A day in the life of...
A few weeks back, on my day off, I went into Parkside, my old secondary school where I now spend as much time I can (although of late this is shamefully little) painting on the walls of one of the science labs, a mural project I’ve been playing around with for around the last 6 or 7 years. Whenever I go in (sometimes accompanied by any one of my pet ferrets or snakes), I usually end up chipping in or taking over classes, answering all kinds of questions about animals, and showing pictures or videos on the interactive white board. So anyway, I popped in on Friday to drop some camel pictures off for Hilary, the teacher there, and while loading them onto her computer, they came up on the white board so I talked the kids through them. It was a class who’d never met me before and Hilary asked me to tell them what a typical day at work is like for me. For once, I was lost for words!! So it got me thinking, and I’ve been meaning to do this on the blog for ages, as a few friends have asked before what my daily routine is like, so here we go…
Every day is different, because of different film/media jobs we may be sent on, or if a work mate is away, you might help cover a different section from your own, or assist a work mate in training or giving medicine to one of their animals, if there’s a job on site (we have our own film studio) you might be looking after the crew or guests or help on the job, prepare boxes and equipment for a job, make or sort out a food order, etc, etc. And of course, site maintenance varies, from gardening/weeding to repainting fences, building or repairing enclosures, etc. So there’s always plenty to do!
On my section, there are set days for doing different tasks, because I look after 126 individual reptiles, amphibians, mammals and fish (plus over a hundred cockroaches and giant stick insects) it’s obviously too much work to feed them all on the same day, for example, and it’s not necessary to feed these kind of animals every day. So Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are when all the salad eaters get their fruit and veg. These animals are all the tortoises, herbivorous invertebrates, and lizards like iguanas, uromastyx, blue tongued skink, etc. Each animals salad is made up slightly differently to suit its specific dietry requirements, individual fussiness and mouth size. When I feed the tortoises, a little ti,me is spent training them, as at the moment I am teching them to come when I call them by clapping so it’s easier to move them around, because some are too heavy to carry and on the days they don’t get fed salads, I put them into a grassy paddock next door to their yard, to share the grass with the kangaroos.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are insect feed days, where all the animals that eat brown or black crickets, hoppers or locusts are fed. These animals are the carnivorous invertebrates (tarantulas and scorpions), a lot of the lizards and geckos, and all the amphibians (giant marine toads, bullfrog, horned frogs, fire salamander, whites tree frogs). Some of the insect eaters are fed by hand to ensure every animal in the vivarium gets some, or if the animal is old, blind or sick, to encourage them to keep weight on or help them out a bit.
Mice are fed to all the small snakes on a Thursday. By small snakes, I mean everything that is not a python. The small snakes bracket actually includes small and medium animals, some of the larger mediums being around 5 or 6 feet long. This also includes all the venomous snakes and lizards (various rattlesnakes and cobras, copperheads, white-lipped tree viper and gila monsters) and pinkies are fed to the marine toads and whites tree frogs.
The pythons, boa constrictor and anacondas are fed rats every other Monday or Tuesday, and the crocodiles, alligators and monitor lizard are fed weekly around mid week (Wednesday or Thursday). The crocodilians get chicken, pork, venison or horse- whatever is lying around really- also the smaller ones sometimes get fish, and any rats I have left over on Thursdays goes to these guys. It’s better for their health if they get a variety of foods. When I do the croc feeds I usually chuck a bit in for our salvator monitor lizaed too, and he often gets a rat or two on Thursdays aswell.
Finally, the piranha tanks and electric eels are fed sprats and cichlid chow (frozen diet of small bloodworms and stuff) every other day.
So you can see, there is feeding to do nearly every day. Feeding the snakes takes the longest, almost an entire afternoon sometimes (you get the rodents out first thing in the morning so they’re defrosted after lunch), as individuals must be separated into boxes so they don’t fight over the food and everyone gets their ration, and those not separated need to be supervised, and most are given the food by hand with a set of forceps.
