0:00

Hey, it's Becca. And before we get into this

0:02

week's activity quest, I've got a message

0:05

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Try free to unlock a thirty

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day free trial right now. Hello.

0:51

Welcome back to Activity Quest, the podcast

0:54

that's packed with stuff to do. This

0:56

week adds meeting some rhinos

0:58

at Cotswold Wildlife Park and

1:00

we're making a time capsule. My

1:06

name specs and every episode of Activity Quest

1:08

starts off with a fun kids presenter doing

1:10

something

1:11

awesome. This week, Adam's getting

1:13

a bit wild Thanks, packs. Yes. I'm a wildlife

1:15

park right now. We're gonna meet a man named Mark who's

1:17

gonna talk to us about some rhinos. And then

1:19

we're gonna meet some giraffe.

1:21

My name's Mark. Godwin. I'm Headkeeper at the Cotswold

1:24

Park, and most of them I just play with rhinos.

1:26

And

1:26

what does HeadKeeper involve other than playing

1:29

with rhinos? It's a a

1:31

lovely position for me because it means I get to interfere

1:33

with lots of different places and get involved all over the

1:35

place whether people like it or not. And

1:37

I can help and assist and do all sorts

1:39

with whatever animals, whatever sections

1:42

around the park. But these guys, big

1:44

softies, she loves fast. So this

1:46

is Nancy. Nancy, come on.

1:48

No. She's backing off. So

1:51

she's just having a bit of food around the far sides

1:53

Queenie. She'll come around. So she's

1:55

just one They're born

1:57

around about sixty to seventy kilos. They

1:59

grow at a phenomenal rate for the

2:01

first year. They put on a kilogram a

2:04

kilogram in after three kilograms a day from

2:06

mum's milk and they cheat because they eat solids

2:08

as well. So she's still at full time milk from

2:10

mum, but she's already in hay

2:12

and pellets. As you can see. Told me about poo.

2:15

RHinos poo a lot. Yes.

2:18

They poo large volumes but less than

2:20

the domestic course. A domestic horse

2:22

poos nine to times a day. A

2:24

rider does two or three because their digestion

2:26

is a lot slower, but obviously the volume's

2:28

great the dealer amount that's three days

2:30

worth in that little trailer behind us. And the

2:32

trailer behind us, I mean, you describe it as

2:34

little 1234 massive

2:37

wheels on it. It's probably about the size

2:39

of small bed. Yeah. Its toe is just over

2:41

a ton, so it struggles every now and again. But yeah,

2:43

that's three days worth. A small amount

2:45

of poo. There's

2:47

something very special about these rhinos too,

2:49

I hear. One of them shares a

2:51

name with somebody special. Yeah.

2:54

We We kind

2:56

of expecting a young boy, and so we all

2:58

sort of male names in my head. And then

3:00

finally, when she gave birth, it was a little

3:02

girl, so we struggled. And so the owner

3:05

let me name it after my daughter, which is

3:07

quite nice. But, yeah, normally,

3:09

he picks a name. So it's all all the names have

3:11

nice reasons behind it. But yeah, he let

3:13

me pick that one for him. My name is Willa Mine. I'm

3:15

the main giraffe keeper here at the Cotswold Wildlife

3:17

Park. At the Cotswold Wildlife Park,

3:19

we have five mill giraffes.

3:22

So we only have boys and

3:24

we keep them in a bachelor group as

3:26

we call it. And So

3:28

so talk to me about your life as a as a

3:30

keeper here. You turn up in the morning. We've already we've

3:32

spoken a bit about poo. I

3:35

assume mucking out is probably

3:37

the first job. Mainly,

3:39

the first job is I come in and

3:42

first of all, I open the door and check if

3:44

everyone is still there that we're not

3:46

missing a drop. Then

3:48

I'm gonna prep the breakfast. I'm gonna make

3:50

sure they have the breakfast because otherwise

3:52

they will be a bit angry with me.

3:56

After that, Normally, I clean the outside

3:58

paddock, put food outside, even

4:00

more

4:00

food, make sure they go and

4:03

then I can co and clean inside

4:05

and clean up more poo. And

4:08

in total, I will clean around three hours

4:10

a day of just poo picking up

4:12

the drops. Annoyingly,

4:14

a giraffe has really tiny

4:17

poo, so it's really tiny

4:19

small bits of poo.

4:21

It looks like a rabbit the poo, but just

4:23

a few sizes bigger. So,

4:25

annoyingly, they just gather it around,

4:27

so it makes me have to rake

4:29

the whole paddock instead of like with

4:31

the rhinos. Easy peasy. It's

4:34

all one big pal and you just have to

4:36

scoop it up. So my I just

4:38

have one big wheelbarrow full of

4:39

poo, but it's just the

4:42

amount of time it takes to rake everything on

4:44

piles and pick it up. And

4:46

when it comes to feeding, we've had a look

4:48

at the enclosure already, the outside

4:50

area. They have

4:52

sort of bags suspended

4:55

from big poles. What's all that about?

