ALFIE Student:Animal Experience Course Diary

(Photo from BCA College)

Earlier this year in January I started doing a Animal Care Course for adults with disabilities at college.

Throughout the weeks I got to learn about how to care for a range of different animals from domestic, livestock, reptiles and zoo animals.

Whilst on the course I had a range of practice tasks to do however I also learnt some terminology used in the animal care industry. For example the two types of cleans that are done when caring for animals.

14th January 2019

On the first day of the course we did a practical in the rodent room. I learnt about fat tailed gerbil; This breed of gerbil uses it’s tail like a camels hump to store fat so it can survive in its natural habitat the desert.

21st January 2019

When I was working in the reptile house I learnt about how to correctly hold a variety of reptiles from a blue tongue sink, geckos, bearded dragons and snakes. I also learnt about the features some reptiles have to scare off their predators.

28th January 2019

I really enjoyed caring for the college’s many ferrets. I learnt how to hold them as well as how to pick one up correctly when putting them back into their enclosures after giving them time to explore the room for their exercise.

4th February 2019

I found it surprisingly interesting and fun working in the invertebrates house. I prepared food such as pear for some of the insects. I looked at each animals food chart to see what they needed and how much they needed. I found watching how some of the insects eat really interesting, I gave bugs to the insects using tongs.

11th February 2019

I was working with the guinea pigs doing spot cleans in all the enclosures. I put down clean straw for their bedding as well as fresh hay in their hay nets for them to eat. I also did sweeping and animal handling.

25th February 2019

I enjoyed this week massively as we were working in the zoo department helping to care for some of the colleges zoo animals. First I made a food box toy for the colleges resident Genet. I filled an old cardboard box with pine cones, little bits of cut up dead chick and newspapers. We did this so that the Genet has to search for its food! I also helped to prepare the otters food by putting crabs and other shell fish into a dog Kong toy . This is done to make the otters work for their food. As well as this I prepared the lemurs food by cutting up pieces of carrot. I also prepared the Armadillo’s food by cutting up fruits such as banana and apple.

(Photo from BCA College)

4th March 2019.

This week we got to work in the lambing area we gave and made sure the sheep and their lambs had hay and straw. We were very lucky as we got to see two twin lambs being born!

(Photo from BCA College)

11th March 2019

We were working with the emus and wallabies this week. I mucked out their paddocks and gave the emus their food. I even got to hand fed an emu a grape!

18th March 2019

This week we were back looking after the ferrets. Whilst the ferrets were in their carry cages we cleaned out their enclosures. We let them have a run around;one ferret I was looking after started splashing water from its water bowl everywhere as it had decided to go back into a enclosure.

25th March 2019

This week was rabbit week I helped to do a full clean of one of the rabbit hutches and its run. I also did a lot a sweeping. I spent time stroking the rabbits and even holding some. I loved watching eating dandelions I fed them.

1st April 2019

This week was our last week of doing the course. I was really excited because we got to care for the goats.I had been wanting to look after the goats for ages. When we got to their paddock we tried attaching their leads to their collars so we could take them out for a walk around the college grounds. After the walk we then took willow leaves and put them all around all of the goats enclosures. This was done so that the goats have to climb and stretch for their food. We also gave the alpacas and llama some willow leaves too.

(Simon the goat eating willow leaves)

I really enjoyed doing the Animal Care Course, I would highly recommend it to any animal lover.

Animal Care Volunteering Update: Meet Boyce and Pip

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I have been volunteering at a farm for a few months now; we recently welcomed to new ponies called Boyce and Pip to the farm. They are both brother and sister and it’s been a fantastic to get to know them both and learn about each of their personalities and cheeky traits.

One of the first things I loved about Boyce was his furry moustache. We all find it funny when we take off his rugs because he is all shiny clean from where the rugs been but his legs are just covered in mud we like to say he’s got brown boots on. Boyce doesn’t really like females handling him he much prefers men. We are not too sure why this might be but we think he might have had a bad experience with a female from his past handling him. At the moment we are trying to help Boyce feel more relaxed and safe towards females handling him and stroking him. It is very important we try and build up his confidence and feels more comfortable with females because the farm offers birthday parties and the children who come straight away run up to the ponies and want to stroke them.