So that’s all the feeding stuff! AS well as those tasks that may be different each day, I have a set routine first thing in the morning and last thing at night, which goes like this:
8.30-10.30am Start work. Switch all the lights on in the reptile room, check everyone is alive and well and has water, mist the amphibians. Get out any frozen food that needs to be thawed for the day. Nip over to the feed shed and prepare breakfast for the armadillos and squirrel monkeys (‘dillos get a blended mixture of banana, cottage cheese, rice and dog food, the squirrel monkeys get baby porridge with supplements in and a slice of bread ). Go and open up the tortoise house, feeding the armadillos and squirrel monkeys who live in here too) and let the armadillos out of the weather is nice. Feed the lemur and meerkat in there a slice of bread each and let the tortoises out. Brush, wash down and scrub the floor in the tortoise house and on their yard and change all the waters. If the weather is nice and it’s a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday, put the tortoises out to grass, and finally, let Spud, the meerkat out to run around on the yard. After that, take yesterdays bowls back to the feed shed to be cleaned and on my way back to the reptile house clean the filter barrel in the koi fishpond and feed the fish, and walk down the bottom to check the piranha tanks and dwarf crocodile in the hippo house. Then I get back into the reptile house and change or top up waters that need it, remove any sloughed snake skins and net the python pool if they’ve pooed in the water. Make a mental (or written!) nte of what needs to be done for the day, such as cutting bramble for the stick insects, any tanks that need cleaning out, or glass that needs cleaning, medication to be given, feeds to be prepared or equipment to be gathered together for a film job. It is all those miscellaneous tasks that keep me busy most of the day, mainly the feeding and cleaning parts. Often I have to go and assist in cleaning out and maintaining the marine fish tanks at our bosses house, and doing this frequently takes most of a morning or afternoon.
Lunch is from 1pm until 2pm.
My consistent evening schedule is shaped like this:
4.30pm – Prepare tortoise house feeds (this is bowls of food for the squirrel monkeys, meerkat and lemur), round up the tortoises and rally them all inside (this can take a while if they’ve been in the kangaroo place as it’s a bit of a walk for them, although it is getting a lot easier as their training progresses), feed the monkeys, lemur and meerkat, and the turtles (fly river turtle, map turtle and yellow bellied terrapin), check waters, shut armadillos in, lights off, lock door. Go and shut up and reptile house, which involves a quick check of all the animals and their water dishes, sweeping and mopping the floor, misting all the tanks with amphibians in, marking off my tick sheets (a kind of register filled out every day for each individual animal) and sick reports (any animals on medication or suffering illness have medical reports filled out each day with all the details of their condition and treatment) and finally switching all the lights out and shut the door!
Every day is different, because of different film/media jobs we may be sent on, or if a work mate is away, you might help cover a different section from your own, or assist a work mate in training or giving medicine to one of their animals, if there’s a job on site (we have our own film studio) you might be looking after the crew or guests or help on the job, prepare boxes and equipment for a job, make or sort out a food order, etc, etc. And of course, site maintenance varies, from gardening/weeding to repainting fences, building or repairing enclosures, etc. So there’s always plenty to do!
On my section, there are set days for doing different tasks, because I look after 126 individual reptiles, amphibians, mammals and fish (plus over a hundred cockroaches and giant stick insects) it’s obviously too much work to feed them all on the same day, for example, and it’s not necessary to feed these kind of animals every day. So Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are when all the salad eaters get their fruit and veg. These animals are all the tortoises, herbivorous invertebrates, and lizards like iguanas, uromastyx, blue tongued skink, etc. Each animals salad is made up slightly differently to suit its specific dietry requirements, individual fussiness and mouth size. When I feed the tortoises, a little ti,me is spent training them, as at the moment I am teching them to come when I call them by clapping so it’s easier to move them around, because some are too heavy to carry and on the days they don’t get fed salads, I put them into a grassy paddock next door to their yard, to share the grass with the kangaroos.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are insect feed days, where all the animals that eat brown or black crickets, hoppers or locusts are fed. These animals are the carnivorous invertebrates (tarantulas and scorpions), a lot of the lizards and geckos, and all the amphibians (giant marine toads, bullfrog, horned frogs, fire salamander, whites tree frogs). Some of the insect eaters are fed by hand to ensure every animal in the vivarium gets some, or if the animal is old, blind or sick, to encourage them to keep weight on or help them out a bit.