4:57

Well, we have one bag outside and that's

4:59

just to fill in the haylage. The

5:01

Lucerne horse AC get to

5:04

top up the nutrition. Normally,

5:06

we would put it in the hay racks

5:08

we have on the walkway. But we have

5:10

few new giraffes and they don't really like the

5:12

vistas on the walkway. So

5:14

we wanna make sure they also

5:16

have some horsehating as well in the

5:19

paddock. But the main thing

5:21

that's hanging off those big poles and paddock

5:23

are branches, so that's their main diet.

5:25

And we try to feed around forty branches

5:27

a day in summertime. In the winter,

5:30

it will be a bit less because we

5:32

just don't have the amounts that we can cut in

5:34

the summer. To

5:46

interview a Lima.

5:47

Yeah. You interview a Lima. Why don't you? Should

5:49

we try an interview a Lima? That's

5:51

like a whole parade of them. They're

5:57

fun out there. Hi. My name's Hayley,

5:59

and I'm a senior keeper at Gotzel

6:01

wildlife park. We're with some lemurs.

6:04

Talk to me about the ones that we've

6:06

got in front of us right

6:07

here. I hear they're quite rare. They

6:10

are. So these are the Greater Bamboo

6:12

Lima. There's not

6:14

very many, I believe, it's thirty

6:16

eight, thirty nine in captivity in the whole

6:18

world. And we have a whole

6:20

bunch of them here. And I

6:22

think one of the amazing things about this enclosure

6:24

if we turn around and look behind us

6:26

right now The entire thing's open.

6:28

There's a a very small wooden fence in

6:30

front of me, but there are animals

6:32

climbing on trees over my head all sorts.

6:35

This

6:35

is what we like to describe as

6:37

sort of an immersive walk through enclosure.

6:40

So the people when they come in, they're actually in

6:42

the enclosure with the animals. So

6:44

yeah, it's it's very well planted. The

6:46

animals can do what they want all

6:48

day really. They can kind of come up to people

6:50

if they want to. We don't encourage them

6:52

to sort of dump on people or anything, but can

6:54

get near to

6:54

people, and it just gives them

6:56

lots of freedom to to roam around and

6:58

do what lemurs do best. Towards

7:01

me about diet. You've got quite a lot of animals

7:03

in here. What do they eat? And more importantly,

7:05

how much do they poo?

7:08

Yes. They do poo an awful lot. They

7:11

have what we call quick metabolism, so

7:13

what they eat comes out pretty quickly afterwards.

7:16

So we feed them mostly vegetables,

7:20

sort of green veg bit of carrots

7:22

and parsnip, stuff like that little tiny

7:24

bit of fruit, but they can

7:26

actually eat a lot of the plants that are planted

7:28

in here as

7:28

well. So they can they

7:31

can kind of have a buffet really help themselves.

7:33

And and talk to me about world lima

7:36

week as well. Yeah. So

7:38

there is a World Lima Day, generally,

7:40

which is in May time.

7:42

We extend it a

7:44

bit because we love lima so much. So we usually

7:46

do a whole week. And what

7:48

that does, we've got stores where people can

7:50

come and buy sort

7:52

of all sorts really. But all

7:54

the money goes towards leaner

7:57

conservation. So, yeah, everything that we

7:59

raise as well as the stuff that we would normally give

8:01

anyway. Anything extra that we get from Lima Week goes

8:03

directly into funding those projects

8:05

out in

8:05

Madagascar. And a lot of people listening

8:07

to this kind of eight to twelve year olds will probably

8:09

think you have the coolest job in the

8:11

world as a Lima runs right past

8:13

us. How did you

8:15

get into this? And do you have any advice for

8:17

somebody listening that might

8:20

want to be you in

8:22

the future?

8:23

It is the best job in the world. I do absolutely

8:26

love it, and I would really recommend it for

8:28

anybody that loves animals. So

8:30

I started off I did the sciences

8:32

when I was at school, and then

8:34

I went to university and studied

8:36

zoology, which is kind of

8:38

biology, but left plants, and

8:40

people, and more animal stuff. And

8:42

then I volunteered, so

8:44

I started working oh,

8:46

initially, actually, I was at the they are a species,

8:48

just sort of looking after cats and dogs

8:51

in in my spare time. And

8:53

then I started work on a farm.

8:56

And then I went and did an unpaid

8:58

intern internship for a

9:00

year, which was pretty mad.

9:03

And that's kind of where I started. And then from there, I

9:05

just got jobs

9:07

at various places. Some of them were seasonal, so

9:09

they started in sort of February

9:11

March time around the retail kind of November, December

9:13

time. And yeah, just

9:15

kept applying for jobs. My advice would

9:17

be if you are really, really passionate

9:19

about animals, to,

9:21

yeah, volunteer as much as you can. So there are

9:23

lots of wildlife parks and

9:25

zoos and farms, like I said,

9:27

canals, categories, everything like that

9:29

that are always happy to to take

9:31

people if they can and just

9:33

to get people, you know, involved in and

9:35

getting a little bit of the hands on sort of

9:37

experience that you need. And yeah, just

9:39

just be passionate and don't be

9:41

put off if you don't get it straight

9:43

away. You have to keep keep plugging out it,

9:45

keep trying, and you will get there eventually.

