Welcomed as a Team-member!
I met the head honcho this morning who happened to be in. He recognised me as “…the guy who got fined by the police“! I also signed my contract (1 page – not a whole forest’s worth of paperwork like with the animal ambulance! 😉 ) so I’m now a proper Avolare team member! 🙂
Team-member task: Hedgehogs
This morning I was back with the hedgehogs again! 🙂 A stinky task, but I liked it because it helped me remember stuff from last week. It was someone different who showed me the ropes today (incidentally, the same girl who first gave me a tour of the grounds) and she used different techniques for the same tasks. I guess I’ll develop my own methods in time too. Needing less explanation now on the basics meant there was more space to concentrate on looking at the condition of the animals themselves.
Hedgehog Care
One of the hedgehogs was extremely active and clawed at the side of his cage. My heart bled for him, probably more than usual because he reminded me of my own cat who’s at home in a cage recovering from surgery after a leg fracture. I couldn’t wait to be home with her again. But…for now I was helping this little hedgehog – and his other friends.
I was amazed at the variation in size between the hedgehogs. The hedgehogs that come in are able to feed themselves, so they tend to be juveniles or adults (not babies). The smallest would weigh in (in theory) at 100g, and the largest adult I saw was about 25 cm long and very plumpy (and / or spiky!).
The condition of each varied a lot too. Some were inactive (which makes sense; hedgehogs are nocturnal so they were probably sleeping) whilst others, like my little cage-clawer (and others), scuttled around with a lot of energy inside their cages. Generally speaking, a hedgehog that’s awake during the day is usually in need of some kind of care. All of these hedgehogs were already in care, so I suppose anything goes in here.
I was told to make a note of any hedgehogs that hadn’t eaten or drunk much. All of ‘mine’ (i.e. the hedgehogs in the cages marked with a “C”) seemed to be happy eaters and drinkers. And I was also told to keep an eye out for green poop which is a sign of dehydration (2 seconds whilst I double-check that, I may have misinterpreted the Dutch… OK. So green poop can indicate a range of problems, including digestive upset (which can lead to dehydration), stress and parasites.)
That was a tricky task. Finding the poop…no problem, because it’s everywhere! But I’m red-green colourblind, so reds, greens, browns are pretty much all the same to me. At the end of our time in the hedgehog section, my partner had jotted down loads of observances. I only had one, so I asked her to double check my cages. (Poor girl, she became the head poo controler…)
Rest of the Shift
There’s no fancy way of saying this: pre-cleaning stuff and sticking it onto a conveyor belt to take it through a cleaner. Hot, stinky manual labour. Not fun at all. Too noisy to talk to my partner, and even then, she was moved to another section after a while and I was on my own. The machine got jammed once, and as a volunteer I’m not allowed to fix it myself. I felt like a complete loser and needed to actively think about the animals next door who have clean stuff.
Social Side of Things
I’m still happy with how relaxed it is here! I forgot that work starts at 09:30 and not 09:00; this half hour is used for people to dribble in and chat. The main feeling this morning seemed to be “It feels like a Monday.”
I noticed the floor manager set an alarm for 09:30 which is when everyone stood up and got to work. And again at 11:15, at the end of our mid-morning break. It seemed to me like a Pavlov response that we hear an alarm and start working – I’m going to check it doesn’t ring at the wrong time and see if people still stand up!
Like repeating work with the hedgehogs, it was nice to see familiar faces again. This way I can get to know fewer people better instead of a lot of people who will remain little more than acquaintances.
Minor other points:
- The traffic lights near me have been removed so this saves me at least 10 minutes 🙂
- After the non-lights location, google sent me on another route which avoided the diversion near the rescue centre. Unfortunately this was cancelled out by a ridiculous route home which sent me over a track in the forest(!) I wasn’t going to risk another fine, so I doubled back and drove a long way around.
- The long way home was longer than usual because one of my headlights had given up the ghost so I went to the garage – a garage near a closed roundabout which meant another diversion. He was busy so I left the car there and walked home. IF all goes well, I can pick it up tomorrow then drive it straight to my shift with the animal ambulance.
- The walk home was actually a run because I wanted to get back quickly to my lonely cat.
- Finally (actually initially, at the start of my shift), I learned I don’t come in and go upstairs because I end up dead-ended in the visitor centre; I need to go through a hidden door then go up some different stairs. And that’s where the animal care party is! 🙂