Mice are fed to all the small snakes on a Thursday. By small snakes, I mean everything that is not a python. The small snakes bracket actually includes small and medium animals, some of the larger mediums being around 5 or 6 feet long. This also includes all the venomous snakes and lizards (various rattlesnakes and cobras, copperheads, white-lipped tree viper and gila monsters) and pinkies are fed to the marine toads and whites tree frogs.
The pythons, boa constrictor and anacondas are fed rats every other Monday or Tuesday, and the crocodiles, alligators and monitor lizard are fed weekly around mid week (Wednesday or Thursday). The crocodilians get chicken, pork, venison or horse- whatever is lying around really- also the smaller ones sometimes get fish, and any rats I have left over on Thursdays goes to these guys. It’s better for their health if they get a variety of foods. When I do the croc feeds I usually chuck a bit in for our salvator monitor lizaed too, and he often gets a rat or two on Thursdays aswell.
Finally, the piranha tanks and electric eels are fed sprats and cichlid chow (frozen diet of small bloodworms and stuff) every other day.
So you can see, there is feeding to do nearly every day. Feeding the snakes takes the longest, almost an entire afternoon sometimes (you get the rodents out first thing in the morning so they’re defrosted after lunch), as individuals must be separated into boxes so they don’t fight over the food and everyone gets their ration, and those not separated need to be supervised, and most are given the food by hand with a set of forceps.
So that’s all the feeding stuff! AS well as those tasks that may be different each day, I have a set routine first thing in the morning and last thing at night, which goes like this:
8.30-10.30am Start work. Switch all the lights on in the reptile room, check everyone is alive and well and has water, mist the amphibians. Get out any frozen food that needs to be thawed for the day. Nip over to the feed shed and prepare breakfast for the armadillos and squirrel monkeys (‘dillos get a blended mixture of banana, cottage cheese, rice and dog food, the squirrel monkeys get baby porridge with supplements in and a slice of bread ). Go and open up the tortoise house, feeding the armadillos and squirrel monkeys who live in here too) and let the armadillos out of the weather is nice. Feed the lemur and meerkat in there a slice of bread each and let the tortoises out. Brush, wash down and scrub the floor in the tortoise house and on their yard and change all the waters. If the weather is nice and it’s a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday, put the tortoises out to grass, and finally, let Spud, the meerkat out to run around on the yard. After that, take yesterdays bowls back to the feed shed to be cleaned and on my way back to the reptile house clean the filter barrel in the koi fishpond and feed the fish, and walk down the bottom to check the piranha tanks and dwarf crocodile in the hippo house. Then I get back into the reptile house and change or top up waters that need it, remove any sloughed snake skins and net the python pool if they’ve pooed in the water. Make a mental (or written!) nte of what needs to be done for the day, such as cutting bramble for the stick insects, any tanks that need cleaning out, or glass that needs cleaning, medication to be given, feeds to be prepared or equipment to be gathered together for a film job. It is all those miscellaneous tasks that keep me busy most of the day, mainly the feeding and cleaning parts. Often I have to go and assist in cleaning out and maintaining the marine fish tanks at our bosses house, and doing this frequently takes most of a morning or afternoon.
Lunch is from 1pm until 2pm.
My consistent evening schedule is shaped like this:
4.30pm – Prepare tortoise house feeds (this is bowls of food for the squirrel monkeys, meerkat and lemur), round up the tortoises and rally them all inside (this can take a while if they’ve been in the kangaroo place as it’s a bit of a walk for them, although it is getting a lot easier as their training progresses), feed the monkeys, lemur and meerkat, and the turtles (fly river turtle, map turtle and yellow bellied terrapin), check waters, shut armadillos in, lights off, lock door. Go and shut up and reptile house, which involves a quick check of all the animals and their water dishes, sweeping and mopping the floor, misting all the tanks with amphibians in, marking off my tick sheets (a kind of register filled out every day for each individual animal) and sick reports (any animals on medication or suffering illness have medical reports filled out each day with all the details of their condition and treatment) and finally switching all the lights out and shut the door!
5.30pm – Finished! (Although it’s usually more like 6pm!)
I bet that sounds pretty boring. Of course what everyone usually hears is mad adventure stories and glamour!! Of course we somehow fit all that in as well and it makes things more exciting...
posted by Grace at 8:20 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home