To try and help Boyce feel more safe and confident and not so scared around females we have been trying to do small tasks with him daily. For example we will give him his food separate to Pip and whilst he is eating I will just talk to him softly and calmly. We have tried stroking him by just putting our hand out and waiting for him to come to us but sometimes he will come up to us girls and want to bite us. However he is starting to feel more confident around females and we are going to try and do some ground work activities with him in the summer for example going over poles and in and out of cones once he feels safer and he begins to trust us more. Boyce is also in charge as he doesn’t like the little Shetland ponies we have and he has tried to have a fight with one of our pigs Wilbur through the bars of the fence.

Pip is a very sweet, gentle and calm girl who can be very shy at times but once she sees you with a camera she loves posing for you. She is definitely not camera shy! Unlike Boyce Pip prefers females and tends to dislike men. We think Pip had a bad experience with a man in the past. When they first arrived at the farm Pip was definitely more curious. To build up her confidence we did some one on one ground work activities with her. Pip enjoys being groomed so we did this with her a little and often to help build up her confidence.We have done circle work with her too and now in the week she does lunging.

Now that Pip is more relaxed around us we are now getting to know more about her, she is a very adventurous pony who likes to explore. In the summer who hope to take her out on short walks around the woods and do some ground work activities with her like a little obstacle course.

Recently it snowed at the farm; here is a video of Pip playing in the puddle after the snow melted.

Animal Care Volunteer: Down On The Farm

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Through my love of animals which started when I was little as well as how animals have helped me with my mental health. I decided I wanted to do volunteering with animals.

I now volunteer once a week at a farm as an Animal Care Volunteer. The farm I go to has lots of different types of animals. From Alpacas, Goats and Llamas to Guinea pigs, Hamsters, Rats and Rabbits to name a few. We also sometimes get to look after reptiles such as snakes, geckos and skinks.

Well Hello.

The farm works with children, young people and adults to build up their confidence and self-esteem through working to care for a variety of animals. Children and young people who come here maybe home educated, have mental health conditions or found mainstream school hard to name a few.

When I was looking at different places I could volunteer at this place taught my eye as they had worked with other young people with mental health conditions. I thought this place would be fantastic as we get to work with animals in a more therapeutic environment. I felt that I could help give back to other young people and show them how much joy animals can bring into your life and help you to be more positive. Animals don’t just help them to forget about difficult things but sometimes helps them to process things as the animals are making them feel relaxed and safe.

Throughout the day on the farm I do a number of different tasks to care for all the animals on the farm. Here are some of the tasks I do.

Cleaning out hutches,cages and fields. I put down fresh hay in all the animals hutches, cages and shelters. Giving all the animals fresh water in their water bottles and bowls and topping them up regularly throughout the day.

Mucking out the ponies field.

Refilling the rabbits water bottles.

Sometimes I groom the goats, ponies and the dog. We also take the goats and ponies out of their main field and take them for walks around the farm so that they have new things to explore and they love it !, The goats love to try and eat the leaves too.

I help to prepare all the animals food as well as giving it to them when it is feeding time.

Grating carrots to put into the rabbits food.

Dinner time for the rabbits.

Feeding Obama the Llama.

More Please?

Finally a big thing we try to do is do as much animal handling as possible this is not just because the animals need to have human interaction but sometimes children and young people come to the farm to do animal handling sessions here the children and young people learn all about the animals.

I absolutely love volunteering on the farm and would highly recommend volunteering not only is it good to put on your CV but you get to learn new things about yourself. You get to see if you prefer learning through doing or more sitting down and writing.

If you are aged between 14-25 you can log your hours of volunteering you do on the website : http://www.vinspired.com , by doing this you will get certificates for the number of hours you do . You can show these certificates in any interviews you may have from college course interviews to internships, work experience placements and jobs.

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