Animal handling at last!

Thursday 22nd April 2021

Today a few of us went over to Cirencester college to their Animal centre. This was our practical animal handling! We all picked up a mouse - one mouse each so as not to cause them too much stress - but they did seem pretty stressed out anyway. They are very fast and wriggly but luckily none escaped. Then over to the yellow bellied sliders - or terrapins to you and me. They have a good kick to them and are pretty snappy. They are not native to the UK but many pet owners who dont want to keep pets anymore just let them out into the wide where they wreak havoc with the native species. We also handled a corn snake and a milk snake (see picture). They dont bite and were much easier to handle than I thought although they are all muscle and much stronger than you might think. And lastly a chicken - which was the funniest one as we chased them around to catch them and pick them up! I am not really sure how much I will need to handle animals in future but it was a good experience and definitely left me feeling more confident about it. One tip from the lecturer - if you handle a mouse then wash yourself carefully before handing a snake. They dont see very well so if it smells like a mouse and is warm blooded like a mouse then it is a mouse!