Wednesday morning at 8am, instead of being at home, getting ready for work, I was in fact here, at
the staff entrance of Chester Zoo! Why, you may well ask! Well I was just about to embark on a very special day out being a '
Keeper for the Day'.
As I wandered round to the Parrot & Penguin section office, I wondered what my day had in store. I was kind of excited and nervous all at the same time. I needn't have worrie
d. The P&P team were really nice. Alan, the team leader, Karen and Claire, the keepers, and Sian, the vet student. When I arrived they were putting all the feed into metal bowls. I know now that they put all the dry feed out in the bowls the night before, and also chop all the fruit and veg ready for the morning (but they keep it in the fridge) so that's what they were doing - adding the fruit and veg to the bowls of seeds, ready to hand out to a
ll the lovely birds.
So first things first - I got changed into my 'work gear', and then Alan asked me the important question - Parrots or Penguins? Penguins I said - but I love all the birds! SO first detail of the morning was feeding the Pengies. Off we went to the penguin enclosure and into the fish store area - there were a load of fishies in the sink -boxes which were taken out of the freezer yesterday and left to defrost. We had to sort out the odd looking ones (they're mostly spr
ats but the occasional different one creeps in) and then choose 20 sprats to add a vitamin pill to - for all the nesting females. Out we went into the back of the penguin enclosure, and straight into the main area. Sian fed the female pengies and Karen showed me one of the baby
penguins which had had some problems and they were weighing it every day. As you can see it was very cute - and was the right weight! After that I was allowed to chuck the fish into the pool for the penguins swimming there. They flew SO fast through the water it was quite impressive.
After the feeding, Sian and I had the task of washing all the windows around the penguin enclosure - it was quite an interesting feat trying to clean the INSIDE of them, especially with inquisitive pengies following the broom's every move.
Next post will be about the Parrot part to this lovely day out!
Last weekend we broke out the camping equipment and headed off to Barn Farm in Birchover for the 1st camping trip of the season. It's our favorite campsite - there's nothing there! No bar, no entertainments, just a couple of fields, a few very loud peacocks, and some cows (they used to have 2 water buffalo called Charles and Camilla, but they've gone now)
with, but once you break out onto the moors, it's a lovely stroll through the grounds of the house and along the riverbank. Really nice. On top of everything, we got the new pop up tent out. It really is fantastic - pops up a treat, and about 4 seconds to put back down again. It's huge too - Dan can stand up in it so it's pretty practical. The design is that you can adjoin any 2 small dome tents to it as add ons - they become bedrooms and this is the main living area. It's called a 'base' tent, by Decathlon - same people our little 3 man pop up is by. Fab!!!!!
Part 2 of the daily routine involved cleaning out the cages of the parrots which were being kept off show. 18 cages, scrubbing, cleaning, feeding, watering and sluicing down! Some of the birds were nervous, some were gregarious, some didn't really like us! All of them needed feeding. Claire was very reassuring - and explained the characters of each bird - like this one - Houdini, who "escaped" every time but as soon as y
ou put the net up to catch him, he flew straight on to it! A few of the birds were nesting, which was exciting, and the girls are all pretty good at the hand rearing. Claire herself was rearing a baby one of these --->
ture plucked chicken!!!!
g all the fruit and veg for tomorrow's feed. It was very much like being back in the Restaurant! At least my years of chopping skills were able to be usefully applied here! We also laid out the bowls for tomorrow, filling them all with the dry feed. The birds have an amazing diet - honestly, every bowl of food I saw, I'd have been happy to eat from myself - seeds, nuts, sprouted pulses - it was like something from Gillian McKieth! Apparently the slightest of fluctuation in the birds' diet can make a difference in whether they will breed or not. A nutritionist works very closely with the keepers and designs the meals very carefully - half a walnut, a scoop of seed, half a carrot - it all makes a difference. And the birds are all healthy!
d. The P&P team were really nice. Alan, the team leader, Karen and Claire, the keepers, and Sian, the vet student. When I arrived they were putting all the feed into metal bowls. I know now that they put all the dry feed out in the bowls the night before, and also chop all the fruit and veg ready for the morning (but they keep it in the fridge) so that's what they were doing - adding the fruit and veg to the bowls of seeds, ready to hand out to a
ll the lovely birds.
ats but the occasional different one creeps in) and then choose 20 sprats to add a vitamin pill to - for all the nesting females. Out we went into the back of the penguin enclosure, and straight into the main area. Sian fed the female pengies and Karen showed me one of the baby
penguins which had had some problems and they were weighing it every day. As you can see it was very cute - and was the right weight! After that I was allowed to chuck the fish into the pool for the penguins swimming there. They flew SO fast through the water it was quite impressive.
