Week 3 - rodents

I really enjoyed my third day at the Nature Centre. There was only me and another girl, Ariane, so we did our tasks together. She was very nice and clearly a bright girl; and we got on well throughout the day.


Rodent care

We met Kate, who is one of the full time staff: she gave us our first task of the day which was to look after the rodents. The rodents are in temporary accommodation, as the rodent house is being refurbished. So they are currently in cages such as you would keep your hamster in. Kate said that this wasn't ideal but they would be back in their normal house next week. There were 27 cages in all, and we had to change the water and half-change the bedding in each one. Kate explained that scent is very important to rodents, so that changing half the bedding leaves them with their scent on the other half.

There are lots of procedures to follow to avoid contamination and so on. We have a red bucket to put contaminated water in and a yellow bucket for fresh water. Ariane and I gave them fresh water together. The rodents range from fancy rats through to tiny mice (harvest mice) and some rodents not from Britain, including a gopher (Pippa) who is on a diet.  Unfortunately I could not tell what they all were, as their temporary homes did not include labels. Once they are back in their house, I will walk round and see who is who.

Ariane then went to clean out the guinea pigs and rabbits. I carried on with the rodents. I had to lift down each cage, take out half the bedding and replenish it with new bedding. Being new, I have been asking lots of questions, and had thought that Kate had pointed to a bag of new bedding near the door. However, on getting some of this out, I could see that it was not the soft stuff that they had already, so I had to double check, as I did not want to do it wrong. I was right: there was some soft bedding in another bag nearby. 

It was a good task for learning to work methodically; I had to concentrate so that I did every cage in turn, and so that I worked logically to make sure that the old bedding did not contaminate the new bedding. I counted the number of rodents in each cage, so that I could be confident that I was leaving the same amount of rodents in the cage after I'd finished! Some were docile and moved out of the way of my hand. Others were more lively and I had to take care that none leapt out of the cage (or up my sleeve!), which is not unknown. The further up the line of cages I went, the more lively they seemed to become! The ones at the end (spotted mice) were very lively; biting the bars and trying to get out as soon as I opened the cage. I had to encourage them up to the other end, but when they looked too keen to escape, I popped one into a holding container.  Most of them were huddled in little nests at one end; Kate had told me to check for injuries or fatalities, as mice in these conditions could be quite "brutal" - but luckily I did not see any. I took care not to throw any of the rodents away with the bedding, but when I did pick one up it was obvious as it wriggled!  It took me all morning to do the cages, with only one nip, and I really hope none escaped; I don't think they did. I was not able to take a decent photo of the rodents, as I did not want to startle them with the flash.

Behind the scenes
After lunch, we went behind the scenes in the rodent house (a different world!) and had to soap down a parrot's cage for a parrot who was returning. There was a parrot next to it, who was poorly, and had some feather loss. He was very interested in what was going on; he was very sweet; parrots are very intelligent. The mice at the end went mad when Ariane was vacuuming - so did the monkeys whose enclosure backed on to the rodent house. There was a moment of reality when Kate found a dead baby mouse who the mice had rejected - she removed it and put it in a bag. I was looking at the mouse when I realised it was still breathing. However, when Kate returned, she explained it would not be possible to resuscitate it and put it back in with them again. We finished off in here by starting on cleaning the rodents' usual homes, including cleaning the glass, and trying not to leave smears!


End of the day

Ariane and I finished the day by rounding up the guinea pigs, which was lovely - I thought it would be a case of catching all 20 of them, but they all trotted obediently to their hutch! We also put the turkey, peacock and rabbits away. Sid the goose, known for being like goose are, ie defensive, was already in his shed.

I really enjoyed the day - I saw the iguana again, and also behind the scenes in the vet area. There were some tenrecs - a type of hedgehog from Madagascar. I didn't even know they existed.  It feels really nice to work there; the people are friendly and Kate was quite talkative about the animals, which was great. We are working until 5 now, as the centre is open for the summer season.