Animal Management Centre

This newly opened £2 million facility provides a state-of-the-art setting for studying animal welfare. It provides large theory and practical rooms, whilst housing an extensive animal collection. The new animal accommodation combines high welfare concepts as well as being an aesthetically pleasing working environment.

The Animal Centre is broken down into specialist animal areas. This includes a nocturnal room which is home to our Brush-Tailed Possum, Sugar Gliders, chinchillas and Asiatic Desert Dormice and a selection of rodents. The Possum even has his own web-cam, allowing students to view his behaviour without disturbing him. A selection of rodents commonly kept as pets are housed in the nocturnal room (hamsters, Acacia Rats), providing a behaviour comparison to those kept in the diurnal rodent rooms. The College also has a pair of Cuban Hustias (Capromys pilorides) which provide hands-on experience with larger rodents.

The exotic and amphibian areas house a range of snakes, lizards, tortoises, turtles, frogs, newts and toads. For those interested in fish we also have cold and tropical fish tanks.

The paddock areas are home to the llamas, a flock of Soay and Shetland sheep, goats and ponies. Students also have access to farm animals and horses to increase their practical experience with large animals. The enterprises include a high yielding dairy herd and brand new milking parlour, beef cattle, calf and replacement stock, sheep flock and breeding pigs.

Animal health checks can be carried out in our veterinary nursing room. This area is equipped with a range of veterinary nursing equipment, including an x-ray machine, resuscitation dogs, Tin canis 20 and surgical equipment - providing an excellent learning resource for both vet nursing and animal management students. The isolation room provides the opportunity for students to practice methods of isolation and barrier nursing techniques in a real-life situation.

Dog Grooming
The Centre also has a grooming area that is the base for day-release dog grooming courses. This includes leisure courses for those interested in grooming their own pets to nationally recognised qualifications, for those wishing to run their own business. Dogs and cats coming in for grooming stay in the new kennel and cattery block. For further information regarding the grooming parlour services please contact the Centre direct on 01278 655210. 

On-going Developments
On-going developments at the Centre include new raptor housing and a handling area for our Barn owls, Harris Hawk and European Eagle owl, and further development of the wild fowl pond. Plans are afoot to construct enclosures for meerkats and dwarf mongoose.