Monday 29 October 2012

It's Been Awhile

Hopefully will pick up again soon, got quite a bit going on right now.

Not quite dead yet xD

Wednesday 25 July 2012

A Different Sort of Fox Hunting

Was going to re-type all this into nice full articles but I'm lazy, so you'll have to deal with my brief notes that I need to elaborate on anyway for my assignment.

Monday 9 July
Aviaries - dodgey pigeon
- system of work
-rook
- one magpie that only eats chick

- couple of fox runs
-foxes fucking cute
-potential distemper outbreak
-barrier nursing
- lots of dishes to wash
-feeds, chum (puppy meat) and lots of chick for foxes chum for hogs
- top up corvids' feeds
-bunny sawed in half for fox cubs

Wednesday 11 July
-Small bird room
-Clean Feed Water
-ICU runs
-super cute ferret that ate a staff member
-changed bedding, let out in run
-'lost', and lack of interest in returning to hutch later in day
-Pole cats 1, system of work
-baby polecats system of work (changed bedding)
- fox cubs only eaten one bowl of chum and left 5 chicks, had to change bedding and they refused to leave box, had to enlist staff member's help
-dishes
-heron pool, fun splish splash, had to undo drain cover, elbow and knee deep in heron water
-more dishes
--should be an explanation of spider fox
-Spider fox got out in paddock
-spider fox hunting
-6ft thistles with thorns at eye height, elbow height nettles, towel,, fun, like hacking through jungle but more painful
-flushed him twice, left him, hopefully will go into humane trap
-top up pool 2 and corvid feeds
-clean up
-bunny sawing
-40 cockerels PTS




Now in South Africa,  getting my small truck license :D

Tuesday 3 July 2012

too tired to post properly

Thursday 28 June
Outside for the first time, cleaned outdoor duckling runs and a goose pond. Scrubbed and disinfected a vacated aviary. Washed up a lot, found it cute how all the hog food bowls matched.
At 3:30 someone remembered that more ducklings had been moved outside, needed to be let out and cleaned. both lots had drank all their water, surprised they all lived, was boiling in their cabins.

Friday 29 June
Started cleaning ducklings, small ones in incubator  had run out of food and water over night. Found two dead. After cleaning out incubator and replacing ducklings notice one was highly inactive, continued duckling cleans, regularly checking up on it. About 10 it took it to the orphan room where it was given fluids and put in its own small incubator.
Replaced water belonging to remaining 7 ducklings with critical care formula, this is mixed with water and contains a variety of sugars and electrolytes.
Duckling taken away from companions died.
Continued to check on remaining ducklings, while one was more lethargic than others it appeared to   gain health/energy as the day went on and was seen drinking, despite this he also died.


Between checking on ducklings helped with cleans and feeds in orphan and fledgling rooms.


Monday 2 July
Did cleans and feeds in duckling and fledgling rooms. Once I was taught how to force feed meal worms to house martins I did so hourly. Time consuming process, 11 birds who each needed two worms, and they're tiny! Was so scared of hurting them, accidentally let a few go too. Woops.


Tuesday 3 July
Worked in a different section,the isolation corridor, with ducklings and fledglings. Got to hold big cygnets, want one, they're really cute, warm and fuzzy. New teeny tiny ducklings in incubator, 6 that survived Friday had been moved into a pen. Saw a tawny owl chick, a buzzard fledgling, juvenile buzzard, curious black headed gull and a couple of little owls today too



Friday 29 June 2012

A Big One...

Keep meaning to update and really need to as otherwise I'll forget and when it comes to assignment writing I'll fail, so here it is.

Monday, 18 June
Was in the fledgling room for the fist time, this consists of quite a few shelves covered in as many cat carriers as possible. Most of the birds in there were pigeons, there were a few magpies, a jay and a baby jay.
Overall the feral and domestic pigeons were fine but the wood pigeons made frequent escape attempts and would fling themselves at you, or the carrier door when you went to change the food and water. Each bird in the room had to be taken out while the cage or carrier was cleaned, while out they were weighed, more importunity for the pigeons to act up.
Got to force feed a bird for the first time, the baby jay wasn't eating, although as the day went on it appeared to munch a little bit by itself.

