A DAY AS A KEEPER BY KIM POPLASSOn Sunday 6th September, 2009 I had the pleasure of being a keeper for the day at the Park. I won this day at the Park's August Bank Holiday fund raiser weekend where 'A day as a Keeper' was auctioned and I was the lucky bidder!!
I arrived at the Park at 9am and was met by Tara one of the Senior Head Keepers. Buzzing with excitement I followed her down to the prep room where Tara explained where everything is, introduced me to the keepers and explained what the keeper staff do when they start work at 8am.
My first job of the day was to feed Willaby the albino wallaby his milk by syringe. He was extremely hungry!! (see picture above).
We then went up to the top prep room where we prepared the sprats for the penguins which included putting salt and vitamin tablets in the fish. We had to give every penguin a sprat containing the tablets which turned out to be quite difficult with 38 very hungry penguins! Also, trying to identify them and mark them off on the sheets at the same time to tick off who had had their sprat. Mission achieved 31 out of 38 what a success!
At 11am Tara and I went to Pelican Bay for the morning feed and talk. Tara gave an informative talk and I got to feed the pelicans their sprats ~ that was one of my fears overcome!
I then met Jake who gave the penguin talk and feed at 11.30am and then Tara and I went and fed the baby penguins. Next we went to the flight aviary and fed the parrots some grapes and Jake did the Parrot talk.
Lunch time! I met up with Deane my partner and my little boy Declan. Pizza and chips followed by double chocolate cake and a sloppy kiss from Dec!
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