclosure.

In other farmyard news,  the baby rabbits are doing well and are a lot more active now, running about their enclosure and interacting with the people around (although they're still a bit nervous about being touched). The lamb is huge - I had meant to take a photo to show you but I forgot.

The other animal I wanted to share with you today is my favourite resident of 'Bunny Town'.

This is Crystal who is a hare. You can't see it very well here but she is a beautiful reddish brown colour and has these fantastically huge feet and big ears!

I like working on the farmyard, but I'm hoping for something different next week... Otherwise I might run out of things to write about!!

Injuries and baby rabbits

It was a very wet day today and once again I was working on the farm yard section of the zoo.

The day started off much the same as the week before, cleaning out one of the enclosures, and then the chicken coops (which was new to me) and chinchilla cages.I was however brutally attacked by Rodney the rooster, who it transpired was hinting that it was time for breakfast! The culprit and my injury (a single peck to the knee) can be seen below:

After our morning break Deborah and I headed down to 'Bunny Town' to clean out the rabbit hutches; a task which isn't usually on my favourites list simply because it takes so long. Today was made much better however due to the baby rabbits who were finally visable.

These gorgeous bundles of fluff are 4 weeks old:

The afternoon was spent feeding the pigs and goats (I discovered that the pig without a name from last week is called Nancy) and doing some general sweeping around the farm section of the zoo.

One final picture to finish off. Please forgive the reflection of the glass but hopefully you'll be able to see it clearly (I hope to try and clean it up a bit). This is one of the lemar enclosures which is situated next to the farm where they currently have two babies. Here is one of them:

 That's it for today. Lets hope for sunshine next week!

Farmyard

Today I worked in the farmyard. It was the second time I had worked this section and I must admit I did enjoy it a bit more than last time.

They have new residents since I worked there in my second week and I started the day by cleaning their enclosure and giving them food and water.

The lamb who arrived with her mother the first time I worked on farmyard has grown big but is still very cute. Below is a picture of her when she first arrived.

After cleaning out the chicks, I cleaned the small enclosures (chinchillas, mice and rat) and was then sent over to 'Bunny Town' to clean out and feed the rabbits. I didn't get bitten this time, the one that bit me was locked in as she has just had babies - Perhaps that explains why she was so grumpy when I tried to take her bedding last time!

The star of the show this week was almost certainly one of the pigs. Unfortunately I don't know her name so I was just calling her 'Pig' but she started off by 'helping' Hazel and I clean her enclosure by checking through all the nice piles we had just swept, helping sweep by eating the broom and of course helping pick up the piles of dirt by shredding the black plastic bags we were trying to put them in to.

She was a sweetheart though and seemed to follow us around. If we were inside she moved to her inside enclosure and came outside as soon as we went out to sweep (I think she was missing her fellow piggy friend who was being kept inside today).Anyway, these are a couple of pictures of her shamelessly after fuss, food and attention!

I'm really very worn out now and I know that I will sleep well tonight but it was definitely worth every moment!