There were also three crows in carriers on the top of a series of small bird cages, probably taller than me overall, so I still got to play with my babies :)
One of them was crazy though, would fling himself with as much force as possible to the front of the carrier, usually when I was stood beneath it. What made this rather worrying was that the carrier overhung the edge of the cages and tilted dramatically every time he did it O.o

Most of the pigeons, notably the wood pigeons, and the doves refuse to eat so are crop tubed Harrison's Juvenile mix. Was also the first time I skinned, de-yolked and hacked up chicks for the corvids to munch on, yummy :/
Wasn't too bad actually, I didn't scream or get all squeamish either

Tuesday, 19 June - Thursday 21 June
Was by myself in charge of the corvid room for these three days, with the exception of the Wednesday morning when I was helped by a Biovet student on her year long placement.
On the Tuesday several of the crows were taken to the outdoor aviary, to gain proficiency in flight before being released, while others went into the body bin for a variety of reasons. My favourite Fatty, with each leg ringed, is still in there though. He's awesome :D
Let a number of Jackdaws out, which resulted in me becoming a lot more capable of using the bird net, it was either that or ignore them until the next feed when they'd defectively try get back into the aviary for food, jackdaws are rather food motivated.
A fledgling crow, still unable to fly walked out the aviary once and seen surprised how easily he was caught up again. Although did lose him for a bit, it was only due to how few crows were left that I realised the red ringed one wasn't there, took awhile to find as he'd hidden under the sink.

Then there was the offal flinging crow. He had to be force fed chick, every second hour. He had a habit of grabbing the offered piece of flesh/organ and flung it onto me, or simply across the room. Was rather joyful.
Force feeding him involved catching him out up out of his carrier in a towel, setting him down on the table, levering his beak open and shoving the chick piece by piece as far down his throat as possible, although it was likely to be thrown up and flung if not done right.
Now forcing the beak open was interesting, and incorrect method was originally the reason that he'd be able to fling offal about. When presented with the meat on the end of the tweezers he'd happily grab it, and chuck it. What was easiest was to let him, if not actively encourage him to bite my fingers, then once I was in there, could either work the tweezers into the side of his beak, force it open like that and shove it down, or get another finger in and prise it open, the latter resulted in a wider gob opening and more effective chick-shoving-down-throat-ness. Although I was terrified of potentially breaking his jaw, with birds you can only force the lower beak, the upper is part of the skull. Was also a fear with the jay on the Monday and the one young Jackdaw that needed force feeding.
By the second day the offal flinging crow was eating chick by himself in his box, negating the need for force feeding and the third day saw the jackdaw taking food off the tweezerz while in his box with only minor encouragement needed. He was fed either the usual corvid mixture of dog/cat food and prosecto with occasionally some dog biscuits in, or simply dog biscuits soaked in water.

One of the jackdaws in a carrier that was, and had been for awhile, taking food nicely was moved into the aviary with the little flock in there to socialise and develop group behaviours as well as practicing flying.

Now there is a wide brimmed hat which you can wear while cleaning out and feeding in order to try and avoid getting your head crapped on, which I usually didn't wear. This was due to a mixture of daring, fearlessness and over confidence. But it surely makes sense that so long as you don't spend too long under the perches that your safe?
Pointed as much out to the vet, when he remarked on my lack of hat, he said I was obviously braver than him, put on the hat and did whatever he had to. Not long after that I went to clean out the crows....and guess what happened.
I  jinxed it.
Needless to say the hat was worn after that, also in part due to the fact that the magpies had started   using my head as a stepping stone while they hopped between perches rather than flying, and well, those little claws HURT, especially when it's done lots. So now I wear the stupid hat.

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Was going to do today and yesterday too, but too tired, will just do them tomorrow instead, nightnight

Wednesday 13 June 2012

Day Three

today (wednesday) was more fun then yesterday, yesterday I started with the little cute ducklings and ended up doing a lot of washing and tidying. mucked out the hedge pigs too. Ended up using my initiative due to lack of things to do at one point and folded and industrial laundry carrier thing's worth of towels and sheets. Not only was this thing full, but piled up to about my height.

