This week was very busy; I started by letting out the rabbits, guinea pigs, turkey and peacock, and I replenishing their water and food, taking back the old food bowls and washing them up. The guinea pigs are so funny when they get their food: they start squeaking as soon as you arrive with the carrots and other veg. Imagine 18 guinea pigs squeaking, it is a lovely welcome. I slopped half the bucket of water down me, as usual, and had to get half way inside the rabbit hutch to get the food bowl out.
I then did the water for all the small mammals - "on shows and off shows" - there were some desert hamster babies: tiny pink things. The sugar glider was in the corner again and looked up at me with wide eyes! There are some tiny new rainforest frogs off show: beautiful colours - one is bright, bright green.
The rest of the day was cleaning up: spot cleaning (ie scooping up poop) in the sheep, goats and wallabies, - this time with new volunteer, Holly, who was really nice, and is doing the volunteering off her own bat, which is impressive. We got on well and it was nice to have company again as I was beginning to miss Ariane. We ended the day by cleaning all the windows round the "pred" block; which gave us a nice chance to look at the lemurs, the red squirrels, and the ocelot, who was curious enough to follow us round and come right close to the glass. She really is beautiful.
One thing I observed at lunchtime: there are notices (although rather small) that ask the public not to feed the animals. This is because the animals get the food that they require, and feeding them random things might not be good for them. But in spite of this, a whole gaggle of kids and parents were busy feeding leaves to the soays, which seemed happy enough to eat them all up. What I thought was a bit much was how some of the dads were pulling whole branches off trees and dividing them up... Well if the sheep are ill it was half their own fault for being greedy...!
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