Walk through Red Squirrel enclosure

The time is almost upon us when we can start our new venture of the Walkthrough Squirrel enclosure. I have spent the last 2 days catching and moving our Red Squirrels around to set up new breeding pairs for next year and to set up an initial 10 Squirrels to be released into The Copse.

This week is the final week of preperations... feeders are going up, squirrels are getting used to their pens, poles and rope runways are being put in place and all the boundaries are being checked and double checked for a Sunday release!

On this coming Sunday, 6th December, we will open up the doors on the pens within the Copse and just let the 10 squirrels come out and explore at their own will. Fingers crossed they won't get out!

In other news:

The new male weasel has been given the name "Buck" (Ice Age 3 anyone?)

Flo has settled in extremely well with Luna and formed a strong pair bond. This week they will be introduced to Frodo and Pickles.

New Fox!

We have recently gained a new fox... pictured above is a young vixen we have named "Flo". She came from a rescue centre which had reared her and then after a couple attempts of releasing her only to find her appear back on their doorstep the following morning decided to re-home her permanently.

We are currently housing her in with our reared cub, Luna, and they have already formed a strong bond and has provided Luna with the much needed "foxy" company.

Later in the week we will introduce Luna and Flo to our main dog fox Frodo and his sister Pickles in the main fox enclosure. Hopefully they will accept each other readily and Frodo will be able to start his own family carrying on the genes of both Buster and Honey.

Ratus ratus

Our rats have been in high demand over the last few months. Many of our Black and Brown rats were donated to a small collection to help freshen their bloodlines within their colonies. I took 21 of our Brown rats to Wildwood, Herne Bay, today to help them set up a new colony. Our Black rats were used at Tulleys Farm scarefest at their recent halloween festivities and now they are currently in Bristol being filmed for a televsion programme.

It may just be me but don't you think Black Rats are really pretty? If you can call a rat pretty then the black rat must be it!!!

Update: Toni the Tawny Owl went to School yesterday and was a huge hit with the kids, I feel he will be very popular with visitors and a real asset to the centre

The young weasel is growing very fast and becoming quite a character (Ouch!). He will be on display for the Christmas open period in our Hedgerow display before moving up to one of the photographic pens for our 2010 Spring opening onwards.