Brackenhurst Animal Sciences

We constantly strive to ensure the Animal Unit is fully stocked with a diverse range of animals, this provides the opportunity for students to gain experience of becoming proficient and confident with a huge range of species which is vital to gaining legitimate employability skill sets.

The unit has undergone major improvements over the last three years, now boasting a full air-conditioning system allowing individual rooms to be set to the species optimum temperature and provide essential air flow. The reptile/exotic rooms and the rodent rooms have bespoke industry standard enclosures. All animal enclosures are designed to exceed RSPCA floorspace recommendations.

The unit houses rodents, rabbits, aviary and poultry birds, ferrets, goats, a cattery, a kennel block, an exotics room and access to equine species.

The animal unit is a communal facility, students are welcome to visit the unit outside of planned lesson times, this results in students getting to know the animals and unit staff on a more personal level.

The animal unit technicians encourage volunteering on the unit either on a day by day basis or through the official work experience system. The unit staff truly believe in Alois Podhajski’s statement

‘Theory without practice is of little value, whereas practice is the proof of theory’

The animal unit provides daily sessions for students to volunteer on the unit, working alongside technicians. The sessions allow students to experience the role of the technician, partaking in tasks such as enclosure/habitat maintenance, medicating animals, training and environmental enrichment and more.

The ‘Volunteer Programme’ is also recognised as official work experience and can be recorded as such on the students CV.

The programme is fully inclusive, all students, whether studying animal sciences or not, are welcome, in fact we have students attending from disciplines such as horticulture, geography and even physics. Its a great way to support learnt knowledge, meet other students and enjoy interacting with the animals in an informal setting

The technical staff are integral to the learners that use the unit, having skill sets that are invaluable to the teaching experience. Technicians are available for one to one support, whether this is to support project work, or to help students who feel they need extra handling sessions for example. Many students have anxieties about certain species, this is normally the exotic animals, however we have a 100% success rate of encouraging and helping students to the point where they will handle all of the animals presented to them.

The animal unit creates a community feel for learners, we provide a social space in the form of a converted listed farmhouse, giving an area for quiet study, socialising and relaxing in between taught sessions.