Caring for Animals
We only have two varieties of animals at Saplings for children to enjoy at the moment.
In addition, we employ the services of a specialist company to bring additional animals that would be impossible for us to house which enrich the children's learning about the world around them and other species that support the environmental balances in our world.
Chickens
Chickens are the favourites among the children, we first incubated hens way back in 2008. We have just one hen of the Pekin bantam variety remaining. We are planning to buy 2 additional Bluebell hens in the Spring of 2019. Both breeds are a lovely variety for young children as they are so gentle and tame. We hatched our bantam hen 5 years ago in the nursery. To increase the number of hens at the moment we need to find a larger breed, as the remaining hen is very dominant in the 'hen world' and she will not accept her own breed. It goes without saying that she is lovely with the children and with calmness, the children can feed her from the palm of their hand.
Jo in preschool looks after the chickens
Musk Turtle
Gertrude our musk turtle is also adopted. She has been somewhat of a challenge and has in total cost us a small fortune. She now resides in a bespoke, reinforced tank, if you are wondering whether she is lonely, believe me, she likes it that way, she would not be able to share her home with anyone else! Please greet her each morning, she loves to come to talk to the children, its only Linda that she dislikes ... what's new!
