My Crazy Summer!

Sorry for the absence of posts lately.  Before June I was busy preparing for my GCSE's - which was worth it because I found out a couple of days ago that I got 8A*s and 2Bs! A*s in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Maths, History, French, Latin and PE and Bs in English Literature and English Language :) I am very happy and am over the minimum grades to apply for veterinary medicine at university.

With the pullets

And from June till now I have literally not had a spare moment!  First I had an amazing time at a chicken and dairy farm and learnt so much from invaluable experience there from numerous people with a wealth of knowledge and I also now have a new love of chickens :)


 Then I went to America for 2 weeks, while I was there I visited Busch Gardens and spent most of the day in the animal care center watching Pixie Frogs, Uromastyx, Blue-tongued Skinks and a variety of other animals undergo veterinary treatment.

One of the calves

Then I spent a week on the North Yorkshire Moors at a stables, riding and doing general horse care.

Lemur attack!

After that I spent 2 weeks at Blackpool Zoo and it was an amazing experience! We had theory sessions and practical sessions.  The practical sessions were very informative and I learnt loads of new things! Such as a snail is an ectothermic thigmatherm! It also encouraged me to want to do a few blog posts on more exotic animals as a huge amount of animals in the wild are under threat of potential extinction!

With a wallaby at Blackpool Zoo.

The practical sessions involved getting up close and interacting with a variety of animals and learning about their day to day care and potential health problems and their management in captivity.  For example: the camels at the zoo had saggy humps.  In the wild this would indicate a health problem, but, in captivity where they have access to water daily they have no need to store the fat in their humps so their humps become saggy.  The management of animals in captivity is also interesting and they employ researchers to sit and watch the animals and monitor their behaviour in response to different stimuli.

After that I did a week at a local vets and it was very good experience - lots of cleaning - but that can be expected if you are wanting work experience in a vet practice because as a reward I was given invaluable experience and allowed to listen to patients hearts and lungs and watch really interesting operations!  Like a lumpectomy where the lump was about as big as a melon!


So to conclude what has been a very busy summer I have a few days off before school starts on Thursday to post as many blog posts as I can - including the promised post on laminitis - and get everything sorted for school - and maybe even a rest!