9:47

It's definitely worth

9:48

it. Be determined. Yes. I

9:51

like it. I like it. Thanks, Adam.

9:53

You can find out more by

9:55

searching for Wildlife Park

9:57

online. Don't you just

9:59

hate it when an ad interrupts your

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Your subscription helps to power

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to fun kids live dot com to subscribe

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to fun kids podcast plus or

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tap try free to unlock a thirty

10:52

day free trial. Now,

10:56

twenty twenty three is officially here. We're

10:58

a good chunk into January now, I would

11:00

say. Maybe you've set yourself some New Year's resolutions

11:02

or maybe you're trying some new activities.

11:05

Perhaps, it's your final year of

11:07

primary school or your first year

11:09

of secondary school. Now January is

11:11

a really great time to think about you want the

11:13

rest of the year to go? I love it. It's like the beginning

11:15

of the year. It's a fresh start. You can you can

11:17

basically plan ahead a little bit. And

11:19

with a time capsule, you can also

11:21

look back on how you felt at a

11:23

specific time. So when the time capsule is

11:25

opened, you'll be able to see how

11:27

your interest and your belongings have

11:29

changed. Time capsules can really be a

11:31

fun way to learn about the concept of time and

11:33

how it passes as well. So here's what

11:35

you'll need if you want to make your very own

11:37

time capsule. Here we go. A

11:39

cardboard box, I'd say shoe

11:41

box size is perfect. Some

11:43

scissors, markers or

11:45

crayons, glue, and a

11:47

variety of small items like toys,

11:49

stickers, pictures, notes, and trinkets.

11:52

And putting together the time capsule is really

11:54

easy as well, decorate the outside

11:56

of the cardboard box with markers or

11:58

crayons. You can draw pictures, write your

12:00

name, create any design you want

12:02

really. Then, Choose a variety of

12:04

small items to put inside the box. These

12:06

can be things like toys, stickers,

12:08

pictures, notes, anything else that you think

12:10

might be interesting for a

12:12

future you perhaps leave a little letter to

12:14

yourself saying what you want to have achieved and

12:16

maybe what you've been doing at that moment.

12:18

Now close the box and write the date on

12:20

the outside. So here's

12:22

the thing, a lot of time capsules

12:24

are buried, but if we put a

12:26

shoe box in the ground, it might ruin

12:28

everything in side, so don't

12:30

bury it instead. Put any

12:32

wardrobe under your bed in the attic,

12:34

somewhere in your home safe and

12:36

dry and where it's not gonna get damaged.

12:38

Then set a reminder on your calendar to

12:41

look through the time capture later in the

12:43

year. Perhaps if you listen to activity quest

12:45

every week, will remind you later in

12:47

twenty twenty three. And that is

12:49

it. You've made a time capsule my

12:51

friends. It's a really cool way to preserve

12:53

memories, keepsakes, and other

12:55

items that are meaningful, and it can be a

12:57

great way to freeze a moment in time and

12:59

maybe revisit it in the future.

13:01

It's also a really good way to

13:03

document how someone's interests possessions,

13:05

and surroundings have changed over

13:07

a period of time. So when the

13:09

capture is opened, you'll be able to see

13:11

how you've evolved and grown. Actually

13:13

speaking of time, we've just run out of it.

13:15

Remember, there's loads of episodes of activity

13:17

quest that you can go back and listen to any time

13:19

you fancy, And if you're some more suggestions,

13:21

just scroll back in your podcast app and pick an

13:23

episode you like. Whatever you

13:25

do and however you do it, tell us.

13:27

At fun kids live dot com slash activity

13:30

quest. And remember to rate, review, and

13:32

follow this podcast wherever it is you're

13:34

listening to it. I'm Bex, and this

13:36

has been a podcast from the UK's Children's

13:38

Radio Station Fun Kids. It was

13:40

produced and edited by Adamstone.

13:42

Listen to me on your DAB digital

13:44

radio online, on the free fun kits

13:46

mobile app, and on your smart speaker.

13:48

Just say play fun kits

13:50

every weekday from four PM. See you soon.

13:55

Thanks for

13:57

listening to this podcast. Fun

13:59

kids makes brilliant podcasts. And with

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14:21

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14:23

thirty day free trial Your

14:25

subscription helps power fun kids and

14:27

the work we do every day to make

14:29

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14:31

safe content for your family in

14:33

our podcasts on the radio and

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online. Plus, you'll also

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unlock ad free listening on over

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thirty of our other shows.

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So give it a go. Head to funkids live dot

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Apple podcasts, tap

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