Wednesday 13 June, 7:55 - 16:20
Today I was in the orphan room, fed the baby birds, some so small/young they're still in a heated box. They're fed Harrison's recovery mix, the ominvorous species have cat meat added to it. This is fed to them by hand, every hour, on the thin end of those tiny plastic spatulas, I want to call them make - up spatulas but not sure what their original purpose was. Anyway,this is kind of shoved down their throats, they don't seem to mind, some actively seem to try and impale themselves on it, which goes through me.
The ones that can eat for themselves or that are starting to are fed prosecto (squished bugs), a mixture of seeds and some meal worms dependent on species and age.
The baby wood pigeons are crop-tubed and are fed a liquid juvenile mix, I didn't get to do this though :(
Cleaned the cages and re-made 'nests' for the really young nestlings, this was regularly halted in order to do the feeds. Something else that occured at least once for every cage of small, fledged birds I cleaned, like the blue tits and sparrows, one would escape. Didn't take much for each to be caught up, but still resulted in a minor panic.
Becoming well versed in how to sweep and mop the corridor.
In the orphan room, due to it being quarantined as it had trichomonosis, was a rather friendly crow :D He was PTS near the end of the day though, had finished his course of treatment with no improvement and as it's highly contagious he couldn't go with the other crows in the aviary, nor could he be released without flight practice. :(
Trichomonosis is found at the back of the throat, charaterised by typical sick bird symptoms and can be fatal.

Cleaned out the hedgepigs again, one made the cutest noises ever, although when I asked about it they turned out to be pissed off hedgehog noises. Woops.
The one that weighed 1.01kg (fatty), was notable due to having a clear/white bubbly nasal discharge, looked a bit like spit. One had green feaces with blood in it and a couple others had ringworm, another had a yukky, infected toe that was oozing pus.

Did the ducklings (big AWWWWWW) afternoon feeds and waters, replaced wet shavings and generally tidied up in the duckling room. They're fed a high protein duckling crumb, one enclosure-ful has prosecto with this.
Corvid feeds were done at four, swopped the little birds for a chance to coo over crows again, there is a big, loud, demanding one that I really like, he hops on you and caws lots. :D Has a big gob too
The Jackdaws don't hop on you, they mob you and scream.
Want a pet crow.


x

Monday 11 June 2012

Chilling with the Corvids

First day of my work placement at the wildlife centre today and as it's a college related placement it's related to coursework >.<
As part of that we have to keep a record of what we do there, so as SugarPuff doesn't have a word processor atm I'll just just it up here, probably save the rest as drafts and publish them weekly.
So here we go...

Monday 11 June, 7:55-16:15, Day 1
Got there before all the staff, which led to some confusion as to whether the doorbell worked or not. For the most part of the day I was in the corvid room. This consisted of three aviaries, one for crows, another for jackdaws and a third for magpies, along with this there were a few in cat baskets, with more arriving as the day continued.
Now not only did all of these need cleaning, but feeding every hour too, by hand. Everyone, and there was a lot.. But it was fun, until a magpie launched itself at my face or the jackdaws decided I was safe to land on, placing them that much closer to my ear when they wanted to shriek. Still partially deaf I'm sure.

The crows had to have been my favourite, they didn't try aim their shit at me, were polite and waited their turn for food, took said food nicely and scream at me. I want one. Or two.

They're fed seed, dog biscuits, tinned cat meat, ground up bugs and chopped up chicks (thankfully it never came to me preparing that part of the food) Along with feeding the feathery things, had to clean them out, catch up several escapees and sweep.

Someone was asked to show me how to sweep the corridor, srsly. and we found unicorn blood.

Which was probably swan shit, hence why I wasn't all that tempted to taste it, even though it looked like unicorn blood. Had the right consistency too.

Without realising I accidentally let a magpie out - the door to their aviary doesn't close properly in my defense, and to my knowledge it's still between the aviary and wall. Woops.

Yes, I did get shat on, but was wearing overalls so tis all good. Wasn't wearing a hat though, but luckily only one little one got my hair, think I was quite lucky.

saw a hedgehog for the first time (I think?) and OMG I want it! Looked so soft and cute and cuddly!!

I also learnt to operate the washing machine and tumble dryer.

End of day one. I think?
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Will of course have to revise that before adding it to my assignment :p

Also, sadly only down to one chicken now, Blossom had been sick for awhile and when we got home on saturday it was clear she wouldn't make the night.
The neighbor is going to give us one of his, so Bubbles won't be along, think we're picking her up tomorrow, all I know is that she is a buff Lincolnshire?  So should look a bit like this:


Effectively, like bubbles, despite being a fancy breed.

Off to do some revision now! Exam is on Friday. Shit.

Thursday 31 May 2012

Some New Things

Just got a new laptop, SugarPuff, after the last one's motherboard blew up. Is it bad that I'm missing a laptop? :( Realised I was really horrible last night and left SugarPuff next to JellyBean's corpse all night. The death of Jelly was partially the reason for the lack of blogging but have to say, I'm just crap at updating.
Overall things have been really good recently, got a part time job as a zookeeper, which is rather fun, I genuinely love it. End up shattered afterwards though.
It's the last day of my first year at this college, although I finished the course last week, this week has been thrilling as a result. Do go on a five week work placement after the half term at a local wildlife hospital - really hope there are fox cubs to play with, and birds! Love birds, especially psittcines and birds of prey :D

Saw Guns 'n Roses night before last at the MEN in Manchester. Thin Lizzy opened for them, they were quite good, I enjoyed it but the crowd was a bit shitty. It's difficult to get excited in a room full of unexcited people, that said, never seen the MEN so empty O.o
G n' R were EPIC though!! Loved them, and all three guitarists were AMAZING, Richard Fortus has really nice hands btw, is that weird? It was an amazing gig, lots of flashy lights and pyrotechnincs, over ran by about two hours though, didn't mind too much tbh, was fun. Did mean I only got to bed at about 3.50 before a 6.30 start. fun. 
Would do it again any day though, they were so worth the money. Not just so that I can rub in in my stepmommy's face either. 


Some more about the job and why it's epic. 
Get to work with some rather cool animals, ring-tailed lemur who are so fun to hand feed, a grumpy serval, Brazilian tapir, which are just big doggies. You can just walk up to them, scratch them under the chin and they will honestly just flop over onto the floor and roll over - so cute! 
However, DO NOT APPROACH UNKNOWN TAPIRS! Although multiple accounts imply that most tapirs, Brazilian ones anyway seem to react like this. 
That said the Malaysianones have a reputation for being iffy.  
Malaysian tapir - DO NOT TOUCH

Brazilian tapir - APPROACH WITH CARE, but they do like cuddles.
There are also alpaca, not llama, sheep, poultry with the world's most violent goose, shitty  ponies and porcupine. On the subject of porcupine, I want a porcupine called Mike that I can harness train and take for walks.
There are also a few birds of prey and parakeets, only got one Senegal parrot too.

But what I tend to end up working most with is these:

 The Emperor Newts, Tylototriton shanjing, NOT verrucosus are my favourite :)
There was some iffiness about the species classification.
I don't mind working with the Bearded Dragons, quite like some of them. The snakes still scare my loads though, being attacked by the Amazoinan Boa didn't help my perception of them as evil scary prehistoric monsters.
Attacked is probably a strong word, but she went for me, didn't get me though so it was okay. Kinda wish she had though, would have been awesome to show off with :p
File:Corallus hortulanus in Ecuador.jpg

The only difference is that the one at work is more patterned and purpleier and secretes evil, bitchy vibes.


My best friend is also moving this weekend :( Spending the first part of half term with her, and and it's going to be horrible without her just up the road! At the same time it's really scary,she has her own, relatively successful business and is moving out while I still have years of education stretching ahead of me O.o
And it's so grown up! We're not old enough to do that sort of thing yet!

So excited to have my A2 exams over with soon and to doing my work placement! the latter more so. There is also the summer ball coming up and I'm going home again!
x